Today we’re going to talk about what it means when you’ve gone through a breakup with your ex but you are still acting like a couple.

And I’ve brought my new partner in crime, Shaunna Nicol, who just happens to be the newest addition to our coaching team to help me out with this article.

Really the two of us are going to take two tracks to help with understanding this complicated situation.

1. We are going to define what this looks like
2. We are going to talk about what it means when you are broken up but still act like a couple

Let’s begin.

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Defining What This Situation Looks Like

Generally speaking when you are looking at a situation where you are still acting like a couple after a breakup we’ve found the following behaviors to be the most consistent among our clients,

• Texting, calling, seeing regularly
• Becoming intimate
• Going on vacation/holiday
• Going on dates together

I’d like to clarify a bit on two points in the list above.

1. Becoming intimate
2. Vacationing together

Most people naturally assume I’m talking about sleeping together with an ex when I mention intimacy but that’s not necessarily the case. This can be something as rudimentary as holding hands or even kissing.

The point is you are crossing over a line that friends should not cross and in my mind any physical touch that can escalate to sexual behavior can be viewed as over that line.

But let’s assume that you are still sleeping with your ex. Where this becomes more complicated is figuring out what their true intentions are. After all, we’ve definitely seen some exes be total jerks and just get back in touch or “play nice” so they can sleep with you.

As a general rule when we see people in a Friends with Benefits situation they’ll sleep with their ex, and then disappear.

Technically that’s an entirely different situation and not one we are talking about in relation to “being a couple.” After all, most relationships even if they aren’t in the best of shape don’t have one part ghosting you after a one night stand.

The next thing I’d like to clarify is actually an idea put forth by Coach Shaunna,

My example is if you share children, and you’re deciding to go away together with the children, that’s like mixed signals, it’s you spending time together as a family, even though you’re not a couple anymore. So it’s like, you don’t really know where you stand with the other half, but you’re still having that family time that family bond is still there.

One of the things that I think gets lost in translation is the idea of other people connecting you together. So, when you’re going on a vacation or a holiday, and you share kids together, it’s giving a lot of mixed signals to all involved and in a weird way, makes everyone’s life more difficult.

But the question that is haunting most of you is “Why?”

Why would an ex act like everything is fine around you and all the kids but refuse to commit?

What does it all mean?

Well, let’s talk a bit about that.

What Does It All Mean?

I think there are three main things you can point to when trying to explain this breakup behavior.

• Classic avoidant where they are avoiding a commitment but still getting the benefits of a relationship
• Fear of moving on (too scared to let you go), keeping you on the hook
• Used to spending time together, habitual routines are embedded in their lives (NC analogy)

Let’s start first with avoidant behaviors

Understanding Classic Avoidant Tendencies

A few days ago I was working on an article about avoidants and if they feel guilt that I actually think is really relevant to this discussion.

One of the things that I found fascinating when I was researching this subject is how an avoidant will often hold on to guilt as an excuse to avoid a commitment.

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And what I think usually happens when you go through a breakup with someone but they’re still acting like a couple, is that they are falling victim to very classic avoidant behavior where they avoid a commitment, but they’re still getting the benefits of a relationship.

So the avoidant, you need to understand, they have this contradictory nature, which is, on the one hand, they want love. And on the other hand, they don’t want to let anyone close enough to give them that love. And so they’re constantly at odds with themselves.

Ultimately what we’re seeing with this behavior is an extension of that contradiction.

So you get into a relationship with them, they break up with you but they still want to act like a couple, because they still want that the benefits that you get from being in a couple, but they don’t like the commitment.

And so they’re kind of keeping you in an arm’s length by still having their cake and eating it too.

Your Ex Is Too Scared To Fully Let You Go

The next explanation is something directly from Shaunna so I’ll just quote her directly,

So what I was saying was the fear of like letting that person go, you don’t want to be with them. But you also don’t want them to move on. You want them like on the hook so that you can come back to them if you don’t find somebody better. So spending that time with him, making sure that they’re still there hoping that you’re going to change your mind, you’re gonna come back to them.

What I find really interesting about this is that when you pair it with the avoidant concept it almost seemingly contradicts itself.

But what’s important to remember is that there’s two types of avoidants there’s the dismissive avoidant, which usually is all in on avoidant behaviors, and then there’s the fearful avoidant.

1. Dismissive
2. Fearful

So I would argue that most of the people that are broken up with you, but still act like a couple are more likely to be fearful avoidants and not dismissive avoidants. So like Shauna says they’re afraid of letting you move on. They don’t want to let you go. So the keeping you on the hook, that’s really their anxious side coming out and taking control.

But there’s a strange subtext to all of this. An underlying jealousy aspect here. Like they know, they’re not going to do well with jealousy. If they let you go, and you’re with someone else they know they aren’t going to be able to handle that. They don’t want to see you happy with anyone else except them, but at the same time they don’t want to get into a full blown relationship with you.

And that’s really their anxious side coming out again with the jealousy but they then they get ruled by their avoidant side.

So they’re constantly at odds with one another.

And this, this is often really classic with why the mixed signals are happening because people, when they get into relationships with fearful avoidants are often left really confused.

Because on one hand, their ex is giving them very like, Hey, we’re still together type signals.

And then on the other hand, they’re like, No, we’re not together. And the mixed signals confuse people. And that’s really common for a fearful avoidant individual.

The Habitual Routine

When you’ve been together for a while you fall into this routine and this habit of spending time with that person, talking to that person.

And we see it with most of the clients that come to the program, they, they are so obsessed with reaching out to their ex, they need to speak to their ex, they’re just thinking about what they’re doing, why, what who they spending time with.

And that’s why we enforce the No Contact Rule telling them that they need to spend that time not focusing on their ex, whereas those that fall into the habits can’t seem to just pull themselves away.