Yesterday I was scrolling through our Private Facebook Support Group and stumbled across this comment,

Specifically this line in the comment stuck out to me,

He says he doesn’t care, but does he?

It’s one of the most common questions I get asked on a daily basis and today I’m going to show you the three core mechanisms that make men act like they don’t care after a breakup,

1. The Separation Elation Explanation
2. The Revenge Plot (Intentionally trying to hurt your feelings)
3. The Winning The Breakup Mentality

There’s a lot to cover here so let’s buckle up.

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The Separation Elation Explanation

We start first with the what I think to be the most likely scenario for why you are reading your ex boyfriend as not caring.

As I have stated in multiple articles,

Most of our clients have an anxious attachment style while most of our clients exes have avoidant attachment styles.

Here’s the proof if you don’t believe me,

Ex = Avoidant

Client = Anxious

Now, where this becomes relevant with our discussion revolves around the idea of an avoidant attachment style.

I am the type of person that loves simplifying things and one of our very own coaches, Dr. Tyler Ramsey taught me this,

He said that when you are dealing with something as complex as attachment styles your best bet is to divide them up into “core wounds.”

Core Wound = The one thing that triggers that attachment style

So, when know from the polls conducted above that most of our clients have an anxious attachment style and most of those individuals exes have an avoidant attachment style.

From a core wound perspective that’s going to look something like this,

Anxious Core Wound = Abandonment

Avoidant Core Wound= Longing For Independence

So, a lot of times when an ex boyfriend is acting like he doesn’t care it might not be that he didn’t value your time together. Instead, you may be reacting to the fact that he’s simply happy to get his independence back.

One possible explanation for this is a concept called Separation Elation which I talk about in-depth in this article.

To use a quote from Free To Attach,

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After a relationship ends, people with an avoidant attachment style tend not to show much anxiety or distress, often feeling an initial sense of relief at the relinquishing of obligations and the sense that they are regaining their self-identity, and not tending to initially miss their partner – this is “separation elation” as the pressure to connect is gone.

And as you can see, I’ve even created an entire section in my avoidant death wheel explaining this concept,

Here’s my point.

One of the reasons that you may think your ex doesn’t really care is because they are living off the “high” of a separation elation period.

Add in the simple fact that you may be exhibiting anxious tendencies yourself and you have a cocktail for disaster.

As they pull away, you try to fix.

You blame yourself.

Which in turn makes you appear more desperate and further pushes the ex away. It becomes its own unhealthy self fulfilling cycle of which you can’t escape.

And it’s not that your ex doesn’t care about you. Take a longer look at that death wheel graphic above.

Eventually that separation elation that you may be reacting to kind of wears off and the loneliness and regret kicks in. I’m not saying that every single ex boyfriend is going to go through these exact steps. In fact, sometimes you’ll get an ex that is authentic about not caring about you.

Some exes are just jerks.

However, as a general rule the wheel holds true.

The Revenge Plot

One of the stories I’ve told ad nauseum has to do with the idea of revenge in our private facebook support group (which you gain access to with our program.)

One of our clients was in the midst of her no contact rule when her ex texted her a picture.

Not out of the ordinary perhaps. We have exes texting pictures to our clients all the time. What was out of the ordinary was what was featured in the picture.

Or perhaps a better way of putting it is WHO was featured in the picture.

This ex had texted a picture to our client in bed, naked, with another woman.

It was done out of spite. Out of hate. The whole, eye for an eye mentality.

What warranted such hate?

Nothing.

Our client hadn’t cheated.

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She hadn’t even broken up with him.

The only thing I could hang my cap on was the simple fact that we advised our client to engage in a no contact rule and ignore him. That was enough for him to grow angry and find a way to hurt her.

And that is really what the revenge plot is all about. It’s an insatiable need to make the other person hurt for any hurt caused by the breakup.

In my opinion, there are two extremes to the revenge plot.

The story I just told above is one end of the extreme. The loud end. Then of course theirs the quiet end. Complete silence.

1. Loud- In your face, obvious revenge attempts, intentionally trying to hurt your feelings
2. Quiet- Using passive aggressiveness. Intentionally trying to hurt you by ignoring your existence

Now, I’m sure there will be people reading this and thinking,

“Wait, isn’t the quiet revenge simply what we are doing with the no contact rule?”

Not really, because with the no contact rule the intention to reconnect is always there. After the period is complete you are meant to reach out to your ex and begin the rekindling process.

The quiet end is more passive aggressive.

Doing their own no contact and sending specific messages via social media about how little you really meant to them. It’s an attempt to hurt you but not to your face.

And perhaps the most interesting thing about the revenge plot is that it has its roots firmly placed in a philosophy.

Winning The Breakup Mentality

For those of you who don’t think this concept exists I’d like to show you something,

This is a movie from back in 2006 called “The Break Up.” Pretty much the entire premise of the movie revolves around “winning the breakup.”

If you can prove to your ex significant other that you are doing better after the decoupling period then you are the winner.

There’s just one catch.

You have to actually do better and perhaps the greatest irony of the whole mentality is that someone who truly wins the breakup doesn’t really even think about their ex anymore.

They have too many great things in their life to be caught up in past loves.

It’s that whole frank sinatra quote personified,

The best revenge in life is massive success.

THAT’S how you “win” a breakup.

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You don’t rub it in your exes face.

You don’t feel the need to prove that you are doing better.

You don’t want revenge.

You simply have enough confidence with yourself that you know you’ll be ok. You find something else to pour your energy into that makes you the envy of not just your ex but other potential suitors.

But that’s not how most people try to win the breakup. Nope, most people try to take the loud route.

Announcing how great they are on social media with posts like this,

Here’s my general rule of thumb,

The louder your ex barks about the breakup the more they were impacted by it.

Remember, the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.

Final point here, when I first started dating my wife I could never understand why she had picture of her previous exes up on her social media.

It really bothered me and perhaps that’s because I do what I do all day which is read about breakups and I know what happens between individuals who used to be together.

It caused some serious fights between us.

It really wasn’t until she made a point that I realized what someone who has moved on completely looks like.

She said she hadn’t removed the pictures because there were enough that it would take a few hours and to her it wasn’t worth doing it. She didn’t really care about them at all.

All that mattered to her was looking forward.

That’s what someone who doesn’t’ care looks like.

They are indifferent to their past.

Still though, me being me, I removed the pictures for her 😉 .