“Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did? Does he think about me?”

Those questions have taken up more of my time and brainpower than I ever think I’ll be comfortable enough to admit. If I would have taken a fraction of the time that I’ve spent pondering those questions to learn a new language, I could have written this post in seven different languages by now.

You’ve gone through a horrible, traumatic breakup with an emotionally unavailable guy that broke your heart. And whether you’ve done enough things to cause drama/embarrassment or it just hurts too much to be “friends” with your ex or you’ve both agreed to go your own separate ways or whatever the case may be, you’ve stopped communicating and are in no contact.

The WORST, right?!

You don’t want to hear from him, but then again, you do. You so do. It’s like a drug and you’re going through the most excruciating withdrawals. Every day that you don’t hear from him feels like an eternity and with every minute that passes, it’s another dig deeper into the self-blame, obsessing, and FBI-style stalking. Your self-esteem is at zero and you start to question your worth because if you were good enough, he would have reached out by now. He would have done something… ANYTHING.

All you hear is crickets.

You never thought he could just cut you off so easily. You see him living his happy life on social media with some new girl who looks like everything you aren’t (and whose profile is private). You’re in pain and doing the best you can to get through each minute without losing it.

Every time you hear a text message alert or you hear your phone ring, your heart races and you think, “maybe it’s him?” It never is.

After going through breakups with toxic exes that I knew weren’t good for me, I still wondered…

“Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did? Does he think about me?”

I dated the MVP of the emotionally unavailable, toxic species and yes, he broke my heart and YES, I was totally tying my worth to his post-breakup inaction but I didn’t care. I needed to know.

“Does he miss me? What do you think? How can he be with her while I’m miserable over here missing and cyberstalking him non-stop? Does he regret what he did and all of the bs he put me through?” I would ask anyone who was willing to listen and that I thought was inclined to tell me exactly what I wanted to hear. My heart couldn’t handle hearing what my gut already knew.

Fast forward to a lot of tears and heartbreaks later, I now have a much better understanding of it all.

So, you want to know: “Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did? How can he be thinking about me and not reach out? Is he even thinking of me?”

First, we need to translate what “Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did?” means:

“Does my emotionally unavailable, selfish, and toxic ex, who, was unable to respect me in our relationship, understand what he did wrong, and more importantly, what he lost?”

You are looking for confirmation that you’re not as forgettable as his actions have made you feel. This is the reason you obsess over every detail. You’re looking for any reason to:

• Believe there’s still a chance.
• Find something in his social media profile that really hurts you and makes you want to stop thinking about him. But since your programs are set on “validation seeking mode,” instead of taking that information to motivate you to move on, you use it as an anchor to sink further into self-blame.

Missing someone that you were close to and intimate with is totally normal. It means that you’re human and that you have blood pumping through your veins. But you can’t expect him to be qualified to connect and feel in ways that his actions have already disqualified him of the ability to.

Losing sleep over whether the trash was better in your home; wondering if it’s attracting more trash and having a fun time at the dump is a BIG.RED.FLAG. It’s a sign that you need to work on loving yourself.

Everything that I missed after breakups with toxic exes was all my projections. I was convinced that the amazing, loyal, respectful, emotionally available “prince” that he was, in the beginning, was going to somehow, reappear at any moment.

People don’t change, they slowly reveal who they are.

So getting back to the questions: “Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did?”

Yes, he thinks of you. ESPECIALLY if you cut him off.

Yes, he does miss you and yes he does regret what he did. And I’m not just saying that.

Here’s the thing though: with emotionally unavailable guys, they’ll THINK OF YOU when you cut them off and they’ll “MISS YOU,” in the sense that they miss what you provided. They will REGRET that they don’t have you around as a bench-warming option any longer. They will never feel regret the way that you and I would hope for, because true regret from an emotionally available person will always include remorse.

Remorse requires: empathy, maturity, emotional connectivity, and being able to objectively examine their actions for what they are (so that evolution and growth can actually take place).

Toxic people are only capable of selfish regret, not selfless remorse.

Their disconnection will never allow genuine remorse. This very sad and limited range is the extent to which they can actually “miss” and “regret.” And honestly, you deserve so much more than this and you know it.

• Don’t mistake him “missing you” for him missing the girl who did not know her worth.
• Don’t mistake him “missing you” for him missing how you pedestaled him.
• Don’t mistake him “missing you” for him missing the control he had over your emotions weather.
• Don’t mistake him “missing you” for him missing his selfish needs being met at every turn.
• Don’t mistake him “missing you” for him missing the validation he would get by exploiting your hunger for his.

Accepting any of those bullet points above as the kind of “missing” you deserve in life is an insult to your emotional intelligence.

Yeah, I get that you’ve lost your mojo and your ego is shot because you’re feeling rejected. But if you keep seeking validation from someone who isn’t even able to validate himself, you’re going to, just like him, end up always looking to other people and superficial possessions to dictate your worth.

If your ex misses you in the way you deserve, believe me when I say, you won’t have to search for a “does he miss me?” blog post.

He won’t send a text or passively “like” one of your photos, or view one of your stories on Instagram, just so you can spend the next week analyzing the inconsistent why’s. He will ACT upon the emotions that he is CONNECTED to.

Don’t get discouraged because it’s not happening. Imagine if you and I went to an animal shelter and I asked to hold a baby kitten. Then, when we sat down and held the cat, I started making a huge scene because I thought that the cat would bark and it keeps meowing.

Insane, right?

Your ex is a cat and guess what? Cat’s meow. Expecting him to miss you in the way that you deserve and to come back to the relational table a toxic person no more is as ludicrous as expecting a cat to bark. It’s never going to bark. Stop wasting your time.

“Does he miss me? Does he regret what he did?” You know better now. And can finish your own emotional sentences.

Replace your sadness with being FED-UP. Eventually, your anger will be replaced with indifference.

Indifference is the ultimate liberation.

You CAN start to care about and love yourself now. You can.

I remember during one of the worst, most painful breakups, my ex finally reached out to me after a few months. He sent a few angry, childish texts then, after a few weeks of silence on my end, he said everything that I ever wanted to hear and more… In another text.

It was hard but I didn’t respond, ever.

And he never called to see if I was alive, nothing. That was my turning point, my “AHA!” moment where I realized that it wasn’t me he was after- he was after a response from me because he felt out of control after I had cut him off. He then had to “retaliate.” I didn’t bite the bait. And in the process, I reclaimed my life.

It had more to do with his own bruised ego and image management than it ever had to do with genuine remorse and missing me.

You are worth so much more than someone who just “misses” you from afar while sh*tting their emotional shorts.

Written by: Natasha Adamo