Why Is My Ex Hostile Towards Me?

The Ex Boyfriend Recovery Podcast

Over 90% of the individuals who visit this website have been broken up with by their exes and yet, the irony is that they are often on the receiving end of an exes hostility. Today, I’d like to talk about why that is and really dive into what’s behind an exes anger.

In this In-Depth guide you’re going to learn,

• Why hostility can make your ex feel better about breaking up with you
• The impact guilt has on all of this
• A new wave of tantrum hostility
• How to handle an exes hostility

Enough talk, let’s get down to business.

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Why Hostility Can Make An Ex Feel Better About Breaking Up With You

About a year ago, Head Coach Anna and I did an hour long interview for my YouTube channel and Podcast where we talked about how to handle an ex being angry at you.

Out of the many interviews the two of us have done this is the one that always stuck with me the longest. It’s not that she taught me something I didn’t already know it’s the way she framed it. Specifically her thoughts on anger.

She argues that,

In the context of a dumper, anger is almost a positive. It has positive characteristics, as weird as that sounds. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that when someone says, “You’re stupid,” they’re actually implying that “They’re Smart.” You’re selfish, means I’m generous. You’re behaving like a child means I’m behaving like an adult. This is why people get angry very easily and they stay angry because it feels good and it’s personally validating.

This offers one potential explanation for why exes seem to be so angry even though they really have no right to be angry.

It makes them feel good in a time where they’re supposed to feel bad.

But it also has an interesting relationship with guilt and ownership.

The Impact Of Guilt And Ownership

Again, most of the people who visit this website are the dumpees and not the dumpers but it’s always those situations where the dumper is more angry at the dumpee (not involving cheating) that stick out to me as odd.

It’s the dumpee who has every right to scream and shout and feel upset.

And maybe they do.

But when the dumper is hostile and angry and playing the blame game it feels icky.

And if you get into the psychology of it, it becomes even more complicated.

This is my relationship death wheel.

I talk about it a lot but for those of you who are new to the website and confused I’ll give you a quick crash course.

The Relationship Death Wheel: A graphic I put together that shows you the most common lifecycle of a relationship from a dumpers perspective in eight distinct stages.

1. Your ex starts off wanting someone to love them
2. They find you and think their troubles are over
3. They notice some worrying things
4. They start thinking of leaving
5. They actually leave the relationship
6. They feel happy they left
7. They start to feel kind of lonely
8. They feel bad for themselves and wonder why this always happens to them

And then the cycle repeats.

What’s interesting though is those last two stages but really the last one,

This is when guilt is likely to creep in.

This is when they are likely to feel regret for the way they treated you and it’s in this stage that your ex is often faced with a choice.

1. Do they take ownership of the way they treated you during a breakup
2. Do they deflect and play the blame game

And if you go off of what Coach Anna said with anger having an almost positive impact you can see why it’s a lot easier to paint YOU as the bad guy.

But that’s not the only form of hostility I’ve encountered in my decade of research on breakups.

There’s also my favorite hostility.

The Tantrum Hostility

I have a seven year old and recently we have found an opportunity to bond by teaming up by playing tennis on the Nintendo Switch Sports game,

She’s gotten pretty good at it too. In fact, it’s grown to the point where she begs me to play other people online. So, after thinking about it I decided to let her try.

What could go wrong?

Well, for the first time I got to watch her throw a video game tantrum. You know, the kind where losing causes you to yell and get very upset but that’s not the craziest part. No, the craziest part was the thought that I had.

This is just like the stories I hear in the group of exes freaking out after learning they’re being ignored via the no contact rule.

The irony here is that it should be the other way around.

I shouldn’t be comparing adult tantrums to a child one but alas, here we are.

On Ex Boyfriend Recovery we are big believers in a concept called the no contact rule but not for the reason you expect. You see, most people expect the no contact rule to be this strategy designed to make your ex miss you. Ignore them for a month and BOOM they’ll reach out.

Our version is a bit different,

The no contact rule refers to a period of time where you cut off all conceivable communication with an ex after a breakup. The intent of this tactic should NOT be used to make your ex miss you but instead should be used to rebuild your own life so that you outgrow your ex. By doing this, the no contact rule can have the added benefit of making an ex miss you

The important part is that you are using that time away from your ex to outgrow them so that when you do get back in contact with them you’ve knocked them from any pedestal that you may have held them on.

But for some exes it doesn’t matter. They like to control things and when you try to get some of your control back they’ll throw a tantrum.

In fact, in that interview I did with coach Anna she tells a story of what this looks like,

I mean in the Facebook group even I think two days ago, we had someone post from their ex that the ex was angry at the person didn’t respond. It was something about the gym. It didn’t require breaking a no contact at all. I mean the person can go to the gym whether or not the ex is there, okay, so that doesn’t matter, but they got really angry. Like, you don’t even have the decency to say yes or no? I was totally right to break up with you, you’re an immature, selfish child, or something to that effect, or really stupid.

But that question still remains, how are you supposed to handle this type of hostility?

How To Handle Your Exes Hostility

Have you ever seen the dog whisperer?

I mean, I hate to compare your ex to a dog BUT the principles for handling hostility with exes is pretty much the same way as handling hostility for a dog.

So, Cesar Milan teaches us the following.

When a dog is overly nervous, excited or angry you are not supposed to nurture that state. Doing so can lead to you getting bitten. Instead, you are supposed to exert a calm-assertive energy.

Well, what does that mean?

Calm-assertive means you are compassionate to what the other person is feeling but you are always in control. You aren’t afraid to set boundaries.

Think back to the last time an ex snapped at you or said something rude.

What did you do?

My guess is you probably did two things.

1. Their aggression frightened you and you ran away from the problem.
2. Their aggression angered you so you fought fire with fire and were aggressive right back.

Now, let’s use the analogy of a dog in the process of growling at you and see what kind of results those two strategies get you.

1. You have a little teacup poodle sitting in your lap. You pet him and he growls but instead of creating a boundary and showing him that this behavior is unacceptable you become frightened which only emboldens the little guy to growl even more.
2. Let’s say that you have the same teacup poodle in your lap. He growls and this causes you to get angry, he feeds off that energy and his growling evolves into snarling and then eventually biting.

Clearly those approaches don’t work.

The first one you weren’t calm or assertive.

The second one you weren’t calm and were too assertive.

Instead, someone like Cesar Milan would remove the dog from his lap, claim the couch and wouldn’t let the dog back up until it surrendered to a calm state itself.

So, how do we relay this to humans.

Let’s use the tantrum hostility as an example.

You are past your no contact rule and your ex throws a tantrum at how rude it was that you didn’t respond to them exactly when they wanted you to.

How do you handle this situation?

• Well, we want to stay calm.
• We also want to acknowledge that the other persons feelings are hurt.
• But it’s important to stay assertive and create boundaries.

So, saying something like this would tick all the boxes,

I understand how you feel but I won’t allow you to speak to me that way.

Calm and assertive.

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