How to Move On When Your Ex Keeps Coming Back

It's difficult to forget someone who gave you so much to remember.

You wish you could press a button, switch off all the feelings for him, and forget that the two of you ever happened.

And no matter how many times you try, it feels like you are pressing an unresponsive button - nothing happens.

Since time is said to heal everything, you leave the heartache to time. Then when you start to feel like you are healing and remembering that person less... Ex sends you a "Hi" and the heart begins to ache again.

How do you move on from an ex that keeps coming back? How do you let go of someone that wants to hold on to you?

Today we use Zandie's situation to find that answer.

ZANDIE: I already feel like crying. It’s like I have a wound that won’t heal. 

I first loved this guy called James four years ago.

In the first year we broke up but I just couldn’t move on – I remained stuck on him.

There was no sex, I lost nothing else except him. But still I couldn’t move on.

Two years later I tried another relationship.

This was a good guy and he loved me, and even to this day I know he still does.

But we broke up. I couldn’t love him no matter how hard I tried...

Three years after the break up with James, he (James) returned into my life.

He behaved all sorry and I still loved him. I took him into my heart, not knowing he was going to break it again.

A year later he came into my life, and the same thing happened. 

I know I’m stupid to keep taking him back like this. I try to be over him but I fail.

And every time I think I am over him, he just finds his way back into my life again. 

I give him another chance...he makes me believe he has changed yet he would be lying.

He never treats me right even from the very first days that we get together.

He just goes silent on me. He distances himself ...the more I try to reach out to him the more he shuts me out.

It’s really bad ... even the way I’m always there for him, ESPECIALLY FINANCIALLY ... I don’t go to work but I always make a plan for him.

It hurts that I let the good guys go hoping he will change one day.

Why do I keep going back to him? Why?

Because I know if he comes back right now... I will still give him another chance and he will hurt me again. 

Why does he keep coming back to me? Is it to hurt me?

Hi Zandie. When a guy loves you...you don't ask him to call. You don’t ask him to be kind, to visit you, or to spoil you.

Dear, you are in love, but sadly you are in love alone. Remember the adage “Love is a waste of time if it’s only one way.”

Anyone can claim to be what he/she is not, but nobody can act that way for long. 

You must learn to judge people by their actions and not by their words. 

The ear is more easily deceived than the eye.

- MOFFAT MACHINGURA

Judge people according to what you see them do rather than what you hear them say.

When you love someone to the extent that you think you can’t live without him/her – then whatever it is, it’s not love at all.

Instead, all you have is an obsession. True love moves on because, in reality, we don’t share the same blood vessels or the heart that pumps our lifeblood. 

You don’t love this guy and you know it. His character and behavior pains your soul.

The real reason you can’t let him go is because you are not in love with him; you are only in love with the idea of being in love with him.

- MOFFAT MACHINGURA

It’s clear that you don’t love him for what he does; you love him for what you wish he would do.

You are in love with the idea of being in love – and that idea is dangerous because it remains sweet even if being with him is bitter.

You are building castles in the air, mistaking fantasy for reality, a mirage for a marriage. 

His behavior is actually God’s writing on the wall that this man is NOT for you, and to choose him is to choose a lifetime of sorrow and pain.

God’s voice doesn’t have to be louder than the writing he has already placed on the wall of your heart.

There are red flags in a person that you can't negotiate with or hope to see change. You can learn more about those relationship red flags here.

Now I want to answer your question,

Why does he keep coming back into my life only to hurt me over and over again?

This guy keeps coming back because boys do come back. Good guys and bad guys have one thing in common – they come back.

Both hurtful and loving guys come back, therefore the fact that he came doesn’t mean he loves you.

I've seen boys come back only to ask girls to open their legs; they take what they want and go!

They walk away and never look back as if they had just slept with a tree stub in the middle of a jungle.

I’ve seen boys who come back and make a girl even open her womb; he impregnates her and leaves as if he flashed his sperms down a toilet seat.

Again He comes back, impregnates her for the second time – and still leaves!

All this time she will think he has grown up enough to stay or has changed.

He is coming back, NOT because he loves you, but because boys do come back.

Boys cannot admit loss or defeat. If he is the hurtful guy you mentioned, his coming back to you will be totally for his victory and not yours.

It’s your duty, and your duty alone, to keep your heart, your legs, and your womb closed. 

He is going to keep coming. He is a hungry lion looking for that pretty gazelle that is too foolish to remain standing when all other gazelles are fleeing for their lives.

Right now he is only asking for a dating relationship, next time he will be asking for sex or for a baby.

He will still promise that he has changed and is even ready to marry you.

Unfortunately, loving him hasn’t changed him, and don't think marrying him will change him either.

Loving a person doesn’t make that person love you; neither does it turn him into a good person. 

Marriage is just a piece of yellow metal around a finger...it doesn't change a beast into a prince.

Ladies don’t be fooled by that story of a girl who kissed a frog and it turned into a prince who married her.

As I write in my book Cinderella Taught Me Lessons, we are people in the real world and not fairies in an imaginary fairyland…

Every girl who has, at some time, loved bad guys with all her heart must honestly ask and answer herself this important question:

How many frogs have I kissed in my life and yet they still remained frogs?

Love doesn’t change a beast into a prince, the Beauty and the Beast was a Disney lie!
- MOFFAT MACHINGURA

Right now good guys are letting you go because they think you belong to someone else.

I know the hardest part of moving on is never looking back.

But you really don’t have a choice except to be strong for yourself and flee with your life while you are still young enough to use it.

Remember Lot’s wife, she looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.

If you keep looking back your life will become stagnant, and you will remain transfixed at the same painful place when God has prepared a paradise of love right ahead of you.

True love is always a beautiful thing.

NOTE: When a person seriously can’t move on from a relationship, it shows that he/she has a twisted definition of love.

How we grow up can twist a wrong definition of love into our mindsets.

In the next post, we explore Zandie’s family upbringing to understand why she can’t let go of such a clearly dysfunctional relationship.

Click here to understand how your childhoodupbringing influences your choice of a life partner in adulthood.