Today we’re going to talk about some of the common signs that a dumper wants you back after they break up with you.

In this in-depth guide you’re going to learn our seven core signs,

1. How To Understand The Nudge Principle
2. Shy Exes Will Subtly Flirt With You Through Their Love Language
3. Your Ex Will Send You Things That Make You Laugh To See How You’ll React
4. Consistently Mentions Positive Memories Of You Together
5. They’ll Say Positive Things To Your Sphere of Influence
6. They’ll Interact With Your Social Media In A Positive Way Consistently
7. They Will Tell You They Want You Back

Let’s just get right to it.

Sign #1: Understanding The Nudge Principle

Most of the clients we get here at Ex Boyfriend Recovery are the “dumpees” rather than the dumpers and what’s interesting about that is that dumpers have a little bit of an interesting mindset when they determine that they might have potentially made a mistake by breaking up with you.

And this mindset is often ruled by a fear of rejection. After all, they were the ones to break up with you and they don’t know if you harbor resentment towards them.

This is where the nudge principle comes into play. In fact, Coach Anna and I talked about this concept in an interview once timestamped below,

What is it?

The Nudge Principle: When a dumper entertains the idea that they may potentially be thinking of reconnecting with you they’ll send subtle tests your way to see how you’ll react. They’re looking for a sign that indicates you want them back.

So, as I start listing off the signs below you’ll find that many of them are these tiny little nudges to test you.

Of course, the real challenge is being able to decipher a nudge versus a false positive nudge.

We all know that some exes have a tendency to run hot and cold due to their fearful avoidant nature so we’ve tried to work that into the signs listed below. Nevertheless, the one commonality you’re going to find among most of these signs is that they are subtle little nudges meant to test where you’re at emotionally.

Let’s continue on.

Sign #2: Your Ex Will Subtly Flirt With You Through Their Love Language

A couple of keywords to keep an eye out for here.

1. Love language
2. Subtly

In the past I’ve talked a good amount about love languages,

But just to recap they are,

1. Words of Affirmation – Using words to convey how you feel
2. Physical Touch – Appropriate physical touch
3. Receiving Gifts – Literally receiving gifts
4. Quality Time – Giving the person your undivided attention
5. Acts of Service – Actions speak louder than words

What’s always fascinated me about love languages is that we all have a slightly dominate one. There’s a great test you can take online to help you determine yours. For reference here are mine,

1. Physical Touch: 30%
2. Acts of Service: 20%
3. Receiving Gifts: 20%
4. Words of Affirmation: 17%
5. Quality Time: 13%

Notice how I seem to lean more towards physical touch? So theoretically if I had dumped you and was considering taking you back I would try to find a way to subtly incorporate physical touch into our interactions to see how receptive you were towards it.

I would do this all subconsciously as well and if you’re bummed out thinking to yourself,

“Oh man, my ex has physical touch as their dominant love language but I can’t see them in person.”

There are ways that they can literally text you physical touch based things. Sometimes if your ex brings up a memory based around physical touch this can be the same thing as that subtle physical touch flirting.

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Of course, I’m honing in on physical touch because I’m using myself as a guinea pig. However, the statements I’ve just made apply to all love languages. Pay attention to your ex.

Sign #3: Your Ex Will Send Things To Make You Laugh Just To See How You’ll React

This one is pretty self explanatory but there is one wrinkle that people tend to overlook.

Here’s how it works. You’re minding your own business one day when you hear that *ding* sound that is synonymous with a text received. You pull the phone out of your pocket and are elated to see it’s from your ex but there are no words to a text.

It’s simply a video. More specifically it’s this video,

Now while that video is super hilarious and it definitely qualifies as a sign it’s easy to see as a false positive. It’s entirely possible that your ex simply sent it to you because they found it funny and wanted to share it.

So, how do you tell the difference?

Here’s what you do.

Respond super positively to the video. Don’t go overboard but give them enough to know that the video is well received and then pay attention to how they respond.

Do they simply disappear in the conversation?

If that’s the case then it’s possible the video was just a friend sharing with a friend but if they escalate the conversation.

Well, then that could potentially mean something. Oh, it also matters that THEY are the ones that sent the video to you. Sometimes we get clients that like to start a “funny video” war with their exes by initiating first.

This only counts if they send something funny to you on their own.

Sign #4: They Consistently Mention Positive Memories When The Two Of You Talk

I know that sometimes I get super repetitive in these articles talking about the same strategies over and over again.

But did you ever stop and think there’s a good reason for why I’m doing it?

According to our lord and savior of all things knowledge based, Wikipedia, The peak–end rule is a psychological heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience.

Take a look at this chart,

This is a representation of what a pretend relationship looks like. The peak-end rule argues that the only points throughout it that a dumper will remember are the peak moments,

And the end moment,

We also know based on polling our clients that most of their exes tend to have avoidant natures,

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Here’s the funny thing about avoidants. They don’t tend to miss you until they feel like there’s no chance that you could ever “come back” which often means they are stuck remembering the end of the relationship until you move on when they allow themselves permission to remember the peak moments.

Coincidentally this is why we see a lot of our success stories happen in the 6-7 month range and it usually starts with the dumper reaching out trying to re-live the essence of the positive moments.

It’s even best to combine this sign with the love language sign above because a lot of times when your ex reaches out trying to “re-live” the memory they’ll present it through a love language.

Sign #5: They’ll Say Positive Things To Your Sphere of Influence

When I first established the sphere of influence concept on Ex Boyfriend Recovery I had no idea the kind of impact it was going to have.

First things first, what is a sphere of influence?

Simply put the sphere of influence is a collection of people who your ex surrounds themselves with whose opinions they really care about.

In other words, their opinions can influence a dumpers decision. Generally the following people make up the sphere of influence are,

• Family
• Friends
• Colleagues

As it turns out when interviewing success stories one of the patterns I noticed was that often times an ex who regrets their decision of breaking up with you will let that slip to one of the layers of there sphere of influence.

So, depending on the kind of terms you are on with your exes sphere of influence they can at times be an incredible tool for you to take the temperature of where the dumper is at mentally.

Sign #6: They’ll Interact With Your Social Media In A Positive Way Consistently

Nowadays, social media rules all and so it needs to be incorporated when studying breakups. I’m just going to use Facebook as an example as I illustrate this point since it’s the platform that I’m most familiar with but the advice I’m going to lay out here is applicable to all platforms.

One of the best ways you can tell if a dumper is regretting their decision in breaking up with you is to pay attention to how they interact with you on social media.

For Facebook we’d count any of the following as interactions,

• They like one of your photos or posts
• They comment on one of your photos or posts

Now, the key is that you’re looking for positive comment or vibes CONSISTENTLY.

I can’t tell you how often one of my clients will get overexcited because an ex liked a photo of theirs and they think that ex wants them back. You are looking for patterns that all. In addition to those patterns WHEN they comment or like that photo or post is just as important.

Usually you’re golden if it’s happening at the end of the day before they go to bed. This is often when most people are left alone with their thoughts and so it gives you greater insight into what’s going on in their mind.

Again, you’re looking for consistency.

Sign #7: They Will Tell You They Want You Back

And then we come to the final sign which is where an ex will literally tell you that they want you back. Usually this is reserved for dumpers who are more direct or brave by nature.

Ultimately this is reserved for those extroverted individuals.

Growing up I had a best friend who was an extrovert while I would definitely classify myself as an introvert. The beauty of our friendship was our contrast. He would constantly put me in situations I felt uncomfortable in because all I ever wanted to do was stay at home and he would want to go out and have fun.

This definitely carried over into our dating lives.

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• I was like a turtle rarely coming out of my shell on occasion and when things didn’t go well I would retreat back to safety.
• He was like a wolf, constantly prowling for his next conquest (and yes he was that prototypical guy that viewed women as conquests always wanting what he can’t have.)

Being friends with him taught me a valuable lesson about extroverts. A lot of times they’ll often be the ones to tell you that they want you back. Especially if you get one that is very direct and brave.