Hey there it's clay with modern love.life. In this video, we're going to be talking about what to do
if your ex is just pretending to be over you, are they playing it cool or do they just, you know,
genuinely not care. This is something that a lot of people do struggle with. Oftentimes
people do get lost in this whole idea of context versus content. Um, and, and, and by the way,
you know what we're going to be advising you to do, if this is happening is going to be probably
a lot different than what you may have heard in other videos out there, um, about mind games,
power struggles, passing tests, things like that. We're going to show you how to shortcut
through all of those things and just go right to the heart of the matter. So stay tuned. But, um,
oftentimes people in this sort of situation get really caught up in context versus content.
So what is this, uh, context is the emotional state that someone, you know, behaves from and
content is what someone actually says now, many times, uh, people, especially in breakups, people
who want to save their relationship, they get very caught up in what their ex says, and they say, oh,
well, my ex said, they're over me. Therefore, they must be over me. My ex said that there's no
chance. Therefore there must be no chance. My ex said that they feel nothing. Therefore they must
feel nothing. Right? And that's not to say that it's not true. Maybe your ex does feel nothing.
Maybe they're a sociopath. Maybe your ex genuinely is over you. Maybe your ex really, you know,
maybe some major trust violation has, has been breached. And they really do not want to ever
give you another chance because you know, this is something that's really, really big for them.
I don't know, but we don't want to get mixed up the idea of the words that are coming out of their
mouth versus the emotional place that they're at. If they're in a place where they're upset, where
there are stressed out, where they are feeling too much pressure or expectation, it may cause them to
say things like that. And what happens is if we start to shift the emotional place that they are
feeling, then the words that are going to come out of their mouth start to shift as well too.
So don't, don't take what your ex is saying to you super duper, literally. Okay. Because many
times as their emotional state changes the words that come out of their mouth shift and you know,
suddenly, Hey, we're, we're over for good. There's no chance becomes like, Hey,
I just don't know what I want to, Hey, I always knew we'd come back to each other in the end.
Anyway, like we, you know, we've seen this happen countless times over the, you know, at least as
of right now, 12 ish years that we've been doing this, don't worry. This is, this is super common.
If your ex is just pretending to be over you, this is a super common, actually many times after
a breakup, we have this, this strong drive to make it seem like our life is better off without our ex
than it was with our ex. So this causes people to go into this like strong, competitive drive
with one another, where they post a lot of the stuff online. They post a lot of, you know, things
about how their life is perfect about how they're on this vacation, how they're dating a million
people, how they're falling in love, how life has never been better and all that sort of stuff.
Now, when it comes to social media stuff, obviously we need to take everything with
a grain of salt because social media is not real life. It is a very curated version of
a real life. It's a very curated version about how someone is actually feeling.
That's just saying most people aren't just going to post on social media. Hey, I feel really
confused today. You know, this breakup is hitting me a lot harder than I thought it was going to.
And the truth is I just don't know what I want or how I feel. Sometimes I think I made the wrong
choice in ending the relationship. Sometimes I think that I might have made the right choice. The
truth is I just don't know, like nobody's going to post that. They're just going to post like, Hey,
here I am at the beach on this new vacation here I am with my new rebound and all that stuff.
Right. So, um, just know that mostly likely if this breakup is hitting you pretty hard,
it's probably also hitting your ex pretty hard as well too. Most people can not just
like snap back from a breakup super fast without having to process certain emotions.
Um, it could potentially be really possible if your ex is just like emotionally dead because
you know, they're like a psychopath or something like that. Probably not.
I think you would probably no. If your ex was like that, if your ex just had some sort of, you know,
developmental challenge to the point where they just like can't register emotions or something
like that, you would know you would have some sort of indication or potentially like if your ex is,
you know, super enlightened and they can like sit and like accept the present moment and just let
everything pass through them because they know that everything is impermanent
and that all suffering is just caused by the mind and all of that, you know, if they're like super
zenned out and everything like that, potentially they might be able to move on really quickly.
But, uh, this is I'm guessing probably not your ex your ex is probably a, a flood mortal person
who has their own challenges and struggles, which means they're probably not over you,
if you are still, uh, strongly attached to them. I mean, like, especially if the breakup
was fairly recent, right. Rebounds and all that stuff, it doesn't really go by the timeframe,
but often the timeframe can be an indication that, uh, that certain things are unfolding. Right. So
like, if you, if the two of you broke up, like, you know, a week ago, yeah. They're probably not
over you. Unless again, they're like a Buddhist monk or a, you know, a psychopath. Okay.
Um, so just kinda keep that in bite. Uh, probably just stuffing down their emotions
and trying to make it seem like their life is perfect. But anyway, uh, this whole thing comes
from this whole, uh, basic idea that the two of you aren't on the same team that you have to,
you know, butt heads and clash and try to, you know, and up one another.
And this is probably if you're gonna be honest and look back on your relationship, this is probably
why the relationship had some tough times and struggled in the first place. The two of you
weren't on the same team. One of the most common reasons for breakups is because the two people
were not on the same team. In fact, they're probably viewing each other in some way on
opposite teams. That's to say they felt like they had to guard themselves against their
partner. They felt like they had to walk on eggshells. They felt like they couldn't ask
for what they want or share how they felt. They felt like they couldn't trust their partners,
intentions. They always had to spy on them, check their email, check their social media, who is that
girl that he's following? Why is she spending so much time chatting with that one guy, right?
These are signs that you, the two of you are not on the same team in that you're on opposite teams.
And after breakup, this is going to translate into a lot of this hyper competitiveness
where it's like, Hey, let me show you how much better my life is without you look at, look at,
you know, me going on some date with someone that I met on some app or something like that,
right? It's not necessarily genuine many times. It's really just this form of posturing
as to say, you know, Hey, look at me, I'm so much better than my ex I've moved on so
quickly. I have no emotions. I feel nothing as if that's something to be proud of. Right?
Come on. Anyway, um, that, oh, a symptom of not being on the same team, the next reason why your
ex might just be pretending to be over you, especially when the two of you are interacting
is because of an elevated sense of pressure that they feel around you.
They feel this high level of pressure either to be in a relationship with you to try to define how
the two of you are supposed to interact with one another. They feel attracted to you in some way,
but they don't want to get too close because then they were, they're worried that they might
send the wrong message. They might start to open themselves up to feeling things that they don't
feel comfortable feeling, et cetera. Right. And so there's this elevated sense of pressure and
expectation. And many times they pretend to be over you hoping that that's going to drop
the feeling of pressure or expectation. Um, of course this is backwards, right? You know,
you, you don't just say like, okay, I'm going to behave as if I don't care. And that's going
to suddenly make me not care like that. You know, obviously that that's backwards.
Um, but people's try to do these things all the time. So, um, what can often help
is if you decrease that pressure for them so that they don't feel like they have to artificially
decrease it themselves, and this can be things like, um, just letting them know, Hey, let's,
let's both just agree that we're not going to force anything that's not there. And it makes
a lot of sense, um, for us to just be friends for right now, you know, things like that can
really drop that pressure between the two of you and help the two of you create a new momentum
moving forward. So, um, what we want to do is, you know, once again, stop being on opposite teams,
start being on the same team, through things like having the same team conversation, number two,
drop that pressure and expectation, uh, so that they don't feel like they need to artificially do
it in their own awkward way, but like posturing or, uh, you know, talking about how they never
cared about you or things like that. That obviously aren't true, unless your ex
is just like, you know, emotionally broken and just like never had some sort of, uh,
emotional muscle in their body or something like, like if they're just some sort of robot
or something like that, I know that there's a lot of people out there that are like, yeah,
my ex is always in their head and they have no access to their emotions. But I mean, come on,
you know, if they were just really some sort of cerebral intellectual robot, why would they even
be in a relationship in the first place they're in a relationship because they felt something,
they felt some sort of drive some attraction, some desire, some sort of longing to be close to you to
experience something in their life, right? If they were purely just some sort of intellectual thing,
only making a rational, logical choices, then they would never be in a relationship to begin
with because relationships don't make a lot of sense from a practical stance.
But anyway, that's a whole conversation for another day. Um, anyway, so with all
of this in mind, we are trying to get on the same team. We are trying to, um,
decrease the pressure and expectation. These are all things to kind of set us up for dealing with
an ex who is pretending to be over us now in terms of what we actually do once these pieces are in
place is to just behave as if this is true, by the way, if you're liking these videos that I'm doing,
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so all of this is in place. All of this has been put in place as the framework. So what we're going
to do now is we're just going to behave as if it's true. So if the two of you are on the same team,
and if there is a decreased level of pressure and expectation and your ex is pretending to be
something that isn't true, what would you do? You'd probably just get curious and just say like,
Hey, it seems like, um, you're, you're kind of artificially putting up some kind of barrier here
between us. Like, is that genuinely how you feel, or, or do you just like, not feel comfortable
talking to me right now? And if you just genuinely get curious, turn it around and ask them,
then, um, they have the opportunity to do, to behave like an actual adult and to say,
you know, actually you're right. Um, I have been that way and it's because it's been harder on me
than I thought it would be. And I just didn't know what to do know. Then the two of you can
actually have an adult conversation or, um, if they're going to just like entrenched themselves
in this whole narrative of like, okay, I never felt anything for you.
You were a waste of my life or these sorts of hurtful things that like, clearly aren't true.
Um, then you just continue to get curious and go through what we call the one-way spike strategy,
where it's like, like, do you, did you really think our entire time was a waste of time?
Did you like seriously? The only thing for me, like, wow, that sounds, that sounds like, like,
it was really tough for you. If, if you wasted, like all of these years together with me and you
like never felt anything, is that really how you felt? And you just kinda like continue
to get curious and ask them, and you're, you're either inviting them to actually get,
you know, open and honest and real, or to double down on their BS. And if they're just gonna double
down on their BS, then you can obviously like disengage and, um, you know, let them go ahead
and stew with that for a little bit. Um, but you know, the more that they paint
themselves into a corner, the harder and harder it's going to be for them to, um, deal with the
consequences, because, you know, obviously it's easier for them to keep up this facade. If they
tell themselves a story that you were a jerk, that you forced them to break up with you or something
like that. But if you're just behaving like a totally rational reasonable person, they're going
to know deep down that you're being a totally rational and reasonable person, and they're going
to have to live with that consequence of like, okay, well, you know, yeah, I know in my heart
of hearts that they are being genuine here and I was just, uh, you know, being stubborn and like,
gosh, is that really how I want to end things? Is that the way I want to live my life?
And that can be like a heavy weight for them to bear many times just letting them sit with
that. If it comes to, it can be really powerful. Of course, if you do get to the point where the
two who actually do disengage, I would recommend that you build some sort of golden bridge
so that they can come back to the conversation and open up and share how they're feeling. If they do
have a change of heart down the road, you know, many times people do paint themselves into these
corners and they feel trapped out of pride or, you know, fear that they might lose face if they,
you know, admit that they were wrong or something like that. And so if we have a golden bridge that
kind of creates the possibility that, Hey, it's okay to be wrong. It's okay to make mistakes.
It's okay to change your mind. These are healthy relationship, um, concepts. Yeah. And it's, it's,
you know, I mean, you know, if you're going to be in a relationship that lasts any significant
period of time, you and your partner will probably be wrong about something, or your
partner will probably change your mind about something, or your partner will probably have to
admit that you were wrong or, or, or admit that you made a mistake or something like that. So
let's build into the relationship right now, early on the fact that this is okay rather than,
you know, being prideful and stubborn and doubling down on stupid. Right? So, um, let's,
let's do this right now and build some golden bridges. Anyway, this is what we'd recommend
that you do. If your ex is pretending to be over you. And by the way, these are all strategies that
we lay out for you inside of our course called effortless connection. If you do want to join us
in this course, it is over@modernlove.life slash E C that's modern love.life/e and effortless,
and C as in connection, I know brilliant URL, uh, crafting isn't it. Um, anyway,
you can also find a link for it down into the description box below, but anyway, thank you so
much, please. You take care and give this video a thumbs up and I'll talk to you next time.