The pain when your ex lost attraction for you, fell out of love, and then broke up with you. How to cope with the sudden unexpected breakup by an ex-girlfriend, especially when you still love her just as you loved her during the first kiss? Hey guys, welcome back to the Breakup Corner, I’m Andi Galster, and here I teach men how to move on from their ex-girlfriend.

So, your ex-girlfriend is no longer attracted to you and she broke up with you. Probably, very unexpectedly and you most likely didn’t see it coming. You probably have never even considered breaking up with her, but she clearly has been for a while, and eventually, she ended the relationship when you were not ready for it at all. Quite the opposite, you probably wanted to invest more time and energy into the relationship.

I would say this is perhaps one of the most common breakup types. It’s so common, that I would assume nearly every man has to go through this breakup at least once. Usually, breakups generally follow the same pattern, both for men and women. 

Generally speaking, when one partner is unhappy in the relationship, they will try to address what’s making them unhappy, and then if they don’t get the result that they hoped for, they will start to notice other people that they find attractive. And then after perhaps trying to address the issue one or a few more times, they will break up. And by that time, because they were already wondering about what it would be like to date somebody else, and they already noticed other more attractive individuals who could be potential partners, they will also be ready to call it quits quite abruptly, and they’ll be ready to move on and date someone new relatively quickly.

Now, to be fair, I think especially in relationships around your teenage years to your early 20s, I think this is NOT always the case. For sure, people will still notice other more attractive individuals, but they may not always communicate clearly that there’s a problem in the relationship. Instead, they’ll just slowly withdraw because they may think their partner is supposed to just magically make them happy. But, I’ll assume your ex-girlfriend at least tried to hint at some of the things she wasn’t happy with.

Now, anyway, eventually, the big breakup happens. And of course, the more serious the relationship, the harder the breakup. You’ll be more intertwined the longer you’ve been together, and then the breakup won’t be a smooth process. There will be negotiation, trying to make it work again, maybe breaking up and getting back together again after a short time, and so on. But this is generally the pattern.

And this is why it’s usually women who break up, and also why a lot of men don’t see it coming. 

And that’s why, of course, breakups are so difficult for men. When a woman notices attractive men, they are almost always attracted to her. Men rate women as far more attractive on average than the other way around, and so for a woman, there is always a lot of temptation and if she’s not happy in a relationship, if she decides that she wants to find someone new who makes her happier, she can do so relatively easily.

Of course, there will be some outliers. If your girlfriend was below average in attractiveness, it’s a different story, or maybe she’s the super socially awkward, nerdy, not so beautiful type… But still, it’s quite likely that your ex-girlfriend had it fairly easy with trying to find someone new to date.

And that’s why it probably came as a big shock when your ex-girlfriend wanted to break up with you. I’m sure to you, your ex-girlfriend was still as attractive as ever. First of all, on a physical level, unless your ex completely let herself go, it’s unlikely that you weren’t happy with her body shape and her face. And perhaps you also were mostly still happy with her character, and despite some relationship problems, you thought this will work out.

But your girlfriend may have no longer perceived you as an attractive male, because after all, what a woman wants is a man who can provide stability, both in terms of finances, but also emotionally. If she doesn’t feel satisfied that she can eventually have kids with you and put a ring on it, she will decide that you are no longer attractive enough for her, and she’ll think that other men are going to be more attractive and fulfill her needs better.

And realizing that hurts a lot as a man. You now have to face a very harsh reality. I’m not even trying to sugarcoat anything here… I just can’t. If a woman lost attraction to you, realistically, it’s because she compared you with other men, and thought other men had more to offer. That doesn’t mean she’s necessarily correct about that, but at least that’s what she thought. And perhaps there’s at least some degree of truth in that. Nobody leaves a partner that they are happy with.

Well, there’s always exceptions, but on a broad spectrum, that’s how relationships work. So, when your ex-girlfriend broke up with you because she lost attraction, and she seems to be over the relationship, it’s a pretty painful wake up call. I can relate to that quite a bit. As I said, I think most men had to go through that experience at least once in their lives. Most likely during one of their first more serious, long-term relationships. You think everything was fine, and all of a sudden, it’s over. Bam. It was over so fast, you could barely react.

It’s a painful experience. Honestly, it can crush your heart and make you wonder if there’s any point to relationships when they are seemingly so fleeting. For example, if you and your ex-girlfriend were together for 1 ½ years, and she can just “lose attraction” out of the blue, and then find someone new that easily… That really destroys your self-esteem. And it makes you wonder if there’s something wrong with you. It’s not a nice experience. 

Aside from missing her like crazy because to you, all of this is essentially unfinished business, while it’s not for her… You also have to deal with all the self-doubt that comes along with getting rejected and being unwanted. It kind of feels like you as a man are not worth loving, or that your ex-girlfriend didn’t need you and you could easily be replaced.

Some men will say “She was never yours, it was only your turn,”… Well, I think that’s a bit cynical. It’s somewhat true, but ultimately, it’s simply how life and relationships work. If you don’t offer the things to your partner that they desire, then they’re going to leave eventually. And that’s not an easy thing to come to terms with. 

We tend to idealize relationships, especially our early relationships. We want the fairytale love story to be true. We want to believe that she’s the one, our soulmate, the one woman who will always be there for us and with us no matter what we have to go through. And that woman does exist. Those relationships DO exist. Happy marriages exist.

But they’re not something that you get for free. Relationships always evolve, change, you have to work on them, see where either of you aren’t happy, what the problems are as a couple, and so on. And that is a painful life lesson that often is learned only after you had such a breakup. And yes, even if you did almost everything right, sometimes there will be cases where you simply dated the wrong type of woman, where nothing you could have done could have ever satisfied her. And that’s a life lesson as well. It’s a lesson to not date that kind of woman.

So anyway, right now, you must be going through a lot of breakup pain. You must be missing your ex-girlfriend a lot, and the thoughts of who she’s with, what she’s doing, why she left so easily and so on, all of these things are hard to deal with. I think the best advice that I can give to you right now is the following:

If your ex-girlfriend didn’t very clearly communicate with you about the things she was unhappy with, for example, if she didn’t sit down with you at least once to have, in quotes, “the talk,” then you shouldn’t overthink where things went wrong. Obviously, you want to learn and identify what mistakes you made. 

And a little bit of analyzing is important to be realistic with yourself where you probably didn’t offer the things she wanted. But as I said, if she wasn’t giving you clear hints or signs that something is wrong, then it’s not fully your fault. Yes, as a man, you should read the signs. You should be able to feel and notice when something is off, and you should address those issues. 

But in the end, it takes two to tango, and if she didn’t at least try to help you to fix the relationship, then don’t think too much about it. Instead, try to think about where life is supposed to take you as an individual. 

Don’t think so much about your ex-girlfriend. Think about what you can do for yourself, and how you can move forward. You probably will never get full closure for this breakup because if your ex could lose attraction that easily, then it’s probably not even that complicated as you may want to make yourself believe. 

Sometimes, we tend to over-rationalize and overthink a breakup far too much. And all of that overthinking does more harm than good, when we could be hitting the gym, going out with friends, or pursue any other new kind of hobby. As much as breakups are about learning how to have a better relationship in the past, they are also about recreating yourself as an individual. 

When you spent a lot of time with your ex-girlfriend, it’s easy to forget that your life doesn’t only revolve around her. You may have invested a lot of time into the relationship with her, and I’m sure you had a lot of hopes and dreams about a future together, and it’s really hurtful that all of these seem to have been crushed seemingly overnight, but just as quickly as your hopes and dreams were crushed, you’re also able to recreate yourself.

It’s not always easy, it’s also not always fun in the beginning. But I know that you have what it takes to find your way back to yourself, towards a better and happier life. And I’m certain you can find happiness again. Whether that’s as a single man or maybe in the future with another woman. 

Don’t give up, don’t spend too much time trying to find reasons for what’s wrong with you, or why your ex was right that you’re not desirable. Yes, I hope you can identify how you can better yourself, but don’t beat yourself up. Try to stay positive, empower yourself, and if you do find things that you feel that you could have done differently, then look at it from a positive perspective.

Think about what an amazing guy you will become in the very near future if you choose to keep moving forward, and if you choose to keep working on yourself to always be at your best. I know that happiness is just around the corner for you, so don’t give up.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this time.