You aren’t alone. Trust me when I say there are hundreds of not thousands of other women out there right now asking themselves, “Why am I obsessed with my boyfriend’s ex?” It’s human nature to be curious about the other people in your boyfriend’s life or people who used to be in his life.
Exes are a weird aspect of any relationship. It’s the one thing they tell us not to talk about, but the very thing we all want to know about. What made you attracted to them in the first place? Does he still have feelings for her? Why did they break up? Did he cheat on her? Did she cheat on him?
Curiosity is natural. You aren’t crazy. It would be weird if you weren’t curious about your boyfriend’s exes. Of course, you will wonder what their relationship was like and how it’s different from yours.
I had a good friend who went down the rabbit hole. She’s actually the one who came to be with the question, “Why am I obsessed with my boyfriend’s ex?”
I didn’t have a good answer for her at the time. I knew that her curiosity was normal, but was it more than just idle curiosity, or was it full-blown internet stalking?
It started by checking out her Facebook, then she created a fake account to actually follow her, which allowed her to examine her timeline, all the way back to when this girl was dating her boyfriend.
Shen went through all of her old posts and downloaded copies of all of their photos. She went from idle curiosity to full-blown obsession.
The problem with this was that it began to bring up insecurities about her relationship and herself.
Remember rule #1, they broke up for a reason. They aren’t together, you two are. Breaking up with someone, anyone, is a painful experience to go through. So even if he is fully over his ex-girlfriend, there are no doubt some painful feelings. No breakup is ever perfectly emotionally free. There is always some sort of painful feeling associated with a breakup.
Do you really want to make your boyfriend, who you care about, go through those painful emotions again? My friend let this girl get under his skin. She began to focus only on her boyfriend’s ex and not about her boyfriend.
She knew enough to come to me and ask,
Why am I obsessed with my boyfriend’s ex?
And that was the first step in the right direction to save her relationship. She had to put in the effort to make her relationship work. All the time she spent on his ex-girlfriend, she knew she had to spend on him. So what did she do?
- First, she stopped following his ex on social media. She even blocked her so she wouldn’t be tempted to go check on her.
- Next, she tried to do one nice thing for her boyfriend every day, no matter how small. She could bake him cookies or send him a thinking of you, text.
She made a list of all of his favorite foods and then learned how to cook them.
His grandmother used to make him something called Sarmale, which she found out was Romanian cabbage rolls. To surprise him on his birthday, she learned the recipe and made it for him.
One night when she stayed over at his place, she got up earlier than him because she started work earlier than he did. Before she left an, I LOVE YOU sticky note on the mirror.
Since she started making an effort to make him smile, he started doing the same in return. This has been going on for about six months now and their relationship has never been stronger. And it all started with her asking herself (and then me) the question, Why am I obsessed with my boyfriend’s ex?
The good news is, that she’s no longer stalking his ex. She’s too busy enjoying her life with her boyfriend.
