Why Did My Ex Unfriend Me But Not Block Me

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Written By Alexis

Alexis has 7 years of experience as a relationship therapist, a degree in psychology, and a deep personal understanding of human relationships.

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why did my ex unfriend me but not block me

A romantic relationship is sweet and an all-time pleasure to anyone involved. However, some situations make one fall out of love and prioritise being single again or trying another relationship immediately to heal.

The aftermath of your past relationship can be weird and unthinkable. Your ex-partner can cut every tie to communicate with you for reasons that may be blurry to you.

They can go to the extent of removing themselves from your connection of friends across social media.

But why such a step?

Why did my ex unfriend me but not block me?

That is an ideal but unexpected way a true-life situation works. Unfriending you on social media means they want distance because you are no longer close or a friend. They believe it is necessary to limit you from knowing what goes on in their lives.

An ex can unfriend you for a while to neutralise the emotional connection they shared with you. They may not block you because nobody can tell, your paths may still cross, or you might have reason to engage with each other.

Except you are harassing them, or they are seeing your activities as an intrusion into their private life, maybe you are tagging them to all your post or mentioning their name at any slightest opportunity.

They can see the need to cut you off their social media space by unfriending you.


RELATED: Why Is My Ex Stalking Me On Social Media


Why did my ex unfriend me but not block me on social media

Your ex can choose to unfriend you on social media for various reasons. Here are the reasons your ex can decide to unfriend you but won’t block you.

1. They want to be left alone for a while

A breakup can immensely hurt and cause protracted, agonising pain in humans, especially if they feel cheated or used in the relationship after putting every energy into making it work.

If your ex feels this way, they will try to relieve the pain by doing everything to get over you.

Unfriending you on social media is part of their coping mechanism. They may not intend to unfriend you for a long time, but maybe for a while to get over you and maintain a new relationship with you.

Your ex can equally unfriend if they understand you are still agonising about the breakup.

Maybe they’ve found a thriving new relationship and decided to post about it. They feel it might cause further pain to you seeing them in a new relationship.

They can unfriend you for a while till you find happiness and move on completely.

2. They want you back

This might sound ironic, but your ex can unfriend you if they think you have not gotten over them. It can be a reverse way of getting your attention.

Maybe after the breakup, you have been viewing their activities on social media, but you don’t seem moved by it. They can unfriend you to see how you will react to it, even if that remains the last and precarious hope for them to take.


ALSO READ: Is My Ex Trying To Get My Attention On Social Media


They may want your attention, but it is hard for them to approach you directly because they fear you will embarrass them.

They feel you can reach out to them directly if you don’t hear from them on social media.

3. They have no reason to block you

They want to cut ties with you in the virtual world as they did in reality, but blocking you may mean toxically doing away with anything related to you.

They believe you can make up in the future for a better relationship outside of romantic affairs. Blocking you may transform into a long-time enmity and turn out to be a wrong decision for them in the future.

Even if there has been no romantic relationship between you in the past, blocking ordinary friends means that you don’t want them in your life anymore.

Your ex may see no need to block you because they believe you both can settle your differences and build a new, better, strong, and lasting relationship.

Blocking you may break the chance. Unfriending you mean fixing themselves and moving on with their lives without holding on to the past relationship.

4. You are stalking them on Social media

They can avoid you by delisting you from their friends list when they feel you are after them on social media.

If you like their post, tag them to posts they consider threatening or irrelevant. They can choose to remove you from their friend list.

Also, if you mention them in a comment or indirectly share experiences you have had together as a gist to your audience, suppose they feel all your content is relatable to them, or the post keeps making them remember everything about the relationship days.

In that case, they can excuse themselves from such emotional torment by unfriending or unfollowing you on social media.

Also, if they feel you are intruding on their privacy by constantly sending them random greetings, commenting on every post, or mentioning them in comments. They may consider this stalking, which can debar them from moving on more quickly than anticipated.

5. You post contents that trigger them

You’ve been together before the misunderstanding that led to the eventual breakup. By now, they know what your interests are.

In getting your attention, they can fill their timeline with topics they know will interest you, even though it may not be a specific topic to them.

For instance, your ex might be telling how they hate or love your favourite influencer, music, or movie.

They can start posting about those favourites to signal to you that they’ve changed their mind and are now willing to share your interest and want to use such to catch your attention in initiating conversation with them.

6. They are playing games with you

This is otherwise referred to as ‘ghosting’ and could be for many reasons. In this situation, your ex hides you from the new relationship they think will soon reach social media.

They can unfriend you and allow only their friends to have access to view their timeline.

After breaking up with you, they can do this for you to think they are single. It is a manipulative strategy to keep the parallel relationship and still be asking you for reconciliation.

They use the breakup as an excuse to delist you from their friend list on social media and post their new relationship while doing everything possible to have you back at the same time.


ALSO READ: Why Is My Ex Posting So Much On Social Media


7. They want to disconnect the emotional ties

Love can be intoxicating and unconsciously lead to perpetual infatuation. If the breakup is in mutual agreement, they know they have to get out of the emotional ties and face the unavoidable reality.

The emotional ties may be difficult to get back their life together if they keep seeing your online or offline activities, and it may be difficult for them to get over their past.

If they weren’t faithful in the relationship and caused the breakup, they can unfriend you because of the guilt.

They realise their mistake and regret treating you badly in the relationship. They find it hard to get over the mistake, and it will worsen if they keep seeing things that remind them of you.

They believe unfriending you on social media will lessen the guilt, but blocking you means they don’t feel any remorse for the heartbreak they caused you.

Should you block your ex after they unfriend you on social media?

If an ex unfriends you on social media, you will undoubtedly feel the need to replicate the same. You may think the biggest revenge is to do worse than what they did by blocking them on your social media accounts.

But does the retaliation worth it?

We don’t think it’s worth anything. The best is to pay less attention to their activities towards you because they already earned an “ex” as a title. They are now your past, and there is no reason for anyone to disturb themselves about their past.

They haven’t gotten over you, which is why they want the distance by unfriending you from their friends list on social media. You won’t be any different if you block them. Just move on and stay happy and see them as if they have never existed in the first place.

But if you have yet to get over the breakup, you can unfollow them too on social media to quicken your move on.

You have said goodbye in reality, and moving on may not be easy if you don’t allow them to move out of your virtual world.

Social media is the most significant connecting point in this age, and it may sound right to unfriend each other on social media if ordinary friendship isn’t easy to maintain.

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