Is My Ex Trying To Make Me Jealous? (3 Obvious Signs) 

Are you wondering whether your ex is trying to make you jealous?

Perhaps you know he is – and you’re wondering why?

Either way, you’re in the right place. 

This guide reveals the clearcut signs that your ex is deliberately trying to make you feel envious and his motives for doing so. 

However, before I reveal these signs, it’s important you read the next few sentences carefully. 

It’s almost impossible to get an accurate impression on how your ex is doing after a break-up.

Oftentimes, they will make a concerted effort to create a false impression especially for you.

This makes it difficult to decipher whether they have truly moved on – or if they’re open to reconciliation.

That’s why I want to recommend this powerful online tracker tool for you.

With just a few of your ex-partner’s basic details, this tool can create an expansive log of their recent communications history.

You’ll discover who they have been calling and texting, what smartphone apps and online services they’ve been using, plus what contact details they have.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

Ultimately, this tool will show you the true picture of how your ex-partner is getting on without you.

With this information to hand, you’ll be in a better position to decide whether it’s worth trying to win them back.

Our guide on whether he’s trying to make you jealous will help too. Scroll down to find out what’s really going on in his head.

How Do I Know If My Ex Is Trying To Make Me Jealous?

Trying to know for certain whether your ex is looking to try to make you jealous is quite tough, but there are a few ways that might give you a little insight into whether they are or not. 

1. Look At Their Social Media For Clues

With social media being so prevalent in all our lives, some people choose to use it to make it known that they are with a new person in a new relationship. While a lot of the time, people do this because they are happy and are proud of their new boyfriend or girlfriend, others do it with the sole intention of making an ex jealous. 

As someone that knows your ex very well, you’ll be able to tell if their posts are genuine or not. If you look at them all together, you should be able to glean whether he is trying that little bit too hard to show that he is doing very well after your breakup. 

2. Look At The Chemistry With The New Love Interest

If you are in a situation where you get to see your ex with his or her new love interest, see if you can tell whether there is genuine chemistry between the two of them. If there is, then it might be that they are not trying on purpose to make you jealous, but instead, they have moved on. This relationship, if it has chemistry, has been their way of moving on and they may be genuinely happy. 

However, if you don’t believe there to be any chemistry, he or she could simply be using their new love interest to get a reaction from you. It could, therefore, be that your ex might want you back and to try things again with you.

3. Do They Have A Lack Of Interest In You

One way of telling whether your ex is making you jealous on purpose or not is whether they otherwise show any interest in you. If there is a lack of interest, it could be that they are not purposely looking to make you jealous at all. It might well be that their new relationship is one that they want to be successful and they are not using their new love interest as a way to hurt you at all. 

What Can I Do If My Ex Is Trying To Make Me Jealous?

There are a number of things you can do if your ex’s new relationship with someone else is making you jealous. Each action needs a lot of strong will, but if you think your ex is purposely trying to make you jealous, then they are worthwhile trying. Jealousy is a tiring emotion so if you are the one feeling that way, it is healthy to try to do everything you can to get over those feelings so you can move on. 

Ask Yourself Why You Are Jealous.

It is imperative in all of this that you ask yourself why you are suffering from jealousy after your breakup. In doing so, you can start to realize whether you might want your ex back, or you can simply be more aware of your feelings post the break down of the relationship.

People break up for many reasons and just because they do break up, it doesn’t always make feelings of love disappear. Time is needed for people to get over those feelings, and if your ex has started seeing another person before you are over him completely, it can make you feel jealous and question whether you were right to break up in the first place.

However, while you may feel jealousy towards his new relationship, that does not always necessarily mean that you definitely want to get together again. Instead, you may know that the breakup was for the best, but it still hurts to see them with another person. This is totally normal and understandable, just give yourself time to get over those feelings so that you can then decide what your best course of action is. 

Ignore It.

Perhaps one of the most difficult things to do if you believe your ex is doing everything they can to try to make you jealous is simply to ignore it. This is so hard after a breakup as you may still have some feelings for them that make it so easy to rile you up and feel jealousy like you’ve never known before.

However, ignoring behavior like this can eventually reap very good rewards as it means that your ex won’t behave in this way again in the future. It also allows you, once you are used to ignoring them and their new love interest, to get on with meeting other people and beginning your life properly without them.

Talk To Them About Their Actions.

It’s so tough starting a conversation with someone about how you are feeling, particularly when you need to talk to them about how their actions are affecting you. However, if you can’t just ignore your ex’s attempts at making you jealous, then you need to talk to them directly about it. 

If you are open and honest with them about what their actions are doing, they may try to act a little more sensitively than they have been doing in the past. Additionally, if they are trying, on purpose, to make you jealous because they actually want you back, then starting a conversation like this provides you both with a good opportunity to put all your cards on the table. If through your feelings of jealousy, you have realized that you shouldn’t have broken up in the first place, then you can let them know this. 

If you don’t want to get your ex back, but find his actions insensitive, then telling him so can at least alert him to one of two things. Firstly, jealousy will not make you want to reverse your breakup. Secondly, there is no need to be as callous as he is being (intentional or not) with how he is acting with his new love. 

What Does It Mean When Your Ex Is Trying To Make You Jealous?

Here, we look at what it means if your ex is with another person as a way to make you jealous. Knowing what it means if they are doing this is not always as straightforward as it sounds. 

They Might Want You Back.

This is perhaps one of the most obvious reasons that a person will look to instill jealousy in an ex. They start a new relationship with a person with the sole reason of hoping it will make the ex see what they are missing so that they come running back to them as soon as possible. 

They Might Still Have Feelings For You.

As an extension of wanting an ex back, this tack of using a new relationship to bring about jealousy, can actually just come about as an ex may still have feelings for you. This may not necessarily mean however that they want to get back together. Instead, it can simply mean that those feelings are still there and they don’t realize how to deal with them. 

While your ex may not want to be in a relationship with you, they may still want to be wanted by you and they feel that jealousy is a good way of making that happen. 

They Might Be Angry With You.

Bringing about jealousy in a person can come about if there are residual feelings of anger that came about before and after a breakup. Anger and hurt can make people do things that may have previously been quite out of character for them.

So if you are surprised that your ex appears to be trying to raise feelings of jealousy in you on purpose, then it could be that they are unsure of how to deal with the feelings of hurt and anger they have within them. If you think this may be the case, it may benefit you both if you talk to him about what happened in the past so you can both get a form of closure. 

Or, if you feel that those feelings of hurt are due to rejection that neither of you wanted, you could talk about the possibility of rekindling what you lost. 

FAQs

The Bottom Line

After a breakup, people act in a variety of ways to move on and minimize feelings of pain. Sometimes, this can manifest itself in acting in an insensitive manner such as looking to get a jealous reaction out of an ex by starting up a new relationship. While this type of behavior can never be condoned, the reasoning behind it is what should be addressed between two people if they want to move on from a relationship, or indeed make a go of things again.

If you are in this position, while it can be hard, you really can only do one of two things to help yourself stop feeling jealous. You can either talk to your ex openly and honestly about their actions or you can just ignore it and concentrate on making yourself happy in other ways. 

Either action, however, calls for people to take a proactive approach to tackle their feelings – give yourself the time and the space to do so.