Do I Want My Ex Back After Divorce? Two Questions That Tell You the Truth

It’s a Sunday afternoon. The house is quiet. The kids are at his.

And you’re standing in the kitchen thinking: I miss him sooooooo much.

Then comes the thought you can’t say out loud to anyone. Do I want my ex back after divorce?

Before you answer that, I want you to try something.

Because what you’re feeling is real.

But it might not be what you think it is.

Missing him and wanting him back are two different things

Grief is brilliant at mixing things up.

It takes the Sunday dinners, the holidays you’d already planned, the person who knew how you take your tea, the future you’d half lived in your head, and it squashes them all into one feeling.

I miss him.

But missing your ex after divorce can mean missing so many things that aren’t him at all.

The routine.

Having someone to tell about your day.

Being somebody’s person.

Not being the one who puts the bins out.

Not having to explain to people what happened.

None of that makes your grief silly.

It makes it human.

But if you’ve never separated them, you can spend years thinking you want him back when what you actually want is the life that came with him.

So here are two questions.

Answer them honestly.

Not the way you think you should answer.

The way your body answers.

Question 1: Do you respect who he is as a person?

Not who he was on your wedding day.

Not who he was in the good years.

Who he is now.

How does he speak to you?

How does he talk about you to the kids?

What does he do when it’s inconvenient, when it costs him something, when he’s been caught out?

How he shows he has your back (and if he does)

You can love someone and still not respect them.

Both can be true at the same time.

And here’s why this question matters so much.

Respect is what makes love feel safe.

Without it, you spend your energy managing his moods.

Softening your words.

Making excuses for him.

Explaining him to your friends.

Missing someone you respect is love.

Missing someone you don’t respect is often missing the routine, the plans, or the fear of being on your own.

Those feel identical in your chest.

They are not the same thing.

Question 2: Do you like who you are when you’re around him?

Think about the version of you who existed in that marriage.

The one who checked her tone before she spoke.

Who arranged things around his friends, family and interests

Who rehearsed what she was going to say in the car.

Who laughed it off when it hurt.

Who made herself smaller so the evening stayed calm.

Do you like her?

This is the question most women have never asked themselves, and it’s the one that hits hardest.

Your body learns who it has to be to stay safe around someone.

Shrinking, pleasing, keeping the peace.

It’s a survival strategy, and it works, so well that you stop noticing you’re doing it.

After divorce, you can miss that relationship and completely forget what it cost you.

You might even miss her, the woman who held it all together.

But she was exhausted.

Ask her.

Your body answers before your head does

Your head will argue.

It’ll remember the good holiday in 2014 and talk itself round.

It’ll tell you that you should have tried harder.

It’ll replay the one tender moment and delete everything around it.

Your body doesn’t do that.

So try this.

Close your eyes.

Take one slow breath.

Picture your ex walking through your front door tomorrow.

Exactly as he is now.

Not changed.

Not apologising.

Exactly as he is.

What does your body do?

Does it soften? Do your shoulders drop?

Or do you get the knot? The tight jaw. The held breath. The stomach that drops.

Don’t judge it.

Just notice it.

That’s information.

If your body softened

Part of you still wants the connection, the comfort and the belonging he used to give you. That’s real, and it doesn’t make you weak.

It usually means the loss is still raw.

The work here is separating missing him from missing what he stood for, then rebuilding that sense of belonging for yourself.

If you got the knot

Your body already knows something your head is still catching up with.

You might feel guilty for not wanting him back.

You might feel confused, because you still miss parts of the life.

Both can be true.

The work here is trusting what your body is telling you, and letting the grief and the relief exist side by side without judging either one.

What to do with your answer this week

Don’t make a big decision. Make a small one.

1. Sort what you miss. Take a piece of paper and make three columns: Him. The life we had. Who I was. Write down everything you miss, then put each thing in the column it belongs to. Most women are shocked by how little ends up in the first column.

2. Rebuild one thing from the second column. Pick the Sunday dinner, the walk, the Friday film. Do it this week, without him. One small thing is enough to show your body that those things can exist without him.

3. Use the 24 hour rule. If you want to message him because you miss him, wait a day. Write the message in your notes. Ask yourself both questions. Then decide.

4. Notice the knot. Next time his name lights up your phone, check what your body does before you open it. That’s your nervous system telling you something. It has been trying to for a long time.

Do I want my ex back after divorce? Why asking the question changes everything

When you stop asking do I want my ex back after divorce and start asking what am I actually grieving, everything shifts.

You stop waiting for one person to hand you back the Sundays, the plans, the belonging and the joy.

You realise you can build them yourself.

You might also realise you never wanted him back at all.

That you wanted to feel safe, loved and like someone’s person.

And that’s something you can have without him.

I see it in the women I work with every week.

The moment it clicks, they go quiet.

Then they say: I think I’ve been missing the wrong thing.

Not sure what’s keeping you stuck? Start here.

Maybe you got the knot.

Maybe you softened.

Maybe you’re sitting there thinking I honestly don’t know.

That’s exactly why I built my quiz.

The thing keeping you stuck after divorce has a name.

Knowing it changes everything.

It shows you which of the four blocks is yours, and what to do next.

If you want help working through it, that’s what I do inside my 12 week programme,

One last thing

You’re not silly for missing him.

You’re not weak for still wondering.

You’re in the part nobody photographs.

The part where you find out what you were really holding on to.

And that part, as uncomfortable as it is, is where everything starts to change.

Linzi Kavanagh is a divorce coach based in Scotland, working with women across the UK. She’s an NLP Practitioner, an EFT Practitioner, and the founder of Dazzle After Divorce, a coaching programme for women rebuilding after separation and divorce. She’s also a single mum of three, and has lived every part of what she teaches. Take the quiz