15 Men Reveal What They Miss The Most About Their Exes
Even though the relationship ended, you can still find things to miss about them.
panitanphoto | Shutterstock Men and women are known for our differences. When it comes to expressing our emotions, women usually have no problem.
Men, on the other hand, are often taught by society that it's better for them to keep their feelings close to their chest, or else risk looking weak in front of other people.
Because of toxic masculinity, it can be hard to understand how a man is feeling after a breakup and what to do after a breakup that is helping him heal.
But just because a man doesn't open up about how hard your breakup is, that doesn't mean it isn't affecting him.
All you have to do is ask him to find out just what men think. He can be vengeful and figure out ways how to make your ex miss you, but not all men feel this way.
Just because the two of you have fought and cursed each other and given each other the silent treatment (at different times and all at once), that doesn't mean there aren't things about you as a person and your relationship as a whole that don't stay with him.
To prove this point I asked some of my male friends to anonymously share what they miss about their girlfriends after a breakup. Their results were more than I expected.
Here 15 men reveal what they miss the most about their exes:
1. A warm, friendly body
"Company, just having someone to watch TV with means a lot."
2. A friend
"Losing my best friend."
3. Shared Netflix accounts
"Access to Netflix, funny memes to exchange, and literally nothing else."
4. Losing their family
"I miss my ex's mom, she was the best."
5. Someone to share adventures with
"A person to go out and do stuff with."
6. So many forms of intimacy
"A whole unique channel of emotional and physical intimacy. Except once, in which case I don't miss anything at all. That's disingenuous. She had a deadly smile and I haven't seen a sincere smile on her face since."
7. Delicious meals
"Sappy: best friend. Pragmatic: Home-cooked meals."
8. What we miss is what drove us apart
"I always missed the reason we were together. It was fun and cool. Then the tragic breakup wherein everything is just over."
9. The physical affection
"I miss how physically affectionate she was. That's the biggest one. I love physical affection and sometimes worry that I might do it too much in a relationship because of how much I love it. With her, there was never that issue, ever. Randomly held her hand? Patted her head out of nowhere? Kiss her out of the blue? Running my hands through her hair and down her back for no reason? She loved it all, and I loved her for that."
10. Every single thing
"Maybe it was because she didn't really have any earth-shatteringly bad traits, but I miss everything about her including most of the things that would sometimes get on my nerves. I miss how much she genuinely cared about me and how loving she was, and I miss the way we could both accommodate each other's differences without any problems."
11. What don't you miss
"Cuddling, fun dates, making each other laugh, learning new things about each other, having deep discussions, kissing, sleeping next to her, her goofy faces, her willingness to be silly just to cheer me up..."
12. The intimacy
"How aggressive she was when it came to being intimate. My current girlfriend is very quiet, and it would be nice if she took charge every once in a while."
13. Specific things about each one
"There's always one thing that stands out from every ex I've had that I miss. One ex would always sit right next to me while I was driving (bench seats at the time), one ex would groom me, one ex would play with my hair while I drove, and one ex was super into PDA to stake her claim (on our first or second date she climbed over the table to make out with me), and so on."
14. The inside jokes
"No one could make me laugh the way that she could — and about the most stupid things. That's something I seriously miss."
15. Her smell
"I'm not a creeper but I do miss her smells, like how she smelled after the shower, how she smelled when she woke up, all perfumed up on a night out. It's a small thing."
Rebecca Jane Stokes is an editor, freelance writer, former Senior Staff Writer for YourTango, and the former Senior Editor of Pop Culture at Newsweek. Her bylines have appeared in Fatherly, Gizmodo, Yahoo Life, Jezebel, Apartment Therapy, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, SheKnows, and many others