My Ex Came Back and I Wanted to Puke

Dear Brewtiful,
My ex came back. I wanted to puke. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. I mean it in the literal, stomach-churning, gut-recognizing-a-threat-it’s-seen-before kind of way. She sent an email. It was polite. Polished. Emotionally articulate in the way only someone who used to cause damage can sound after years of reading bell hooks and misapplying it. I wrote back. I sent what I believed was the most mature, clear, final response a person could give. It was kind without being soft, honest without being cruel, and designed like a scalpel: clean and with precision. And then she responded. Again. My question is simple. Why do they come back once you’ve moved on, and more importantly, what am I supposed to do now?

—Digestively Unwell and Spiritually Done

Dear Spiritually Done,

You are not alone. This is the signature move of the evolved-but-still-toxic ex: they return not when you’re broken, not when you’re still sorting through the rubble, but when you’ve rebuilt your house from scratch, repainted the walls, replaced the locks, and stopped leaving the light on. They return when your skin is glowing, your inbox is organized, and your cats are thriving. That’s when they get curious. That’s when they decide to show up like a ghost at brunch.

Let’s be very clear. You did nothing wrong. In fact, you did everything right. You didn’t spiral. You didn’t indulge the narrative. You didn’t try to resurrect something that died for a reason. You wrote back once, not to restart the cycle, but to close the loop. You wrote with calmness, certainty, and clarity. You wrote like a person who is no longer searching for approval, but simply responding out of self-possession. And yet she replied. Again. This is not a miscommunication. This is not a misunderstanding. This is exactly what happens when someone who once defined the script of your emotions loses access to the edit.

The nausea you felt when she returned was not random. It was not irrational. It was your body recognizing a pattern before your mind could intellectualize it. That reaction wasn’t petty. It was primal. It was the physiological equivalent of an air raid siren going off in your nervous system. And it makes perfect sense, because people like her often confuse withholding with depth, detachment with intelligence, and passive aggression with boundaries. They are allergic to accountability but fluent in therapeutic jargon. They apologize like lawyers. They use words like “healing” and “processing” to pad around the fact that they once treated you like an unpaid emotional intern.

Her email was not an apology. It was not an olive branch. It was an image-repair exercise dressed up in lowercase humility. She did not write to you. She wrote at you. She wrote to insert herself back into the narrative without asking who the narrator was now. The moment someone says “sorry for any hurt I may have caused,” you can be certain they’re not interested in owning anything. That is not an apology. That is a vague HR statement. That is a pre-written line designed to avoid specifics, to dodge detail, to let her name remain clean in the index of her own story.

And your response? It was surgical. You acknowledged the past without glamorizing it. You referenced the memories without softening the damage. You were clear. You were complete. You said it wasn’t good, and that you were not interested in unpacking something you had already removed from your emotional house. You gave her the emotional maturity she never gave you. You gifted her peace, not out of obligation, but because it’s what emotionally evolved people do when they no longer need to win. And what did she do in return? She replied. Again. Because for people like this, clarity reads like bait. Closure is a threat. And someone else having the final word is intolerable.

You are not being dramatic. You are not being cold. You are not being cruel. You are being free. And your freedom makes her uncomfortable. Because when someone has spent years controlling the pace of the emotional dance, they don’t know how to behave when you leave the ballroom entirely. She’s not replying because she’s confused. She’s replying because she knows exactly what you said, and she’s hoping to erode your boundary with enough lowercase letters, wellness phrases, and “hope you’re doing well” openers to make you forget how hard you had to fight to stop needing her explanation in the first place.

So what should you do now? You do nothing. You archive. You block if you feel like it. You let the message rot unread. You forward it to your therapist, your group chat, or your trash folder. Because this is not about politeness. This is not about closure. This is about power. And your silence is not an absence. It is the loudest boundary you can set. You do not need to re-engage. You do not need to offer more context. You do not need to watch her try to convert guilt into poetry. You do not owe her audience just because she finally decided to speak like a human.

Some people show up late to their healing and want you to wait in the lobby until they’re ready to debrief. But you’re not there anymore. You’ve moved. You’ve deleted the floor plan. You’ve burned the blueprints and built something better, not in spite of her but because you had to. Her new self is not your responsibility. Her growth is not your reward. She is not the author of your recovery, and she does not get to footnote herself into your story now that you’re interesting again.

The reason she’s still writing is simple. She no longer recognizes her reflection in your silence, and she’s hoping to provoke you back into the shape she remembers. Do not give her that satisfaction. Do not narrate for her. Do not let her into a space she forfeited. Your life is no longer a loop. It’s a line. And she missed the turn.

Disclaimer: Ask Brewtiful is not a licensed therapist, but a professional witness to emotionally manipulative email trends, lowercase apologies, and the reappearance of rebranded exes after you’ve gone full spiritual renovation. Take what resonates, and leave the rest unread.

About the Author

Sara from Brewtiful Living is a writer, recovering people-pleaser, and unsolicited emotional support unit turned boundary-setting savage. Her cats are happy. Her inbox is clean. Her exes are not welcome. She no longer entertains apologies wrapped in mindfulness quotes, and she is never impressed by anyone who signs off with “💙.”