There is nothing better than a peaceful morning, where you are sipping your morning coffee, laughing at a meme, or even texting someone new. This is mostly my daily routine (call me addicted to caffeine, idc). So, that day as well, I was continuing with my routine. Something happened, and that was something I was least expecting. And then I saw this message – “Hey. Been thinking about you.” It’s from him. The man who once held my heart with both hands, only to carelessly drop it like it was glass. He left. And now, he’s back.
For a long time, I used to wonder why men return after walking away — sometimes abruptly, sometimes after exhausting silences, and sometimes after long years. In the initial days of the end of our relationship, I blamed myself. Maybe I didn’t fight hard enough. Maybe I didn’t love him in the right way. Maybe I was too much, or not enough. But over the years — through conversations with friends, heartbreaks, healing, and a fair amount of feminist reading — I’ve come to understand something deeply unsettling: they don’t come back because they suddenly love you more. They come back because you’re no longer theirs.
The Comeback Pattern
So, I looked into it and learnt that there’s a pattern here. A jigsaw puzzle, many women know too well. At first, a man enters your life, showers you with love and attention, he makes promises — both explicit and implied — then exits. He exits when the emotional weight becomes inconvenient, when vulnerability scares him, or simply when he gets bored.
You grieve. You grow. You move on. And just when you finally reach your peace, he pops up like ads on websites (as much as you try to remove them, they come again).
Well, this isn’t romance, and it’s not fate. It’s not “meant to be.” It’s ego. It’s an entitlement– many men possess. They have this assumption that they can walk in and out of your life, as if you’re holding a revolving door.
The Emotional Power Play
As far as our knowledge goes, we know that we live in a patriarchal society. A society where men are hardly taught about handling emotions, and women are surely taught to nurture and love. When women enter any relationship, they have this idea that they can ‘Fix him’. In this process of fixing men, women love, reflect, and men mostly deflect and withdraw. This is one of the biggest reasons many men leave when the question of intimacy becomes real (intimacy in the bedroom isn’t included).
Kanchan, 23, says, “My boyfriend is a great guy. He is a great listener, but when it comes to problems in his personal life, he avoids talking about it. He says, “Mera kaam h, mai apne aap handle kar lunga.” It seems as if he is scared of showing me his scared side, and this also brings up doubts in my mind that he is hiding pain.
Vulnerability is something men avoid, to avoid it completely, they leave. It is something men are scared of showing. So, when your questions about his life, or his problems become more, or when you need to talk about your relationship, he leaves, not only leaves, he runs as quickly as he can.
So, what happens when he comes back? He thinks his comeback is a power move (in his mind), even when it doesn’t look like one.
When a man comes into your life, he doesn’t need to scream or manipulate to reassert power. Sometimes, all it takes is a casual “Hey, how have you been?” sent into your inbox after months of ghosting. It’s a test. Are you still there? Still emotionally available? Still holding space for him?
He left you when you were fragile. Now he’s testing if you’re still soft.
It’s Not Love. It’s Possession.
We often mistake returning for redemption. We think that if he comes back, it must mean he’s changed or maybe he regrets it. Maybe he understood your worth in his life, but that’s not the reality.
What he really regrets is losing access to the version of you who gave without boundaries. The woman who forgave easily or the one who waited (always).
What hurts many men — what propels the return — is not the idea of losing you, but the idea of someone else finding you after you’ve become whole.
It’s not about love. It’s about possession. Imagine yourself being nostalgic about an old house, a house you never bothered to care about – but still you feel nostalgic about it. The same way men feel drawn back to the women they left, not because they’re ready to nurture the previous connection, but because they want to see if the door is still open.
Upbringing and Emotional Safety Nets
In India, the way men and women are raised is totally different. Their upbringing is the reason men are rarely expected to grow emotionally in the way women are. Mostly women are the ones who have to carry the bulk of emotional labour in any relationship, which includes explaining feelings, resolving conflicts, making peace.
So when men exit relationships, they don’t always deal with the emotional aftermath. They dive into distractions, sometimes into new relationships, until your absence begins to feel. And when they feel lonely, not accountable, just lonely, they try to reach you. And they often reach back to the women they know will answer.
I once had an ex-boyfriend come back into my life six months after he’d left without explanation. In his mind, we had simply “grown distant.” In mine, he had abandoned me. When I asked him why he thought it was okay to return, he replied, “I always felt safe with you.” Safe – that word stayed with me. I was his emotional safety net, he could easily fall back on me when the world felt heavy. But I was never allowed to fall on myself.
This is the script of many relationships — women becoming emotional caregivers even after the relationship ends.
Why We Let Them Return
There’s a deeper question at play here: Why do so many of us consider letting them back in?
Sometimes it’s hope, nostalgia, and sometimes, it’s because we want closure, and when he returns, we think we’ll get the answers we never received. But here’s the hard truth: most men who return don’t come with explanations. They come with half-hearted apologies, sweet nothings, and vague declarations. They rarely come with growth.
And even if they do — even if time has changed them — you ask yourself: Are you the same person who once accepted breadcrumbs? Because if you’re not, why go back to a table that once left you starving?
The Myth: A Reformed Man
A reformed man is a deeply romanticized idea — reinforced by movies, books, and pop culture — that men who return have somehow become better. Love just needs time. Now, he’s ready.
And sure, maybe sometimes that’s true. People can grow. Life can humble even the most emotionally unavailable people. But more often than not, men return to find that nothing has changed — that the woman is still there, still waiting.
When they find that she isn’t, that she has stitched herself back together, that she’s fallen in love with her solitude, or worse, with someone else — that’s when the panic sets in. That’s when the long calls come, the dramatic confessions, the what-ifs. These ‘what-ifs’ really kill a man.
Not because they’re ready. But because they hate being replaced.
Moving On Is the Real Power
I’ve come to believe that closure isn’t something someone gives you. It’s something you give to yourself. You create it in a way, when you stop checking your phone. In the way you stop defending yourself to people who hurt you. In the way you refuse to engage with someone who walked away and thought they could stroll back in when it suited them.
Moving on isn’t easy. It’s lonely. It’s painful. It’s unfair. But it’s also powerful.
Because when he comes back — and he probably will — what matters most is not what he says. It’s what you choose to do with your own peace.
What We Owe Ourselves
We don’t owe people a second chance just because they finally see our worth. That realization came too late. You are not a museum exhibit of your former self. You are a living, growing and healing human-being. And you don’t need to shrink back to the version of yourself that once waited for him.
Remind Yourself: Let him come back. Let him knock.
But you? You’re not home anymore. You’re out living a life he no longer fits into.
To every woman who has experienced this cycle — his sudden exit and equally sudden return — you’re not alone. But you are allowed to break the pattern. You are allowed to choose yourself over the history you once shared. Sometimes, the easiest and the most radical thing women can do is not to open the door.
