You are looking at a phone that has not changed since you last looked, asking the thing I am asked more than anything else: will my ex come back? Some do. The ones who do left over something that could change, and came back when it did and when nothing newer had filled the space. The ones who left over who you are together rarely turn. What counts is what they do when nobody is making them.
In the readings I wrote this month the question came in as is he coming back, will she text, is it over, and under every one was the same thing: tell me whether to keep the door open. So here is how I look at it, what the cards tend to show for each kind of ending, and a three card spread for the nights you are too close to read it yourself.
Will my ex come back? What actually decides it
Three things decide it, and none of them is how much you miss them: whether the reason it ended could change at all, whether it has, and whether the space you left is still empty. When the three line up, people come back on their own time. When none do, no amount of waiting turns a locked door into a stuck one.
The reason. Reasons about circumstances can change: a city, a job, one fight that went too far, a year that broke everything it touched. Reasons about the two of you cannot. I do not feel it anymore and we want different lives are said calmly and said twice, and they do not move because the season did.
The change. Time passing is not a change. The job ending is. The drinking stopping and staying stopped is. A mother’s grip loosening is. If you cannot say in one sentence what is different now, nothing is, and you are hoping the calendar did work that only people do.
The space. A new person who has met their friends. A move to a city where nobody knows you. A life that has arranged itself without a gap in it. People come back to a gap. They do not come back to a full room.
Answer all three honestly and you usually know already. The rest of this is about trusting what you know, and checking it against something other than your hope.
Will my ex come back? Signs that count, in the order they come
The signs that count are the ones they choose when nothing forces them: contact in daylight, a question about your life, an apology for one specific thing, nobody new. They arrive in a rough order, small to large, and each is easy to miss if you are only waiting for the last one.
- A watched story, a like on something old. Usually inside the first few weeks of quiet. Deniable, and meant to be. It is them checking that the door is still there.
- Your name asked about through a friend. Not how is she. Is she seeing anyone. The second question has a reason behind it.
- A message about nothing, in daylight. A song, a dog, a place you both knew. The road being tested from their side. Answer it lightly or you will never see step four.
- A question about your life that they wait for the answer to. Curiosity is the first thing to go when someone has let you go. If it returns, something returned with it.
- The specific apology. I was wrong about the move. Not sorry for everything, which is a way of apologizing for nothing.
- A plan with a day in it. Coffee on Saturday is a return. We should catch up sometime is good manners.
One of these means they had a quiet evening. Three of them, across a month, mean they are walking toward you, and the thing to do is stand still and let them.
How to know if my ex misses me when they are saying nothing
Missing shows as movement before it shows as words, and the movement is at the edges: online at the hours you are, a mutual friend suddenly curious, your name in a story about something else. Silence with movement around it is one thing. Silence with nothing moving around it is another, and from your side of the screen they look the same for weeks.
Two silences, same screen. In one, they have let go and the quiet is the whole of it. In the other, they are drafting and deleting, and the quiet is the sound of someone not sending. You cannot tell them apart by staring at the thread. You can sometimes tell at the edges, and the edges are small: they stop posting the things they posted to be seen, or start. A friend who never mentioned them mentions them. A photo of a place the two of you went appears with no caption.
What does not count as them missing you is you dreaming about them. It is in the first line of half the messages that reach me: I dreamed about him last night, does that mean. It means your head was working at night, and I have written out what the common ones point at in dreaming about your ex.
The signs that fool you at midnight
Every sign that fools you has the same shape: it cost them nothing. A like, a story view, a birthday text, a profile picture you took. Real signs cost something, a message that could go unanswered, an apology that could be refused, a plan that could be turned down. Measure a sign by what it risked and most of the midnight ones fall away.
| What happened | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| They watched your story within a minute | Notifications. Theirs are on, that is all |
| A like on a photo from years ago | Scrolling, and a thumb that landed. Fond, maybe. Not a plan |
| A happy birthday text | Manners, which they have, which is part of why you miss them |
| They still use the profile picture you took | A good photo. People do not speak in profile pictures, however hard we read them |
| I still care about you | What people hand over when they will not hand over the rest |
| An angry message out of nowhere | A cord still attached, pulled from their end. Attention is not return |
| They stayed the night and left early | Comfort, taken. It opens a door, and not the one you want |
| A mutual friend says they seem sad | They are sad. Sad and coming back are different states |
The honest test is to imagine a friend describing the same thing about her ex. If you would not tell her to start hoping, do not tell yourself.
What the cards show for each kind of ending
For a pause, the cards lean toward you: the Six of Cups, the Two of Cups reversed, the Hanged Man waiting. For an ending they walk away: the Eight of Cups, the Ten of Swords, a Tower that has already fallen. For someone new, a court card you do not recognize sits in the middle of the spread. I write what lands, including the cards nobody wants.
The card I read hardest is the middle one, the one for what stands on the road between you, because it is the only one you can do anything about. These are the ones that land there most for exes, and what I write when they do.
- The Four of Cups. They are not looking at the door. That is different from the door being closed, and the difference matters: nothing is decided, and nothing is moving either.
- The Two of Swords. A choice not being made. Pride wearing a blindfold. This one turns, slowly, and only when the pressure is off.
- The Knight of Cups reversed. A message drafted and not sent. I see this one and I tell people to do nothing for a week, because the thing is already half written.
- The Hermit. They need the quiet for themselves. It is not about you, and it is not a no. It is a wait with no date on it.
- The Seven of Swords. Something is hidden, and in this position it is usually a person. I say so plainly, because you would rather hear it from me than find it on a feed.
- The Three of Cups beside a Queen or a King. Someone new, and they are happy. The hardest card to write and the one I will not soften.
The spreads I laid at my altar for exes this autumn had the Hanged Man in the middle more than any other card, and I wrote the same line each time: nothing is finished, and nothing will move while you keep pushing on it.
How to do a three card spread for will my ex come back
This is the spread I would give a friend for this exact question. It takes twenty minutes, and it works with any deck you know.
What you need
- A deck you know. The one you have shuffled before. A new deck answers like a stranger.
- A pen and a page. You write the question before and what you saw after.
- Twenty quiet minutes with the phone face down in another room.
- A candle if you like one. It is for the quiet, not for the cards.
1. Write the question so it has an answer
Not will he come back. That asks the cards to promise what a person will do, and no honest reading does that. Write it as three parts with their first name in it: Where does Sam stand with me tonight, what is on the road between us, and what moves first? A reading about him could fit anyone. A reading about Sam is about Sam.
2. Shuffle until you stop arguing with it
Shuffle for longer than feels necessary, until the question stops rephrasing itself in your head. Decide now whether you read reversed cards. Deciding after you have seen a card you do not like is how readings go dishonest.
3. Lay three cards: their side, the road, the first move
Left to right. The first is where they stand tonight, not where they stood the day it ended. The second is what sits on the road between you: the pride, the person, the fear, the thing nobody said. The third is what moves first if nothing changes, which is not the same as how it ends.
4. Read the road before you read their side
The first card usually confirms what you already feel, and people spend too long on it. The middle card has the information, because it is the only part you can do anything about. The third is a direction, not a verdict. A hopeful third card over a heavy middle card means the start would feel good and the same thing would end it.
5. Write it down and put the deck away
Write what you saw before you look anything up: a figure, a color, the first word that came. Then put the cards away and do not pull again tonight, or tomorrow. A second pull on the same question is shopping for a different answer, and the deck will sell you one.
How long does it take for an ex to come back?
There is no honest number, only a shape. Endings about circumstances tend to turn, if they turn, inside a couple of months once the quiet has had room to work. Pride takes longer. A new relationship has to run its course first. An ending about who you are together does not turn at all, however long you give it.
| Where things stand | What usually happens |
|---|---|
| Timing, distance, one fight | Movement inside a couple of months of real quiet |
| They ended it and would have to go back on themselves | Longer. They need a reason they can say out loud |
| Someone new, and early | Nothing until that runs its course, and then not always |
| They asked for space rather than an ending | Often fast once you actually give it. They had nothing to come back from |
| Who you are together | It does not turn. I would rather write that than let you wait |
What stretches every line in that table is pressure. Every just checking in, every I only want to understand, adds weeks, because it tells them the door is being leaned on from your side. The honest way to take the pressure off, without playing a game, is in how to make him miss you, and it works the same whoever the him is.
The mistakes that close a door that was open
- Asking them whether they are coming back. The question is the pressure. Nobody answers it honestly while it is being asked.
- Pulling cards every night. By the third night the deck is answering your mood, not your question, and you will believe the one you liked.
- Treating a one in the morning message as a decision. Theirs or yours. Nothing decided after midnight is decided.
- Getting the news second hand. Asking friends to report keeps you in their life as a rumour, and nobody comes back to a rumour.
- Casting before you know what the road looks like. A candle set against an ending burns badly and costs you a month. Find out what you have before you light anything for it.
When this is the wrong question
When you already know. If you found yourself in the midnight table more than in the list of signs, the question is no longer whether they will come back. It is what you do with a door that has closed, and that is a kinder question than it sounds, because it has an answer you can act on tonight.
If the door is closed and you want the pull out of you, a cord cutting does that without harming anyone and without shutting anything they might one day open. If the door is open and you want to act on it, the honest version of what to do is in how to get your ex back, and where the reason can be cleared, a reconciliation spell is the work for it. If the question underneath is really should I, that is a different guide, should I get back with my ex, and it is worth an evening before anything else gets one.
And if they asked you to stop contacting them, the answer is in the asking. I will not read it as an open question and I will not cast on it.
When I read it for you
You send one real question, the first names involved, and what you actually want to know. Birth dates and charts stay out of it, and the story is yours to tell or leave. Orders in before 6 pm ET are read and written the same day, and the reading comes to your email.
What comes back is each card in the order it landed, what it shows for your question, the parts I cannot place marked as such, and what to do this week. If the cards say they are not coming back, I write that they are not coming back, and then what they show instead, because that part is usually the useful one and almost nobody sends it.
- Standard runs about 900 words and answers the question you asked.
- In Depth runs about 2000 words and goes into the people around it, not only the one at the center. Choose this one when you have carried the situation for months and it has grown past a single question.
Reply with questions and I answer them. When nothing comes through, I say that too, in plain words.
Ask your question, or read about the reading first.
Paying someone to read it? Read how to tell a real spell caster from a scam and what spell casting costs first.
