I’m going to tell you something that might be hard to hear and even harder to accept. I’m not going to tell you how to get your ex back.

Instead, I’m going to tell you why men leave, and that you shouldn’t bother wasting your time and energy wondering why he broke up with you or trying to get him back.

Why did he break up with me?

The truth is, if he let you go, he simply did not love you.

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We need to stop confusing love with passion. We think having “animal magnetism” with someone equates to love, maybe even to being soulmates.

As women, we have a predisposition to connect that magnetism with love rather than lust. Lust is for one-night stands, not for the boyfriend who can’t stand to be away from you for more than a day and who can’t keep his hands off of you when he sees you, right?

Wrong.

I fell wickedly, insanely, and irrevocably head-over-heels in love with my ex-boyfriend. When he broke up with me, I broke down. I became the crazy ex-girlfriend I always thought I was incapable of being.

That is not who I am. I am the strong, independent type. Yet, there I was, acting like a foolish girl, hanging on his every text and making myself available in every possible way. Doing things for him when no one else would and still allowing him to treat me like complete and utter garbage.

I tried my damnedest to move on. Then, either he would contact me or I’d contact him, and we’d go through a spurt of a few weeks where we’d get along great. Then there would be an epic blowout and he would inevitably bring up old drama. We’d stop talking for a few weeks. You know the routine: Lather, rinse, repeat.

The cycle continued for longer than I care to admit, until one day he just disappeared after claiming to forgive me, and that he understood why I did some of the idiotic things I did post-breakup. We had been talking regularly again, and he just disappeared without a word.

Turns out, he even moved, apparently. When I finally did reach out, he stopped responding to my texts altogether.

Looking back, I’m grateful for the last bit. That is when I realized my mistake. He was never in love with me.

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Sure, he told me he was and maybe even believed that himself, but you don’t just bail on someone you really love. You stick around and try to work your problems out. You don’t put someone you love in a position to become the crazy, obsessive ex-girlfriend.

If he ever really felt any type of love for me, he wouldn't have put me through that. We would have worked things out like mature adults.

The reason he gave for breaking up with me was pathetic, and I’m not going to get into all of it.

The point is, he left because he didn’t love me.

Had he just admitted that, I would have given up trying to get him back a long time before I did, and we could have avoided all the unnecessary drama and dragging each other through the mud. That’s all I really needed to know.

As long as I thought he had feelings of love for me, I thought things could be fixed. Maybe if I just tried harder, things could go back to the way they were. We could be happy.

Once I knew he didn’t love me, I no longer wanted to be with him.

This is what you need to understand. the ex-boyfriend who broke things off with you isn’t "going through some stuff right now." He didn’t love you.

Repeat after me: "He didn’t love me." Let that be your mantra.

People don’t destroy what they love. I know it hurts to acknowledge that. It isn’t easy to accept.

It also doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you, or with him for that matter. It just means you are not right for each other. No matter how right it felt, if there’s no love, there’s nothing to fight for. Move on and find someone who does love you or get yourself a puppy. Trust me, a puppy will love you more than any man ever could.

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The problem is that we confuse love with passion.

Believe me, I get it. I had never felt the way I felt with him. The way he always kissed me like he was hungry for it, like it was the last time we were ever going to see each other. The way he rested his forehead on mine in between kisses. The way he couldn’t keep his hands off me. The way he said my name in bed.

He made me feel special — like I was the only girl in the world for him. Like he needed me with every fiber of his being. I became so wickedly obsessed. I was confusing his sense of passion with love. I thought it was solely for me, and his feelings brought the passion out in him.

The truth is, he probably kisses every girl the same way. It’s just who he is. He’s a passionate kisser. He is a passionate guy. Unfortunately, his passion never sparked any love for me. I now understand the reality and the clarity has helped me move on from the entire mess.

Many of us have the romantic notion we are supposed to have this passionate magnetic attraction for the person we are meant to be with. Love without passion is not real love, it’s not a “soul connection".

The fact is, real love may be boring at times, and it makes the love even more real.

Don’t spend your time trying to mend a broken relationship with an ex who cared so little for you they left you crying and broken. Don’t suffer a fool because you fear you will never find another connection. Instead, spend your time accepting you might not, and if you don't, it's okay. You will be fine without it.

You can be happy single, I promise. But you absolutely will never be happy if you’re being consumed by “what might have been” and worrying about what you could have done differently.

The answer is simple. You could not have done anything differently because he did not love you. I cannot say that enough.

If he still loved you, he would still be with you. He would not have walked away.

I’m sharing this in the hope it will prevent someone else from becoming the crazy ex-girlfriend and putting herself through months, or even years, of psychological torment. I hope you will do better for yourself. If he breaks up with you, accept the finality. If he texts you and wants to see you, do not respond to his texts. Do not engage him.

And for the love of all that is holy, do not text him, do not go to his apartment, do not look him up on Facebook, and do not, under any circumstances, cyber stalk him and/or the new girl he’s dating. Find another way or another person to fill your time.

You will thank me (and yourself) for it later.

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Carrie Budd is a writer with a passion for helping others. She finds great joy in empowering women to find the strength to forge ahead when all hope seems lost.