The journey to get your ex back is one that is filled with lots of emotional roller coasters. When your ex is responding well, you will feel good. But when your ex is not responding, or have stopped responding, then it can get really emotionally trying.
What's worse are the negative thoughts that can get into our mind making us even more emotional.
For example if your ex were to stop responding all of a sudden, your mind can start to come up with negative thoughts to make you feel depressed, upset, anxious, and panicky.
Thoughts like, "did I say something wrong?", or "has my ex found someone else?", or any other thoughts to make you feel very negative can plague the mind and make you become even more desperate and needy.
And when becoming needy and desperate, it will let you feel even more likely to say and do things to push your ex further away.
So getting your ex back is a very emotional journey to undertake. And it's very important to be really prepared if you want to get your ex back.
Therefore I have detailed the six steps you must take in order to rekindle your relationship with your ex again.
Step 1: Identify Cause of Break up
The very first and most important step is to first identify the cause of the break up. There is no point getting back with your ex when you don't exactly know why your ex left you in the first place.
When you have a better understanding of why your ex left you, then you will be able to know what your ex is thinking.
To identify the cause of your break up, you need to ask yourself a few questions like:
- What were the events that led up to the break up?
- What is the reason your ex gave for the break up?
- In your own opinion why did your ex break up with you?
- What were some of the concerns your ex had raised in the relationship?
- What did your ex dislike about you in the relationship?
- Was your relationship very loving towards the end, or was it already somewhat rocky?
- Was there any particular incident that made your ex first change their attitude towards you?
Write down your answer in detail to each of these questions.
When you really answer these questions, you will be able to have a real understanding as to what was the real cause of the break up.
Step 2: Identify Fear of Ex
So once you've written down the answers to the question in step 1, you want to analyse the answers and really understand the fear of your ex.
As an example, here is an example from on of my clients:
"Too much bickering/arguments over small things, her becoming busier, I was needy and wanted more time alone with her, some jealousy of her boss because he said inappropriate things to her. I was also unemployed for 9 months and started becoming financially dependent during the last month. I always spent time with her (basically every day) and she didn't have space and Time wise, she became busier because of she was promoted at work to department head, her new semester started again for her Master's program, and she was accepted to a university that was 5 hours away where she had applied to back in January and said it was a better program, which she is currently planning to go to (all of which I am very happy and proud of her for)." I didn't try to build my other relationship other than hers.
So from here we can analyse a few points here:
1) My client had started to have more arguments with his ex. Arguments are a normal part of a relationship. Every relationship will bound to have conflicts sooner or later.
However, when the arguments and conflict becomes to frequent, it becomes a problem. Also, if the conflict isn't resolved but rather swept under the rug, then it can cause further problems again in the future.
It's like a disease or virus in your body that you do not take medicine to kill it, but rather let it grow until it becomes so big. And by that time it would be too difficult to battle the disease.
Therefore it's always very important to resolve the conflict and come up with a win-win solution at that point of time so it doesn't come back and plague the relationship again.
2) Next, because he was unemployed, he started to become financially dependent on his ex. Most women always feel that men should at least be the one to be financially stable. Because of this, his ex could feel uncertain about their future.
3) Another important point to note is that he started to become needy and clingy towards his ex. Becoming needy and clingy is never a good trait, especially for a man.
So all these points let us conclude that he has changed from how he was like in the beginning. And this has caused his ex to have a change of perception in him.
Therefore his ex's ultimate fear is that if she gets back with him again, things will be the same again. And these things link pain in his ex towards him.
So if he wants to get her back, he must first rectify these changes in him to let his ex believe that he will no longer be the same.
Simply put, he has to start showing he is serious about the future of the relationship with his ex by getting a job to ensure financial stability. And also change his behaviour to not be needy and clingy, and avoid any arguments with his ex.
Step 3: Plan The Outreach
Now that you are aware of the reasons why your ex have broken up with you as well as the fears your ex has towards the relationship, you can start to plan the outreach.
Planning the outreach largely depends on how the current situation is like with your ex. Do you already have communication with your ex, or do you no longer her communication because you are blocked, or because your ex is with someone new?
Was the last contact with your ex left on a positive or negative note?
All these will factor into how you will reach out to your ex.
So in general, if the last contact with your ex was a positive one, then chances are that your ex will respond to you when you reach out.
But if the last contact with your ex was a negative one, then chances are that your ex will not respond.
In both cases, the strategy is to not let your ex feel you still want your ex. But rather you are approaching from the point of just being friendly, and nothing about the relationship.
This is important because of the current perception of your ex towards you.
If your ex still thinks you want them back, then it's going to let your ex be resistant towards you.
So you will have to approach in a way where you are letting your ex feel you no longer want them back, but instead just want to have friendly communication.
The idea is this - you first must establish good communication with your ex. This is because good communication promotes positive feelings in your ex towards you. And positive feelings promote attraction towards you.
So you cannot expect your ex to immediately be attracted to you if you do not have good communication with your ex yet. It's expecting a seed to bear fruits when you have yet to nurture it's growth with water and nutrients over time.
In the same way, you must first nurture the feelings of your ex towards you before any attraction can take place.
Step 4: Contrast Behaviour & Link Pleasure To Your Ex
When you get in contact with your ex, you want to be very strategic in your approach. You have to bear in mind the reasons your ex broke up with you in the first place, and the fear your ex has towards you.
So if your ex's fear is that you will always argue, then you need to show through your conversation that you can get along well with your ex.
This is important because right now your ex has a certain expectation of you.
For example, I have a client who always picks a fight with her ex when they were together. She would get emotional and upset whenever things don't go her way, and her ex is very weary of that behaviour of hers.
I told her that when when she gets in contact with her ex, she must contrast her behaviour compared to how she would react in the past.
So if usually she would get upset and emotional, instead she need to show she is fine and in fact perfectly fine with it.
With that in mind, I helped her reach out to her ex. She did exactly as I had suggested and she got back to me saying this:
"He was surprised and asked me that "what is going with you. Why are you so happy now. Why do you laugh so much now? Did you find someone good. you didn't have good luck to find someone in the past. What happened to you?" He was insisting me to tell him whether I found someone or not. He said "I want to know now. Is this the reason of your happiness that you found someone good. When proper time will come? Will it come tomorrow or or in one month ." He was so desperate to know that.Next morning we entered in the office same time. He smiled and came to me to talk to me. I also smiled and talked to him nicely. He asked which day I want to go for the lunch today or tomorrow. His behaviour has change drastically after I did what you suggested! "
Because my client had contrasted her behaviour compared to what her ex has expected of her, her ex is now initiating contact to her frequently, and has started to become more interested.
You too want to let your ex feel a difference in your behaviour to what your ex expects. And that can help your ex feel differently towards you as well.
As a general guideline, you want to observe the following points when you have contact with your ex:
1) Let your ex feel good about himself/herself when talking to you (i.e. encourage, motivate, compliment, say positive things).
2) Compliment and validate your ex whenever you have the chance in the conversation.
3) Do NOT argue or get into a quarrel.
4) Let your ex view you as very positive. People love happy people.
5) Keep the conversation light and fun always
6) Be very polite and friendly
7) Absolutely NO serious talks about the relationship and whatsoever.
Last but not least, the most important part of the strategy is to be consistent in your behaviour.
When you first show a difference in your behaviour, your ex will naturally be sceptical. This is especially so when the contrast in your behaviour is huge. Or that you had actually promised to change many times before, but then end up being the same way again.
Therefore being consistent is the most important key to getting your ex back. This is because you want your ex to really feel the change in you is permanent, and not just because you want your ex back.
In the back of your ex's mind, your ex will constantly be wondering if this change is for real, or you are just putting up an act.
So you need to have a real change in you. And only from this way can your ex truly believe you have changed. And only when your ex believes you have truly changed, then will your ex consider being with you again.
Remember, your ex got together with you in the beginning because you already have the qualities and traits that he / she is attracted to. Therefore you need to go back to the you your ex first fell in love with in the first place in order to let your ex be attracted to you again.
Are you feeling helpless and lost right now? If so, take this 2-minute quiz below to find out if it's too late to get your ex back in your situation.