Avoiding The Law of Familiarity Trap (And How To Get Your Ex Back)

Think back to your relationship when you were still with your ex. Did you feel as though that as weeks, month and even years pass by in your relationship, you no longer start to show the kind of love or attention to your ex, or your ex no longer show their affection to you?

If you experienced that, then that is what I call the Law of Familiarity, and is one of the biggest causes of relationships failing.

So what is the Law of Familiarity?

The Law of Familiarity in a relationship implies that if you are around someone long enough, you start to get so used to them that you start to take them for granted. That means that things they do suddenly no longer become good enough for you, and you think that it should be the "norm", when at the start of the relationship, you felt so privileged when that very same action of spoken word was carried out.

So how do you know if you had fallen into the trap of the Law of Familiarity?

Here are a ten signs that you and your ex had fallen in to the trap of the Law of Familiarity:

1. You no longer are as passionate about your relationship as you were at the start of the relationship
2. You no longer look at your ex the way you did compared to the start of the relationship
3. You are not as excited to see your ex each time
4. You no longer appreciate your ex's good points but only point out your ex's bad points
5. You start to feel annoyed or irritated at some of the things your ex did
6. You stop saying "I love you" to your ex as often as you did
7. You feel as though your ex should be better than how are they are
8. You start to nag and easily get mad at your ex
9. You easily feel annoyed by some of the things your ex did when at the start you would like it
10. You basically have held back your love for your ex rather than showing 100% of your love all the time when you were still with your ex

These are just ten signs that you have fallen in to the Law of Familiarity in your relationship when you were with your ex, but there are more.

If you really think about it, the Law of Familiarity is the beginning of what leads to your break up towards the end. This is where the biggest problems start to stem from in your relationship.

If you hadn't fallen trap into the Law of Familiarity, you wouldn't be in this situation with your ex right now.

When you understand this, it will help you get your ex back easier because when you have identified the cause, you are able to understand why your ex really broke up with you.

So here's something that you need to really understand about your relationship if you want to get back with your ex - the reason your ex broke up with you in the first place is because of some underlying feeling he / she has towards you.

And most likely this underlying feelings which your ex has towards you is a negative one. So you want to identify how it go to that point in the first place.

So let's really back track a little so you can really understand how you get your ex back.

Understand What Caused Your Relationship To Go South

Think back to a point when things really went south in your relationship. Think back to any particular incident that really caused your ex to change his / her attitude towards you. What caused it?

So for example, I have a client whose ex started to change his attitude towards my client when she started to nag at him.

In the relationship, she would constantly get angry, mad and start to blame her ex. Without realising, she had fell into the trap of the Law of Familiarity.

She had started to take her ex for granted and made her ex feel unappreciated and unloved. It's not that my client did not love her ex. She loved him but for some reason, stopped showing her love and affection to her ex.

And when her ex finally broke up with her, she could not understand why or even believe that this would happen.

But anybody from a third party perspective would easily be able to see that such a relationship could not last because she had been constantly nagging, getting mad and every interaction was basically negative.

You see, each of us has an imaginary cup in us that just collects water, regardless if it's dirty water or clean water.

Each time you say anything negative or let your ex feel negative towards you, you are essentially pouring dirty water into your ex's cup.

Each time you say anything positive or let your ex feel positive towards you, you are essentially pouring clean water into your ex's cup.

However here's the thing about dirty water, it pollutes clean water. So imagine if you have half cup of clean water in your cup but you put a little bit of dirty water into the cup, it will pollute and dirty the clean water.

So the point where your ex had enough and decides to break up with you, that's when his / her cup is overflowed with the dirty water.

So it's extremely important to understand whether you are pouring dirty water or clean water into your ex's cup.

How To Get Your Ex Back

So if filling the cup full of dirty water will get your ex to leave you, then the reverse is true as well where filling the cup full of clean water will get your ex back.

This is a very important concept to understand because if you do not consciously do this, you will not be able to get your ex back.

So how do you fill your ex's cup with clean water to the point where he / she will want you back?

It's simple - you want to let your ex feel good towards you constantly from here on for a sustained period of time.

Now, there are typically 4 main categories of clients that I have and you will most likely be in one of them:

1. You have contact with your ex and are still on talking terms, and your ex is still single
2. You do not have contact with your ex and your ex might be either ignoring you or have blocked you
3. Your ex has someone new already
4. A combination of the above, so for example you are blocked and your ex has someone new, or your ex has someone new but you are still on talking terms with your ex

So the strategy remains the SAME regardless which category you fall in, but the tactics can be different.

For example the strategy is to let your ex link pleasure towards you again. This is a universal principle that will get your ex to want you back again. if you can get your ex to link pleasure to you, and to feel good and positive each time they have interaction with you, he / she will eventually feel attracted to you again and want you back.

Don't forget that you had already once attracted your ex to the point that your ex was in a relationship with you. That means you already have the characteristics and traits that made your ex want you. You just need to accentuate this again in you.

As for tactics, the way to do this can be very different depending on which category you are in. This can come in the form of sending messages to build rapport with your ex, or it can come in the form of writing a letter to first briefly apologise for the past so you can re-establish communication.

So do not mix up strategy and tactics. Tactics always change depending on your situation, but the strategy remains the same.

So if you are able to carry out the strategy, regardless the situation you are in, then you can be able to get your ex back.

Apply The Strategy To Your Situation

What you need to understand is that every situation is unique and different. That is why many clients take up my Coaching Program because I give them a customised plan of action based on their unique situation to get their ex back.

So the first thing you need to understand about your situation is how did things go wrong in the first place.

What is the first sign that showed a change of attitude in your ex towards you?

Did you two fight often?

Did you your ex started to grow distant and eventually pull away?

Was there someone else that came into the picture and your ex became more interested in that person?

Did your ex suddenly lose interest towards you because there was no longer fun or excitement in your relationship

Were you always very negative in the relationship and always causing drama making the relationship feel very negative to be in?

Did you show little commitment in the relationship towards your ex and that made your ex feel unsure of his / her feelings towards you?

Were you very controlling, needy and depressed in the relationship when you were with your ex?

These are some of the different situations that could have happened in your relationship and understand that will let you know why your ex is acting the way he / she is right now and then you want to approach your ex in a contrasting manner.

Contrast Your Behaviour

So let's assume you have already resumed communication with your ex. What's important during this whole time is to really contrast your behaviour compared to how you were towards the end of the relationship that made your ex want to break up with you in the first place.

For example if you were always needy and desperate for your ex's attention back then, you need to show the opposite by showing you are calm and patient.

So if previously you were always asking about your ex's whereabouts or concerned who your ex might be hanging out with, you now contrast that by not even asking your ex about those questions but instead be topic specific around something else that your ex is interested and passionate about.

If your ex is interested in rock climbing, you want to get into this topic with your ex and then angle it in a way where you are actually asking your ex for advice in this area. When you do this, you pull away from the old image of showing neediness and desperation.

Also you want to "space" your messages apart. What this means is that you want to message your ex only once every two to three days. When you do this, it lets your ex sense that you aren't desperately wanting to hear from him / her. And lets your ex has a different perception of you.

And you also want to really let your ex feel you aren't pressurising him / her for a reply. If your ex doesn't reply immediately after you send your message, do not panic. It can take a couple of days for your ex to reply if he / she is busy.

As long as you do not make the mistake of messaging your ex again to pressure them to reply, it will gradually let your ex sense a difference in you over time and this is very important to helping you get your ex back to you again.

So the goal here is to really let your ex have a different feeling of you. You want that feeling to be a positive one. After all, if you really think about it, a relationship is all about feelings. You do not rationalise to be with someone. You have a feeling towards them.

And this feeling has to be positive as that will get your ex to want to be with you again eventually. So if you can re-create the kind of feeling that your ex has gotten from you when he / she first got together with you, it will get him / her to more likely want to be with you again.