When no contact isn’t working because exes come back way too late… Well, this is one of those reasons why the no contact rule rarely works for most guys, because to be honest, most of the time… Getting back with an ex-girlfriend is quite simple… Or at least, it should be quite simple. One of the things that men do wrong when trying to get back with an ex, or well, I guess women do the same thing… Is that they overcomplicate the entire process…
Now, I’m not talking about learning more about no contact, trying to understand the psychology of why it can actually work, the psychology of breakups, and so on. I talk a lot about these things in my book. I think understanding your own psychology and the psychology of an ex-girlfriend after a breakup is invaluable to learn to cope with a breakup. Complexity in that sense is really good.
But where things often go horribly wrong with no contact, is that far too many men, and women, try to overcomplicate what it should look like when you get back with an ex. Most of the time, when two people break up, for whatever reason, and if they sincerely love each other, they would get back together relatively quickly and probably fairly easily. Does that guarantee that it’s always the best idea or will lead to the best outcome? No, of course not. There’s actually been a study on so-called on/off relationships, where it just goes back and forth between relationship, breakup, relationship, breakup… Obviously, that is an awful type of cycle to be stuck in and it actually makes people miserable.
But assuming that your ex-girlfriend really loves you, you should expect that she will want to get back together with you after a short while. Maybe after a few weeks, or a few months… Maybe she’s been trying to see if the grass was greener on the other side, but she quickly noticed that it wasn’t. The bottom line here is that if she would really love you, and is able to get over her ego and get in touch with you, that would happen without too much friction.
That’s how you feel about wanting her back, right? If you’ve been thinking about doing no contact, or if you want to get back with her, then I’m sure you would take the first chance you could get to get back with her. I bet you would hardly even think about it, right?
And this is where the problem lies with the no contact rule when you do it wrong… The no contact rule should never be used to get back with an ex-girlfriend in the first place. It should be used so that you can get over all your breakup anxiety, so you can get your life back in order, feel happy again, and sure, in the process, sometimes that may facilitate getting back with an ex.
This kind of approach requires a strong mindset where you don’t chase your ex-girlfriend at all. And I consider doing no contact, even with only small intentions of getting back together, as a form of chasing. The moment that you are counting the days until you hear from her again, or when you overanalyze everything she’s saying, and so on, you’re already on that “wrong mindset” train, where all of it is just a calculated string of actions to get her back. You’re basically trapped in a cycle of trying to make this work. And this is a HORRIBLE way to approach no contact.
Trust me, I’ve seen this… It’s the majority approach that I’ve experienced in my time coaching men. So, why is that actually a horrible approach? I mean, if it sometimes works, why is it a bad idea to approach no contact with that mindset? Well, the problem is that very often, what happens is that you don’t get that fairytale scenario where your ex just misses you right away, and then messages you after 2 weeks. Often, she won’t even message you after months.
Of course, I’ve had all kinds of, frankly, unbelievable scenarios, sometimes where it was extremely understandable why an ex had no intention of getting in touch with her ex… Some of my clients really DID mess up big time, to the extent where you easily imagine how angry, furious or disappointed some of their exes were for months… So, look, not every breakup is the same, obviously, but in general, I would say the average breakup is just … kind of, in quotes, “normal”… Meaning… Two couples who fall out of love, or start to have a lot of fights and then, over time, things got worse and the whole relationship was just one big mess, until they eventually broke up, often with a lot of anger and resentment… And then, they went their own ways for a while. And of course, it would then be usually the guys, the men that I coached, who realized they wanted the relationship back…
The problem is, that with these normal type of breakups, very often, what happened was that their exes didn’t just come back very quickly, after a few weeks, or just a few months of remorse. Often, it took half a year, or even way longer, like 1-2 years before they would hear from an ex… So why is that bad? Well… Guess what that means? They only came back after they went through a bunch of other guys… Most likely, they enjoyed their time single, and after having had sex with a bunch of guys, now they realized “oh shit, I made a mistake, it’s not that easy to find a good guy… Let me get in touch with my ex, and see how he’s doing”…
Does this sound like the type of ex-girlfriend that you want back? No, of course not. The problem is, that when I put it rationally like this, it seems OBVIOUS that this type of ex-girlfriend really doesn’t deeply love you. At least, not any longer. It’s basically become a calculated move at this point. It’s regret, but it’s the bad type of regret.
It’s the most reasonable decision to get back together with a man, who overall, was always there for her and treated her good. Now she no longer cares about all the fighting… Sure, there’s lots of psychology why that is, and that stuff is great to learn about… But in reality, these psychological effects are only beneficial, if they have an impact on a good woman, on a good ex-girlfriend.
So, look guys, I would really want all of you to get back together with your ex-girlfriend if she’s a good woman. I obviously don’t know why you broke up, and whether it’s a good idea to get back together, but fundamentally, I believe in the good in people, and I’m a bit of an idealistic, romantic guy. I think most people don’t intentionally screw up their relationships, or get into a relationship with entitlement, or with the intent to hurt a man. I’m sure, most relationships are just built on real attraction, real feelings, and then, over time… Things just go wrong. It is what it is. And if a relationship like that can be saved, that’s worth saving. If a woman feels real remorse about losing you, then she’s probably a keeper. If you two can work through your differences, then you’re likely going to be in a relationship that can last for a lifetime.
But the truth is that very often, whether your ex is that type of woman or not, is something that you will know, or not know, very quickly after a breakup. Sometimes, that will become extremely apparent after just a few weeks, or months. So, this is of course, why the whole idea of doing no contact indefinitely, with the goal that soon she is going to reach out to you, is so harmful to your wellbeing… It just makes it worse.
Because, sure… I guarantee you, your ex is going to reach out to you… I think most exes will reach out to a man at least once, assuming that you weren’t a horrible boyfriend yourself. And to play devil’s advocate, an ex-girlfriend who doesn’t really care about you will reach out after, let’s say, 6 months, once she is starting to think that you’ve moved on…
So she’ll fish for some attention and validation, but most likely, you won’t even get anywhere with her. You’ll just get trapped in this hamster wheel, where occasionally, you’re going to hear from your ex-girlfriend. And maybe you will get back for a short while, or at least, have something casual, but you will always stay stuck in a state of confusion, where you’re thinking “just a little bit more” and I finally broke through the defenses that she put up.
And this is just the wrong idea about no contact. No contact, or getting back with an ex-girlfriend should be easy. Now, I’m not saying an ex-girlfriend won’t have her guard up after a breakup. Obviously, the breakup hurt, and she doesn’t want to get hurt again. But if she deeply loves you, she would understand that the only way to solve the problem, is to have a leap of faith and give the relationship another try. The reality is that with a good woman like this, you wouldn’t even need complicated psychological principles to make things work again. You would start talking, after a short while, you’d go out again, and in no time, you will end up at your or her place, make out, and you’re practically back together again. And then, hopefully, you will work things out and do things better this time around.
That’s the good breakup scenario. But the truth is, that you wouldn’t even need a no contact coach, or a course, or a book, if your ex-girlfriend would fall into this category… Unless you picked up that stuff really, really fast after the breakup, by the time you’d even heard about no contact, she would probably already be talking to you again. Unfortunately, these scenarios are rare. Based on my experience coaching men who had breakups, breakup advice for getting back with an ex-girlfriend primarily only makes sense for really complex breakup scenarios, with marriage, kids, canceled weddings, and so on.
I’m sure a lot of you guys who miss your ex-girlfriends, sorry to say it so bluntly, I don’t want to downplay the relationships you had and how important they felt to you… But they probably, in quotes, “only” were normal relationships that just haven’t gotten to that serious point yet. I’m sure you love your ex like crazy, but you should be careful whether you want to consider trying no contact for re-attracting your ex-girlfriend.
Always do no contact just so you can learn from the breakup, and become a better guy. Whether you messed up a lot or not, I’m sure you can learn a lot from the entire experience. At the very least, you can learn how to have a better relationship in the future.
There’s nothing more humiliating than clinging to false hope, and getting used like a toy by an ex-girlfriend who just doesn’t care about you. And believe me, I’ve seen many clients with situations like this in my coaching sessions. And I definitely didn’t lie to them or pretend to them that it was a good sign when they heard from their ex-girlfriends. Very often, I opened their eyes and made them realize that they’ve been looking at the entire process all wrong, and that they should have been spending more time on themselves and reflecting on what they could learn from the breakup…
And trust me guys, man, you cannot believe the depths of despair that I’ve seen in some guys, and then the contrast of how awful some of their exes were… It was just absolutely heartbreaking to see the contrast. And I was really proud of my work and helping those guys, to first and foremost, get over the pain, but most importantly, help them see the truth that they were in love with an awful woman, who didn’t really care about them.
So, long story short… I guess the idea here is like the concept of occam’s razor. If you’re not familiar with the idea, occam’s razor suggests that usually, when you have a situation and two possible reasons for why it’s happening, generally speaking, you can assume that the obvious answer is the correct one.
So, in the case of a breakup, or a no contact scenario, the two scenarios are… Why hasn’t she reached out to me yet? Is she just unsure about everything, and thinking what to do? Does she have her defenses up and she’s extremely confused about her feelings? Or, scenario number two, maybe the answer is much simpler: She’s enjoying her time being single. Or she’s not single at all. She’s probably dating a bunch of men, and while she may occasionally think about you, she probably only has an incentive to get in touch with you once she misses you more than she’s having fun with other men.
Occam’s razor would suggest the obvious answer: She just doesn’t care about you. She cares more about dating some random guys that she barely knows, rather than coming back to the man she spent maybe several years with. If you put it that way, it’s a really sad way of looking at the situation. It shows you how little she really cares about you. And this is why you should not do no contact for her, or to get her back. It has to be for you.
No contact can only fail, if you’re doing it as a way of holding onto hope that the two of you will get back together. If you do no contact to reflect on the relationship, the pain, the emptiness, how all of it makes you feel, and then you take action to reclaim your happiness, your confidence, to get back on top of your game, and even start dating again in the future, then you’re doing things right. So, anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this time, until we make contact again.
