2 Weeks No Contact. Should I Give Up?

If you made it 2 weeks into no contact and you’re tempted to give up on it because it’s hard, you need to know that it’s going to get even harder when you break no contact and reach out.

Not only will breaking no contact push your ex to the other side of the planet, but it will also self-sabotage your healing and make you even hungrier for attention and affection. Right now, you’re hurt and don’t think you can crave your ex more than you already do, but trust me that you can.

You can crave your ex so much that you won’t be able to focus on work, talk to family, or spend time with your friends. If you contact your ex, all you’ll do is think about your ex 24/7, wonder if your ex is dating someone else already, and beat yourself up for not handling the breakup confidently.

This means that this isn’t the time to reach out and talk to your ex. If you do, you’ll make your ex feel so smothered that your ex will retaliate in self-defense and hurt you.

Your ex could:

• ignore you
• block you
• get angry with you
• pretend you were never a couple
• or tell you to show some respect and mind your own business

Your ex could do a lot of unpredictable things you never even knew your ex was capable of. So don’t give up 2 weeks into no contact. Don’t do it even if your ex said you’ll never get back together.

No contact is hard, but now’s the time to be strong and fight the temptation to reach out so your ex can see that you can handle the breakup strongly.

If you just react to pain and break no contact before your ex is ready to talk, I promise you that you’re going to put a lot of pressure on your ex. You’re going to back your ex into a corner, smother your ex, and trigger his or her self-protective emotions such as anger, contempt, and disgust.

And that’s what could ruin your ex’s perception of you and prevent him or her from getting back with you in the future.

So don’t risk trapping your ex and bringing a bad reaction out of your ex.

It’s much safer and better for you to persevere and push through the first few weeks of no contact. Breakup emotions usually get much less painful after 2 weeks into no contact. And that’s because your body goes through the main withdrawal and gets used to not seeing your ex every day.

Of course, pain doesn’t go away after just two weeks. But it does give you a break and make it possible for you to eat and sleep and perform your tasks.

In all honesty, every day should feel a tiny bit better. The key to pulling through a painful breakup is to be patient and to not judge your healing daily but rather weekly. If you look at your progress every day, you probably won’t notice any big improvements. Not unless you get through a setback day notice that you suddenly feel much better.

So if you made it 2 weeks into no contact and you want to give up because you’re having a bad day, don’t do it. Don’t destroy the progress you’ve made on yourself and the progress your ex has made on himself or herself.

Keep in mind that you both need to spend some time away from each other. You as a dumpee need space to deal with separation anxiety and grief and your dumper ex needs it to process post-breakup emotions such as suffocation, relief, resentment, etc.

Interrupting these two healing processes isn’t a very smart idea. Especially so early into no contact when you’re still detoxing from your ex and trying to make sense of what had gone wrong.

The purpose of this article is to deter you from giving up 2 weeks into no contact. We’ll talk about what breaking no contact will do to you and what effects it will have on your ex.

I made it to 2 weeks of no contact. Should I give up?

If you’re struggling to stay in no contact, I recommend that you start by following the 30-day no contact rule. This rule isn’t a long-term solution, but it will help you keep yourself together during the hardest days of no contact which are right after the breakup.

Once you’ve made it to 30 days, you might not even feel this compulsion to reach out to your ex anymore. You might be too happy to risk getting hurt again. That’s when you can extend the no contact rule indefinitely.

I suppose you’ll deal with this when it gets to that. But for now, you need to look for solutions on how not to break no contact.

What usually works for dumpees is becoming aware of the consequences of contacting their ex prematurely. Knowing what they can expect after reaching out often deters them from breaking the rules of no contact.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a little bit afraid of contacting an ex. A bit of fear is much better than contacting your ex and getting your hope for reconciliation obliterated by your ex.

That’s why I normally advise dumpees to talk to other dumpees so they can learn what breaking no contact is like. You should give it a try as well. You can join our Discord breakup community and talk to people who’ve made this breakup mistake.

I bet my bottom dollar that most of them will tell you to respect yourself as well as your ex and not to bother your ex. They’ll say that your ex isn’t worth the trouble and that you can’t win your ex over on your terms with politeness. Breakups aren’t that simple because dumpers aren’t waiting for their dumpees to contact them.

If anything, they’re praying not to hear from their exes so they can focus on themselves and enjoy their newfound freedom.

Perhaps that’s a bit harsh, but it’s the truth. Your ex is going through the stages of a breakup for the dumper and isn’t emotionally capable of hearing from you at this moment. He or she needs time. So much time that your ex forgets about you for a while and cools off.

Some dumpers reach the neutral stage a few weeks into no contact. But most dumpers take longer. It takes them months or even years of no contact before they finally process the breakup and find a reason to talk to their ex. When they’re to talk again really depends on their ability to process negative emotions and the things going on in their life.

Let’s now discuss what reaching out to your ex ahead of time (before your ex is ready) does to your ex.

The consequences of breaking no contact after 2 weeks

Unfortunately, 2 weeks of no contact is not enough for your ex to process the breakup and miss you. It’s barely enough for your ex to get a breath of fresh air, let alone to process all the negativity he or she had bottled up weeks or months before the breakup.

If you consider that dumpers need at least half a year to process their breakup emotions, that would mean that your ex is not even 8% through the breakup. He or she is still in the first stage of the breakup—and as a result, views you exactly how he or she viewed you 2 weeks ago.

The only thing that’s changed is how badly your ex needs to run away from you and get space.

Now your ex is finally free and can do what he or she wants. Your ex can even date other people. So imagine how your ex will feel if you reappear and get in the way of his or her relief.

I can tell you that your ex won’t like it. That’s probably an understatement because you don’t even need to say or do something to pressurize your ex into being with you. Your presence alone does that for you.

It subconsciously reminds your ex of the unhappiness he or she associated with you before, during, and after the breakup and brings out your ex’s negative emotions.

This means that reaching out is the worst thing you can do to your ex just two weeks after starting no contact. It’s like saying, “I don’t care that I repulse you. I want you to speak to me anyway.”

Whether your ex is a man or a woman doesn’t matter. Your ex will think you’re being uncaring about his or her demand for space and become even less eager to talk things out.

Anyway, here’s what will happen to your ex if you give up after 2 weeks of no contact and decide to communicate with your ex with the intention to make yourself feel better.

I know that you want your ex to ease your anxiety and make you feel desirable. But, unfortunately, your ex isn’t your go-to person anymore. Your ex is your ex, which means that he or she is much more likely to cause you pain than to encourage you to increase your self-esteem and heal your wounds.

This is especially true if your ex is immature and doesn’t know how to handle difficult emotions. In that case, your ex is not your savior but the worst person you can speak to and rely on for well-being.

How will breaking no contact affect you?

If you’re not too worried about the effects messaging or calling your ex after a couple of weeks will have on your ex, then perhaps you should know that contacting your ex will do bad things to YOU.

It will destroy the emotional work you’ve done on yourself over the past two weeks and make you go through painful withdrawal again. Not only that. Reaching out to your ex will also make it very hard for you to love yourself.

At the moment, your self-love is very dependent on your ex. It rises with your ex’s attention and lowers when your ex ignores you or talks to other people. The worse your ex treats you and the less he or she responds the way you want your ex to respond, the more hurt you get and the longer you stay hurt.

I encourage you to read a blog post about 7 dumpees breaking no contact. In that post, there are just 7 examples of anxious dumpees who make the mistake of reaching out to their ex. There are thousands of people every day who make the same mistake and suffer immensely.

Some reach out because they’re angry with their ex and some because they want their ex to adore them and make them feel better. Almost all dumpees, however, reach out because they don’t want their ex to “get away without trying,” so they appear desperate and end up getting even more hurt than before they reached out.

So if you’re thinking to yourself, “2 weeks of no contact have been hard, should I give up,” my advice is to distract yourself and get your ex off your mind. If you give in to pain and temptations, I guarantee that contact with your ex will be harder than no contact because even if your ex treats you nicely, you’ll constantly want more from your ex.

You’ll make yourself hungrier and hungrier for love and attention every day and show your ex that you need him or her to get on with your life.

This will, in turn, make you look weak, unattractive, and desperate and cause your ex to react to your desperation. Your ex may not get crazy angry at you, but your ex will nonetheless keep his or her distance and never give you enough of what you want.

In other words, your ex will unintentionally string you along by giving you the impression that it’s possible to go from friendship to a relationship. And this will go on until you learn to respect yourself and pull away.

With that said, here are 5 good reasons why you shouldn’t give up on no contact after 2 weeks.

If you think you have nothing to lose by reaching out to your ex, you’re mistaken. On top of the things I mentioned in the infographic above, you have your pride and self-esteem to lose as well as a chance to focus on yourself and figure out why the breakup happened and what you can do to make sure it won’t happen again if your ex comes back or if you date someone else.

This is a great opportunity for you to make some internal changes and grow. It’s best not to waste it by talking to your ex and neglecting the things you need to work on.

When is it okay to reach out to your ex after 2 weeks of no contact?

If you’re hurting over the loss of the relationship, that is unfortunately not a very good reason to reach out to your ex. It may seem like it is because your ex was there for you before, but now that your ex has become your ex, he or she is no longer your confidant.

If your ex wanted to help you, your ex would have reached out by now. He or she would have told you to message him or her if you’re struggling to cope with anxiety and keep checking up on you.

But because your ex didn’t do that and is completely silent, you must know that no communication is communication too. It means that your ex wants you to respect his/her wish for space and privacy and stay in no contact.

Rest assured that your ex isn’t doing no contact simultaneously with you. Your ex is the dumper which implies that your ex feels dumper emotions and needs time to recover from the breakup.

By recover, I mean that your ex must get the space that he or she has been meaning to get from you for a very long time now. Probably from before you even knew your ex wanted to break up.

So to answer the question “When is it okay to reach out to your ex after not speaking to your ex for 2 or 3 weeks,” the answer is never. Never unless you need to talk to your ex about something that concerns both of you.

That something could be kids, mortgage, and various responsibilities.

If it’s about anything else, such as your or your ex’s belongings, you can ask your or your ex’s friends and family to take care of unfinished business for you. There’s just no need for you to ruin your health and well-being and risk pushing your ex away for something that can wait or something that your friends can take care of.

You’ve got to put your emotional health first. Remember that whenever you start to doubt no contact and feel tempted to reach out.

Has it been 2 weeks of no contact and you’re thinking of giving up? Post your reasons for wanting to quit below and other readers might give you some good advice that will dissuade you from contacting your ex.

Or if you’d like to share your story with us privately, go to our coaching page to get in touch with us.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.