I Want To Get My Ex Back: What Strategy To Use?

If you want to get your ex back, you’ll have to shift your focus from ‘getting your ex back’ to creating an atmosphere where your ex chooses to return to you. You’ll basically have to stop believing you can manipulate your ex’s thoughts and feelings and instead, focus on things within your power to control.

Things like self-improvement, self-love, acceptance, and happiness. Such things will make you look attractive whereas denial and desperation will put your ex off and make it harder if not impossible for your ex to see your worth and come back.

Due to high separation anxiety and conflicting information on the internet, most dumpees think they must say or do something to impress their ex and be with their ex. They don’t understand that their ex left because he or she associated negative feelings and beliefs with them—and that these feelings and beliefs won’t go away with persistence alone.

They’ll go away when the dumper has an epiphany and realizes that his or her perception of the relationship is wrong and bad for his or her health and well-being.

There are numerous ex-back strategies on the internet. Most strategies suggest contacting the dumper after giving him or her a few weeks to think about the breakup. Unfortunately, the dumper doesn’t need to think about anything. His or her decision to leave won’t change just because some time has passed since the breakup.

Only dumpers who break up for power and control return to their ex after abandoning the relationship. Unlike detached dumpers, they don’t need their ex to break no contact and beg for another chance. When they realize their ex isn’t chasing them (usually a few days after the breakup), they get scared and reach out to secure a place in the relationship.

We call such breakups fakeups as they’re not real breakups. They’re strategic separations dumpers initiate to scare/force their dumpee to think and act like them.

In actual breakups, tricks don’t work because the dumper enjoys the space he or she receives from the dumpee. Initially, the dumper appreciates the dumpee backing off and letting the broken relationship be. He or she loves the newfound freedom and time on his or her hands. The breakup feels liberating, hence getting back together is out of the question.

If you don’t want to make things worse, you have to let your ex feel relieved, happy, or even in love if your ex is dating someone else already. You mustn’t interfere with your ex’s post-breakup freedom and feelings. The moment you do, your ex will have even more control over the breakup and might say or do something to hurt you.

You can probably imagine hundreds of ways in which your ex could crush your fragile heart and make you regret trying to change the outcome of the relationship. It may be best not to actualize them.

So no matter how hurt you are and how badly you want your ex to come back, remember that you won’t change anything by force (by reasoning, crying, threatening, and begging). You’ve probably already tried some of these approaches and it didn’t work. Your ex quickly verbally or non-verbally reiterated that you’re staying broken up and that you need to respect his or her decisions and feelings.

Your ex knows what he or she wants and doesn’t want. Your ex doesn’t expect you to persuade him or her into thinking and feeling differently. If your ex wanted you to do that, your ex would have talked to you and asked you to give him or her reasons to stay and work on the relationship.

Since your ex isn’t doing that, you must pay close attention to your ex’s actions and inactions. They’ll tell you whether your ex is happy with the communication or the lack of it. For example, if your ex is okay with friendship or not speaking with you, your ex will keep interactions as they are and expect you to do the same.

Nothing will change because your ex feels comfortable and wants to continue feeling that way.

So if you want to get your ex back after getting dumped, bear in mind that there are approaches that work and approaches that don’t. Approaches that work revolve around respecting your ex and giving your ex time to process the breakup and get in trouble. Conversely, approaches that don’t work involve forced actions that take control of the breakup and irritate the dumper.

It’s extremely unlikely that reaching out to your ex, acknowledging your mistakes, and apologizing will do the job you want it to. To an ex who lost feelings, these actions won’t mean much. He or she may appreciate your admission of guilt (that you were the problem), but other than that, your ex won’t regain respect and romantic cravings.

If anything, your ex will feel even more victimized and lose the drive to improve his or her negative thoughts and behaviors.

Dumpers improve when they know they have things to work on and fear the consequences of remaining as they are. They don’t grow and regain commitment when their ex chases them and says he or she regrets ruining the relationship.

So forget about lowering your pride and winning your ex back with honesty and self-pity. Forget about all approaches that involve reaching out on your terms and persuading your ex to give you another chance. Whenever you feel tempted to put yourself in a beggar situation, remember that dumpers dislike desperation and anything that forces them to invest time and feelings in their ex.

They want to live life on their terms and continue to move forward without distractions.

In today’s post, we discuss various ex-back strategies and help you choose the best one.

What ex-back strategies are there?

The most common, yet one of the worst ex-back strategies is the 30-day no contact rule. This rule prohibits you from contacting your ex for 30 days straight. Once the 30 days are up, you’re free to contact your ex and talk about things you want to talk about. Some coaches suggest bringing up positive moments from the past and trying to make your ex nostalgic.

Nostalgia can aid in reattracting an ex when the dumper feels remorseful, but nostalgia alone tends not to be enough. It doesn’t make the dumper regret leaving because two major components remain missing; regret and romantic feelings. Without love and cravings for validation, you can take your ex down memory lane and your ex still won’t feel the need to reconnect with you.

Your ex will likely pick up on what you’re doing and feel overwhelmed. And when your ex feels overwhelmed, chances are your ex will run for the hills. The reason the 30-day no contact rule doesn’t work is that the dumper doesn’t process the breakup that quickly. Just like you don’t get over the breakup in 30 days, your ex doesn’t deal with negative emotions and become nostalgic or nostalgic enough to want you back.

If you’re lucky, he or she will just get curious about your new life, breadcrumb you, or ask others about you.

If you’re following different breakup coaches, remember that the worse a breakup coach is, the shorter the no contact rule he or she will advocate. I won’t mention any names, but you can tell someone is trying to take advantage of your broken heart and desperation for love and validation when he or she suggests a limited no contact rule that typically lasts between 5 – 30 days.

A short (limited) no contact rule won’t fix the reasons behind the breakup because the dumper has emotionally checked out and can’t fall back in love with a little bit of space. The dumper needs to get in a pickle first and see that the path he or she has chosen is unfulfilling and unlikely to bring positive results.

This realization can cause the dumper to think about the past and the bad decisions that got him or her into a sticky situation.

You may have heard of other, more direct ex-back strategies such as “texts to get your ex back, paragraphs to reconcile with your ex, or ex-back letters.” Some of these strategies are done in combination with no contact, but most of them entail some pre-conceived plan to communicate with your ex and entice your ex to be with you.

You probably already know that your ex is a human being, not a machine that can be reprogrammed with some generic pieces of advice. Your ex has certain hard-wired beliefs and perceptions of you that can only be changed with his or her will alone.

Hence, following advice from someone who doesn’t know how your ex thinks, feels, and processes emotions is extremely dangerous and unlikely to work. If that person tells you to contact your ex affectionately after a couple of weeks while your ex is dating someone new, you can probably imagine how that will go.

If you can’t, let me tell you that it won’t go well.

Your reach out will suffocate your ex and bring out the worst in your ex. Consequently, your ex’s response will hurt you immensely and decrease your ex’s interest in you. If you lose control over your emotions after that, you could also do something you’ll regret and ruin all the progress you’ve made on yourself and with your ex.

So keep in mind that there’s no such thing as a universal ex-back strategy. Every person is different and needs a different amount of time to process negative breakup emotions. Some exes process negativity in weeks whereas the most bitter and resentful ones need months or longer. A random person can’t tell you how long your ex will need to cool off and regain his or her rationality.

From my observations, it usually takes a few months for dumpers to deal with the most negative breakup emotions. It depends on dumpers’ coping mechanisms, emotional health, maturity, and of course, the things their ex does to disturb them. If their ex constantly reaches out and bothers them, they tend to feel trapped and ignore, block, or lash out at their ex.

The higher the dumpee’s expectations and the more pain the dumpee exudes, the harsher the dumpers’ response tends to be.

That means your reconciliation method is extremely important. It determines how free and in control your ex feels and consequently how much he or she respects you. Respect is essential for the dumper to redevelop feelings and come back to reinvest in you.

You may want to get your ex back as quickly as possible, but reconciliation is unlikely to happen on your terms – by forcing your ex to respect you and be with you. If it happens, it will be when you retain your worth, rebuild your self-esteem, and indirectly convince your ex that you’re his or her one and only romantic option.

Exes don’t usually return when you’re one of multiple dating options. When they’re picking between you and someone else, they tend to give the new person a try because they view the new person as a more attractive individual. They discard the new person and return only if they’re incompatible with the new person and regret making an impulsive decision.

So if you want to get your ex back, let your ex experience true freedom and explore other options if he or she wants to. This isn’t something you want, but it’s not something you should try to stop either. Most dumpers sooner than later meet someone else and decide to give him or her a try. They don’t hesitate to date even if they tell their ex things like, “I don’t want to date anyone, I don’t want a relationship, just want to be alone.”

Don’t take their words seriously. No dumper ever wants to stay single for long. While it’s true that the dumper doesn’t want a relationship, he or she only doesn’t want it with you. The dumper will likely date the first person he or she likes.

You shouldn’t be around when it happens. You should be in no contact, doing your best to keep yourself in the dark about your ex’s post-breakup life.

If you keep a close eye on your ex, you could get tempted to break no contact and try other nonsense breakup scams like “spells to get your ex back.” Such mistakes won’t only cost you money but also hurt you emotionally and destroy your detachment process.

If you want to get your ex back (or do your best to get him/her back), you must discern between legitimate and deceptive ex-back methods. You must sift through the multitude of ex-back approaches and weed out the scammiest, yet most tempting ones.

The scammiest approaches likely give you hope and increase your obsession with your ex whereas the legit ones feel slow but encourage detachment.

I’ve tested many different ex-back strategies over the years and realized that the approaches that leave the dumper alone and let him or her initiate conversations and reconciliations have the highest chance of success. That’s because they let the dumper be in control of the breakup and let him or her come to you when he or she is emotionally ready and has a reason to interact with you.

Of course, space alone doesn’t bring an ex back (it merely gives the dumper a chance to move forward and get in trouble). The most important factor in getting back with an ex is the dumper getting hurt and engaging in introspection. The dumper needs to do some soul-searching on his/her own and conclude that he or she was happier with you.

That can happen only if you go indefinite no contact and give your ex enough space to fail and reflect.

So don’t bother with ex-back strategies that have a low chance of success and a high chance of hurting you. If you want to get your ex back or give it a real go, cut your ex off immediately and for as long as it takes. When your ex misses you or wants you back, your ex will reach out and reconnect with you.

Don’t bother being your ex’s friend before then. Once you fall into the friend zone with your ex, you probably won’t get out of it until you get tired of chasing your ex.

With that said, here are some ex-back strategies for you to choose from.

What if my chosen ex-back strategy doesn’t work?

If you’re doing short no contact and expecting your ex to come back by a certain date, the problem is that you want your ex to return before he or she has failed and had an epiphany. You’re essentially ignoring the rules of no contact and expecting things to go your way just because you want them to go your way.

Unfortunately, that’s not how reconciliations work. You won’t get your ex back with determination and a short break. You can get your ex back only if you respect your ex’s need for space and let your ex learn your worth on his or her own.

If your ex doesn’t come back after a pre-set number of days, you need to change your strategy. Switch to the indefinite no contact rule as this rule is the only method that will give your ex months or years of time to get his or her hopes up and hopes crushed. You probably don’t want to wait years for something unpredictable and painful to happen to your ex, but you don’t have a choice.

Your ex has to reflect to want you back. And it’s unlikely that your ex will reflect willingly without a reason. Dumpers realize things when they’re forced to engage in reflection. That’s when they see their ex in a more positive light.

If you’re already doing indefinite no contact, however, then you need to wait longer. Don’t just wait, of course. Make sure to keep working on yourself and detaching so that if your ex doesn’t come back, you feel happy and ready for someone new to connect with.

The more time passes, the better you’ll look and feel and the less you’ll need your ex to be fulfilled.

Do you want to get your ex back no matter what? If you want to reconcile, choose a reconciliation method that removes your presence from your ex’s life and gives your ex total control over his or her life. Ignore reconciliation methods that seem too good to be true because they likely won’t work.

And lastly, for closure and help on how to get your ex back the right way, get in touch with us here.

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.