Judging by the amount of information on the Internet about how to get back together after a break up, there must be a whole lot of people who break up, and then realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.
If you’re in this situation, have you any idea how you can get your ex back?
Do you know how to reconcile with your ex, overcome the disagreements which caused you to break up, and move forward more strongly?
Let’s find out.
Making Up Or Breaking Up:
What’s The Right Thing to Do?
The very first thing to consider is whether or not getting back together is actually the right thing for you to do.
And yes, I know the feeling of loss and grief and sadness after a relationship ends can be intense.
In fact, it can drive you rapidly to the conclusion that the only thing you need in the world is for your ex to be back alongside you.
But of course whether or not that’s true depends on how your relationship finished.
If, for example, you made a rash decision to split up during a blazing row, and false pride is preventing you from reaching out in a gesture of reconciliation, you might well want to get back together with your lost loved one.
On the other hand, if you realize that you wanted to break up because you were fed up with the way things were going, the relationship was making no progress, and you were feeling you were with the wrong person, it’s probably not a good idea to get back together, no matter how strong your grief might be!
What I’m saying is – think about it before you make any rash moves.
Give This Some Thought:
Do You Really Want Your Ex Back?
The question is whether getting back together with your ex really is the best thing for both of you.
When people break up, they sometimes look back on the relationship with selective vision, seeing the good times, and somehow overlooking or eliminating the bad ones from the memory.
Knowing that you don’t have to make a decision right here, right now, about renewing the relationship, do you think it might be a good idea to take stock? To give some serious thought to what you really expect and want from a romantic and sexual relationship?
And in particular, whether or not your ex-partner, whether that be your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, really is the right person, for you, forever.
What this comes down to, I guess, is whether the quality of your life will be improved by having your partner in it.
If you had to rate your quality of life on a scale of 0 – 10, what score would life with your partner get?
Now, be honest. Would life without your partner rank higher?
Or perhaps you now realize there’s no advantage or disadvantage to having your old partner in your life? In which case why would you want to know how to get your ex back? That sounds like it would be a very mundane relationship.
The other side of this, be aware, is whether or not your ex partner benefited from you being in his or her life! Just think about that for a moment. Did you improve the quality of your ex’s life? Really?
There are many more questions you need to ask yourself before plunging headfirst into relationship renewal.
One of them is whether or not you want to know how to get your ex back because you’re frightened of being alone.
Perhaps you fear never meeting anyone else who’s going to accept you as you are?
And keep in mind that when you’ve worked through the immediate anger and distress and sadness and grief about the breakup of your relationship, you might surprise yourself by finding you really are better off without your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend.
If You Decide You Want To Get Back Together With Your Ex….
There are some things that you really shouldn’t do when you’re trying to re-establish a relationship.
You’ve probably heard about these before, but we all know that the power of our emotions after a break-up can make us behave stupidly and irrationally.
So just stop for a moment and consider some of the things you really shouldn’t be doing – they’re explained below. If you think these will play any part in your reconciliation, think again!
1 Don’t Beg Your Partner To Take You Back
Any worthwhile relationship advice about how to get your ex back will tell you that you need to keep your dignity and your sanity.
Being needy and dependent is unattractive to almost everyone (except perhaps those who need to be needed, which is almost as bad). Where’s your own inner strength and sense of self?
And the other point here is that even if you behave desperately, expressing your sadness and your grief, weeping and wailing, sending desperate text messages late at night after you’ve had a few drinks, and your ex begins to feel sorry for you…… well, really, do you want her or him to take you back just because you begged and pleaded?
Surely your relationship needs to be built on something more substantial than “your need not to be alone”?
The best breakup advice is this: if you feel desperate, and you think your world is over, do some work on feeling better about yourself before you approach your ex partner.
And even though you might feel right now that begging and pleading is OK, you have to think about how you’re going to feel in the longer term. You don’t want to feel ashamed of how you behaved, surely? How will you live with that if you do?
You cannot get back together in a spirit of desperation, and not expect this energy to impact your relationship in some way…. badly.
2 Punishing Your Ex Is Forbidden!
You might not believe this, but some people actually want to find a way to get back with their ex so they can get their own back on him or her.
In other words, people can be so hurt they wish to teach an ex boyfriend or girlfriend a lesson!
(Usually the lesson they “ought” to have been able to see for themselves is about how good you are, how wonderful you are, and how fortunate they would be to have you in their life. All of which happen to be signs of a low self-esteem on your part.)
And those are only the most extreme forms of games that people play.
Getting over an ex is challenging, of course it is, but making the process more difficult for everyone by playing games is weak. A common one is trying to make your ex jealous by pretending someone else is interested in you.
This isn’t that a strategy which involves much integrity or honesty. In fact, it’s downright manipulative, and if you do ever get back together, this kind of thing will have an impact on your relationship.
3 Emotional Blackmail Is A Bad Idea
We’ve all seen the extremes of emotion people can work themselves into when a relationship’s ended.
Screaming, crying, or even worse, threatening to “end it all”, if your ex boyfriend won’t have you back, or your ex-girlfriend never wants to see you again, is really undignified…… let alone a very clear statement of your emotional immaturity.
4 Show Your Ex How You’ve Changed
It’s no use just telling your ex-partner you’re different, and that everything’s going to be fine in the future.
He or she isn’t likely to believe that, unless they also feel desperately lonely and want to get back together because life seems so empty – and that’s called clutching at straws.
In reality you need to understand that the best way to get an ex-boyfriend back, or a good strategy to get back with your ex-girlfriend, is to show them how you’ve changed.
So if they accused you of being insecure, you can show them you’re not insecure at all by refraining from contacting them, or stalking them on Facebook, or sending them emails and texts every few minutes.
Or, if your ex decided that they didn’t want to be with you because you didn’t show your feelings, then you could make a start on writing a letter to show them that you really are a sensitive and caring individual.
That’s a more sensible strategy – it shows you know how to get your ex back from a place of emotional balance not desperation!
And if you commit to changing what you do and how you do it, remember change isn’t likely to happen unless you have a definite intention to change, and a plan about how that’s going to happen. (In other words, you really, really mean it.)
For example, here you could tell your ex what’s going to be different and how you’re going to ensure you stick to your promises.
5 Say Sorry If You Need To
Although you might not think an apology means very much, you’d be mistaken.
It’s one of the most powerful ways to get your ex back. To start with an apology can be a sign of respect (at least, if the apology is sincere).
But more than that, it’s an acknowledgement you are ready to admit you did something wrong. Long story short: research has demonstrated that if partners can apologize to each other, relationships are much more likely to survive.
6 Romance Is A Good Thing
If you’re a man trying to get back with an ex-girlfriend, you might recall that in the early days of your relationship you were very keen on romance – in fact you probably enjoyed romancing your partner, because most men do.
But then, once you’ve won your woman, the job is done, and somehow romance seems to take a back seat!
So do you think it’s possible that a little bit of romance in your relationship might make a big difference to your ex’s willingness have you back?
Worth a try, surely?
And in amongst that romantic approach, don’t forget that talking about the good times you had together can be a powerful reminder of why you were together in the first place and of all the good times you shared.
Focusing on the negative is all too easy when you feel hurt.
Focusing on the positive when you’re carrying feelings of anger and sadness can be harder, but it can produce more constructive results.
7 Accept Things Are Different and Let Go Of The Past
It’s possible your relationship ended with mutual agreement, but it’s also possible that you broke up because either you or your ex decided enough was enough.
Perhaps there was infidelity, perhaps your ex met somebody else, or perhaps you did. Maybe one person felt they’d been carrying all the emotion in the relationship and they were prepared to do it any more.
Whatever the reason for the breakup, there aren’t any foolproof ways to get your ex back, but what you certainly can do is take some constructive steps to get back together.
The best way to approach this is probably to talk about how you would do things differently in the future.
Focus on what you can do together in the future, and what you want from your partner in the future, particularly if they were the one who instigated the breakup.
This way, you might be able to save your relationship. You might even be able to save your marriage rather than divorce if that’s where you’re at.
Certainly this takes willingness and openness on both sides, a readiness to see the other person’s point of view.
It also takes a fundamental conviction that your (ex) partner really is the right person for you.
And it also takes genuine desire to find out how to get your ex back because you believe you will be happier together than apart.
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