How to Get Your Ex Back in 3 Steps
Without Following the “No-Contact” Rule
So you just went through a break-up or divorce, and you want to get your ex back. Whether it’s been hours or months since everything fell apart, you know what you want and just need a way to get back together.
Or so you think.
See, getting back with your ex is the right move in only 10-20% of cases.
Although this may not be what you want to hear post-breakup, it’s the truth — and one that can save you a lot of heartache as you navigate your recovery and next steps when trying to get them back.
In this article, you’ll learn how to discern if getting back with your ex is, in fact, the right thing. And if it is, I’ll share how to do it in a way that works (and that I’ve used personally with hundreds of clients).
(Note: this entire article is based on my 3-Step Conscious Recoupling Process. To learn more about this process and see how I use it to help clients, take a look at my Conscious Recoupling page here.)
Step 1: Review your relationship to determine its strengths, its weaknesses, and the likelihood of a successful reconciliation
Your first step is to assess the “health” of your relationship to determine if you’re making the right choice to try to get your ex back. But how are you supposed to do that?
Well, there are a lot of ways you can go about doing this. But I prefer to use my tried-and-true 6Cs Relationship Assessment to figure it out.
In this assessment, you’ll score yourself (and your partner) on 6 key areas that are essential to any loving, fulfilling, and sustainable relationship. As you do this, you’ll also want to factor in the relationship’s challenges (problems with communication, a breach of trust, mismatched desires, etc.) and assets (many years together, lots of mutual respect and love remaining, still in contact despite the breakup, etc.)
Note that whether you love this person is not the only thing considered in the assessment.
And why is that?
Because, put simply, love is not enough.
A healthy relationship is also dependant on:
Connection
Character
Communication
Commitment
Compatibility
Circumstances
To learn more about why love alone isn’t enough to sustain a relationship and dig a little deeper into each of these 6Cs, you can read my article about it here.
(Or if you really want to dive deeply into this, get access to the actual assessment I use with clients, and then learn how to make sense of your results, then my Conscious Recoupling Masterclass may be of interest to you.)
As you’re doing your review, you’ll also want to take the time to think on which of these six most common reasons for breaking up was responsible for yours (especially because some of these reasons are much harder to repair than others).
These include:
Loss of Feelings (this reason is the hardest to repair)
Communication (this reason is the most common)
Conflict Resolution
Money Issues
Sexual Issues
Loss of Trust
Going through this step will allow you to develop a clear picture of your relationship’s health, the roots of why you want your ex back, and how likely a reconciliation really is.
Step 2: Repair your relationship by understanding what went wrong in the past & how you can fix it (via an exploration into attachment theory)
We’ve seen it, and we’ve been there ourselves. A new relationship begins, and it’s fun, light, and perfect—the honeymoon phase. In the sweet beginning, both parties are securely attached in the relationship.
(Note: to learn more about what I mean by “securely attached,” read my article on Attachment Theory here. Because step 2 here is all about taking the time to understand your core attachment style and that of your partner. And if you’re not familiar with Attachment Theory already, I promise you it’ll permanently change your life and the way you view relationships.)
In short, Attachment Theory is the idea that everyone’s brain is wired for one of three attachment styles—secure, anxious, or avoidant—and this explains a lot about how and why we behave the way we do in romantic relationships.
So, at the beginning of a new relationship, both partners are securely attached. Neither one is too invested, and a sense of newness and novelty is at its peak. But as the relationship evolves and feelings deepen, anxious or avoidant attachment styles can begin to appear.
This may look like an anxious person leaning in, then activating an avoidant person in leaning away. Or an avoidant person leaning away and activating an anxious one to lean in. These two dynamics are usually when people break up.
For example, a client of mine dated a guy for 3-4 months and was having a blast. But as soon as she inquired about their relationship status and if they were officially dating, he immediately pulled away and became avoidant. This triggered her anxious attachment style, which showed up in the form of countless phone calls and texts. Then, he broke up with her.
In actuality, they were in a relationship already. But something about the label triggered his avoidant attachment style and made him feel overwhelmed.
The thing is, when you don’t know your attachment style, it’s hard to pinpoint your patterns in relationships and navigate the attachment style of others. Having mismatched attachment styles is a very common cause of breakups. So by learning about your personal attachment style and tendencies, you can develop an understanding of why you chose the partner you did in the first place, why it did (or didn’t work out), and how you can evolve to become more secure-functioning and find long-term relationship harmony.
As you begin exploring attachment theory, it’s also worth taking some time to look inward and determine why you want to get your ex back in the first place.
What are they filling in your life, and what is lacking now that they’re gone? Is it just activation of your anxious attachment system or something truly deeper?
This internal processing is something I guide my clients through before we even start talking about a plan to get their ex back. That way, when they put in the effort to win them back, they’re confident and coming from a secure and healthy place, not one of desperation or reluctance.
Efforts to win an ex back from a place of anxious or avoidant attachment are destined to fail.
To learn more, here is my article on Attachment Theory.
Step 3: Rebuild your connection with your ex by putting together a strategic, authentic communication plan
A lot of relationship coaches out there see an imbalanced relationship attachment like those I wrote about above, and then prescribe “no contact” for 30 days.
In other words, they’re basically advising their heartbroken clients to purposely be avoidant in the hopes of piquing their ex’s interest and making them lean in for fear of loss (a telltale sign of anxious attachment). But that’s not an honest or respectful way to reconnect with your ex.
Instead, it bases the relationship on an unstable, unbalanced anxious/avoidant dynamic that isn’t built to last.
You simply can’t base a relationship on manipulative tactics and expect it to be successful.
So, here’s what I recommend instead.
First, you need to feel better.
Even if you’re planning on winning your ex back, you need to be in heartbreak recovery mode. Because for this to work, you need to be reaching back out to your ex from an empowered and healed place. And that requires recovery.
If you have an anxious attachment style, you’re probably not even thinking about yourself and your emotional wellbeing right now. Since you’re so deeply rooted in this emotional state, you may have trouble entertaining the idea that this person may not be the right one for you in the first place.
I get it.
However, it’s essential to allow yourself to be heartbroken, sad, and miss your ex — and it’s important to decide to work on yourself. That’s so much more authentic than faking avoidance in hopes of triggering anxiety in your ex.
This process of taking action to get your ex back is so much easier when you’re healed and feeling secure.
When you’re secure, you feel better, have limited but strategic contact, and can communicate with your ex from a place free from the anxious attachment that may have caused you to break up in the first place.
But what does that look like?
Well, that means it's time to set up a secure-functioning strategic plan to get your ex back.
This includes a communication plan that can last 30 to 90 days. A plan of this length allows some time to pass for healing and clarity without disconnecting completely.
A securely attached and healed person who wants to get their ex back may reach out with a closed (not requiring a response) message that looks like this:
“Hi, I was just thinking about you, and I hope that the work project went well. I’m looking forward to my weekly dinner with mom and a relaxing weekend. Hope you are well!”
You touch base, give them an option to respond (or not), and you move on.
Regardless of where you’re coming from, you may still receive cold messages — or none at all. But for your ex, the fact that you reached out has already planted a seed. The true test of how far you’ve come in your conversion from anxious to secure lies in the way you respond to messages that are less than ideal.
When you’re secure-functioning, your actions are based on a new truth.
The truth is that your ex isn’t your only chance for happiness, and not every relationship is meant to be recovered. There are other fish in the sea. Knowing this, and being genuinely secure in yourself, do you still want to be with your ex?
Be honest.
Whether putting in the work to get your ex back is a good idea or not, you need to heal and move forward in a securely attached way. Then, if you’re still set on putting forth the effort to get your ex back, you’ll know you did everything you could.
So, don’t resist recovery. Process your desire to get your ex back, learn about yourself, assess your relationship, heal, then move forward to build a plan to get them back from an empowered place of secure-functioning.
For access to and a step-by-step walkthrough of my 7Cs Assessment (and how you should act based on your results), join the waitlist for my soon-to-be-launching Conscious Recoupling Masterclass here.
Or if you’d first like to know what the likelihood of a successful reconciliation with your ex is, take my quiz here.