Should You Break No Contact?

Time has passed now so you ask, “Should I break no contact and communicate with my ex again?”

I get it.

You feel your ex’s absence like fingernails down a chalkboard and you want to feel their presence again in any way possible.

So you’re considering breaking no contact.

You’ve been trying the no contact rule and so far you have heard nothing from your ex. Apparently no contact is not working.

You wonder if maybe your ex has forgotten about you during no contact. Why not just reach out?

Maybe they’ll feel something for you again if you do.

What do you have to lose in breaking no contact?

I’ve pretty much summed up what’s going on in your head, right?

Like I said, I get it. It makes sense for you to ask if you should break no contact.

But before you do, you need to consider what you WILL lose by breaking no contact — including what people do that unknowingly damages the power of no contact, because even tiny missteps can quietly set you back.

Most people don’t realize they’re unintentionally interrupting the emotional process their ex needs to go through, and understanding those mistakes is key before you decide to reach out.

Why Breaking No Contact Erases Progress That Has Been Gained

No contact is not always an instant fix.

Though I am thrilled when I estimate that 40% of my coaching clients hear from their ex within two weeks or less of no contact, the majority take longer. Which I know is frustrating.

Here’s the deal:

Time works on different people in different ways.

Some begin missing their ex almost immediately and regret their decision to break up. Others take longer to feel that separation anxiety and that is why breaking no contact interrupts their emotional process.

Another percentage miss their ex terribly and regret the breakup, but take longer before they reach out.

These are the tricky and frustrating ones because no contact is doing its job in it has been able to make your ex miss you and want you back.

But the intensity of them missing you and regretting their decision to break up with you has not reached the point to where they feel they must reach out.

I know you want to believe that this is the case with your ex boyfriend or ex girlfriend.  

It might be, but even if that is the case, you still must not reach out to them.

Why?

It’s More Meaningful, Powerful, and Likely To Be Long Term If They Reach Out To You

It’s also possible and highly likely that if you break no contact you will push them away.

It relieves their itch of curiosity, erases the fear of loss, and allows them to think that you will always be waiting for them.

That will likely cause them to see you only as a backup plan.

If you are permanently waiting on a boyfriend or girlfriend, they can take their time by seeing all the other people they want to and if they ever decide they want you back, you’ll be there.

Does that sound like what you want?

Trust me, it’s not! It’s a sure recipe for them to move on and lose all feelings of intimacy and attraction for you.

You give your ex relief and quench their curiosity.

You take away any sense of urgency to them getting back together with you.

And I’m here to tell you that is why breaking it early usually backfires.

So while you’ll continue to feel the breakup second by second, they won’t feel any pressure at all because they know that there’s no danger of losing you.

Should You Ever Break No Contact?

Some dating coaches who deal more in the theoretical insist that no contact should never, ever be broken by the person who has been dumped under any circumstances.

I have seen too much of the real world and must disagree or at least push back against the idea that no contact is always permanent.

Though I am a relationship and dating coach, my specialty is in getting an ex back after a breakup and restoring broken marriages.

I’m known for the main focus of my strategy being to make the breakup easy for the person who has dumped you… at first.

I’m serious! By backing away, refusing to show anger, leaving them alone instead of awkwardly being around them, and by giving them complete space you have the best chance of them coming back to you.

Why?

Because you prevent your breakup response from being a hurdle to them getting back together with you.

Here’s the deal:

If the breakup is difficult, awkward, and stressful, and then at some point they consider getting back together with you, they might not do it simply because they don’t want to risk it not working out and them having to go through the awkward breakup again.

So I have seen no contact work again and again, with extremely high consistency, to cause an ex to miss you and reach out to you.

But there are some some instances when no contact does not work.

Though the no contact rule is very successful, it’s not a magic bullet and there are times when you should not use no contact or at least not completely.

In the vast majority of cases, complete no contact should be used.

The reason is because if someone breaks up with you and doesn’t come back, any effort by you would be chasing.

It would be attempting to impose yourself into someone’s life who doesn’t want you there which would make you look pathetic, needy, weak, and even selfish because you are seeking what you want rather than to respect what the other person wants.

After a certain amount of time, however, you have nothing to lose.

After a period of no contact, the odds of getting your ex back fall quite a bit.

I discuss this in detail in my article, “When Does No Contact Start Working?”

The bottom line, however, is that the no contact rule is very powerful and is almost always what will work to get your ex back, if anything will.

Hear me on this:

I get that it doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel selfish, but it will seem that way to your ex.

It might even seem ridiculous to them because you are trying to talk them into something that simply can’t be the result of a conversation.

That being said, there are times when you have nothing to lose.

There are times when reaching out after a solid amount of time has passed can be effective because the time apart and the silence has pressed a reset button.

Most People Don’t Allow Enough Time Before Reaching Out

If you read my articles, you’ll learn pretty quickly that I do not believe in reaching out to your ex after a breakup.

They have got to experience the breakup to realize that they don’t want it. And they have got to be without you in order to miss you.

But as I’ve said in this article, there are times when reaching out to and breaking no contact with your ex makes sense because there is nothing to lose and because sometimes the person who broke up doesn’t know how to repair the breakup – even if they want to!

But most people either don’t allow nearly enough time or won’t stay silent during what should be a time of no contact.

When someone who hasn’t waited long enough reaches out to their ex, there was no reset, so their ex still feels exhaustion and anxiety at the thought of being around them.

If this is the case with you, your ex will not be receptive to you. So when you break no contact is key if you ever break it.

There can be a correct time to end no contact.

Here’s the deal:

I hesitated writing this article in the first place because I didn’t want someone who has been dumped to read it and then reach out to their ex.

That’s not my intent and reaching out normally pushes your ex even further away and makes you feel even worse.

But if you’ve been dating someone for three months or more, waiting a month of no contact is sometimes enough.

You have to determine if they are the type of person who might want to get back together with you but doesn’t know how to go about presenting that to you.

If someone left a relationship, it’s that person’s place to come back to the relationship.

And the person who was left is owed some sort of apology and demonstration of revived interest.

Most of the time, if the relationship was good, someone will have no problem reaching out and asking you to get back together.

This is because silence often creates desire and clarity.

So be extremely skeptical of your ex having this reason for not reaching out.

Usually the answer is that you should not break no contact and you need to wait longer so that no contact can work on your ex more.

If you’ve been dating more than three months, waiting a month and a half before even considering contact is ideal.

But again, many times it’s just that no contact has not had enough time to fully work within them.

You want them to be in the position of asking you to get back together.

You want them to have to be the one to hope that you’ll take them back.

That’s the ideal situation because it means that they value you and the relationship enough at this point, since they’ve been without it.

If they don’t reach out to you, it means that they haven’t reached a level of appreciation for what they had and don’t yet have enough regret for tossing pride, awkwardness, embarrassment, and stubbornness aside.

How to Know You’re Getting Close to Hearing From Your Ex

Another reason to stay in no contact is that you often won’t see the shift happening in real time.

Your ex isn’t going to announce that their feelings are changing.

They won’t tell you when the relief of the breakup starts to wear off or when the silence begins to feel heavier than they expected. But those shifts are happening behind the scenes long before you hear from them.

That’s why it’s important not to panic or assume nothing is working simply because they haven’t reached out yet.

No contact operates on a delay, and the internal side of the process is almost always invisible to you.

If you break it early, you interrupt that progression right before it turns in your favor.

A much healthier approach is to learn the signs they’re close to contacting you first, because those signs usually appear before the actual message does.

Some of them are subtle like changes in their online behavior, indirect check-ins through mutual friends, small attempts to get your attention without fully committing.

These actions mean the silence is no longer comfortable for them, and that’s exactly why, when in doubt, you should hold your position instead of breaking no contact prematurely.

Conclusion

The odds are that you should continue to be in no contact and that you should not reach out. Get more information on my Emergency Breakup Kit to get your ex back!

Men, get my course, Masculine Destiny to attract the woman you deserve! There’s nothing like this out there and you don’t know what you don’t know about being successful with women!

–Coach Lee
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