Is The So-Called ’30 Day No Contact Rule’ Really Enough Time?

This is Coach Lee and I’m going to talk to you about the so-called 30-day no contact rule.

A lot of people talk about the 30-day no contact rule and, in fact, a lot of the comments on my videos will refer to a 30-day no contact rule as though I’ve ever suggested it.

I have referred to the no contact rule obviously and have been interviewed by major media about that very topic.

The so-called 30-day no contact rule is a different category because people tend to think that there’s this magic number of days to where your ex is ready for you to contact them and that’s sort of what it’s suggesting, that if you just wait 30 days then you can contact your ex.

Waiting 30 days is certainly better than nothing! It’s better than the response most people tend to have after they’ve been broken up with because usually they are in a panic and they’re feeling like they have to do something immediately or they will lose their ex forever.

It’s as though they have their ex by the hand over the side of a cliff and they’ve got to pull them up because they’re slipping.

That’s what it feels like when really time is more on your side than that and I have a video called No Contact and the Power of Time which explains it (I suggest you open that link in a new window and watch it after reading through this post carefully).

A lot of people will ask me what I think of the 30-day no contact rule and the concept is basically that if you wait 30 days that your ex will be ready and you can contact them.

People who talk about the 30-day no contact rule will often give little messages you can send after the 30 days as though your ex is receptive enough for this after that amount of time and then you kind of back off and do another message as your ex is slowly gotten back.

Others will act as though after 30 days/a month you can contact them and you two will just get back together almost instantly.

A lot of times these people will also say this based on nothing but maybe seeing a video that someone else did or they heard someone talk about it and they think it sounds like a neat title and it’s not really based on experience.

I’m fortunate enough to have worked with thousands of couples over the last two decades and I can tell you that 30 days is usually just not enough time.

Now there’s always exceptions and I have seen it work before 30 days have passed. I’ve seen it work in four days and I’ve seen it work in less time than even that.

Sometimes when you just stop and don’t reach out to your ex but, instead, simply give them the breakup, it can be extremely powerful.

When you just do nothing (or so it seems) and you give them your silence, it can be powerful and there’s no certain number of days that it will take but everything in life is based on probability.

It’s difficult to name something that’s certain.

People can walk out on you, lives can be lost, politicians can cheat you, your heroes can fail and all kinds of things can go wrong.

Very little is certain and so trying to say “On this day every ex will do this” is absolutely ridiculous!

Thirty days is far better than zero, but generally speaking I can give you some numbers that actually have cases behind them and science behind them.

Forty-five days is a point that I talk about in my Emergency Breakup Kit as being an important day.

It’s a general day meaning that somewhere around 45 days (it could be 55 days it could be 40 days for your ex no one is exactly the same) but around 45 days an interesting phenomenon occurs in the mind of your ex (and when I say 45 days, I mean 45 days of no contact).

It is at that 45 day mark when the potential and the capacity is there for the chemicals associated with separation anxiety are at their highest.

That’s when they can be their highest and so it’s kind of interesting to see in the comments on my YouTube channel where people will say “Wow! It was right around the 45th day that I heard from them!”

But at the same time, other exes will feel that pressure. They’ll feel that pain and that sense of loss that separation anxiety on day 45 and they don’t reach out but, instead, they fight it.

I have a video about that where I answer the question, “does no contact work on a stubborn ex” or, in this case, maybe a shy ex, but we’re talking about someone who did not just wake up and decide they wanted to break up with you.

Most people take weeks or months to make the decision to breakup and they usually fight it. They try another day, another weekend, another night, another trip, and/or another conversation with you, hoping things will work out.

Eventually they come to a conclusion and sometimes it’s to break up with you because attraction has fallen and they don’t think the two of you have a future together because of that.

There are some things about you or the way that you two interact that they feel is not good for them and they eventually decide to break up with you.

So a lot of times, that’s why they don’t trust it, because they know that it took them a while to get to that conclusion and so to undo that and to get to where they trust their change of heart might take a while, but on day 45, the potential exists for the chemicals associated with separation anxiety to be their highest which means your ex will be considering things, possibly regretting things, and wondering if the breakup was a mistake perhaps the most on that day.

It can get stronger after that day to 60 days, 65 days, or 75 and now we’re talking just in terms of the math on this!

What I have seen in the past two decades as a relationship coach and being able to see research on relationship dynamics suggests that the 30-day no contact rule usually it is not enough time.

Sometimes people will respond to a video of mine that’s about no contact by saying, “I’ve tried the 30-Day No Contact rule and it didn’t work” and they’ll act as though I’m just wrong when again, this is my only post/video about the 30-day no contact rule and it’s to tell you that it’s not enough time.

And what I’m also going to say about it is that the concept is wrong in general in that it says that if you wait 30 days that then you can be the one to reach out to your ex.

Ideally, it would not be you reaching out.

Now I do talk a lot about how at some point you don’t really have anything to lose, and some people will say, “I just want to move on and so I’m going to reach out because it’s been 60 days (or whatever).”

Again, there is no magic number. I’m just giving a ballpark figure as at least some sort of a minimum and people will just want to reach out at that point and just kind of see.

If it doesn’t go well, then they will just kind of move on maybe to another relationship or at least to be open to that, but the idea that you would reach out is generally not best.

It is best when it comes from them and that’s again why you want to wait beyond the 30 days to give it the best chance because when you are the one who does the reaching out and who initiates getting back together, you are not changing the roles and you’re not turning the tables because when they broke up with you, it was understood they wanted the breakup but that you did not.

You still wanted the relationship and so your level of attractiveness was seen as lower than theirs.

They felt more attractive than you even if they love you generally speaking. In other words, their love may not be romantic at the moment.

It may not be the passion that they used to have, but they still have a generic love for you and they care about you but they see you as less attractive than themselves because they’re the ones who are breaking up with you, so they feel higher on the totem pole of attraction.

That’s basically how it’s going to be viewed.

Maybe not in a concept that they put into words, but in what they feel about the situation.

And so if you are still the one pursuing and you’re the one who contacts them on day 30, and you’re the one saying “Let’s get back together,” or even just trying to be casual (people think sometimes that they aren’t being obvious) by reaching out about something seemingly non-related and think that it’s a sneaky way to go through a back door to get back together with their ex, but usually your ex suspects that you’re trying (because again, they’re the ones who dismissed you so they kind of see you as lower than them a little bit and assume that you’re wanting the relationship).

Your ex knows that they rejected you. It’s sort of a power trip for a lot of exes. It’s an ego crutch and it makes them feel very attractive.

They will see you as trying to do whatever it takes to get back together with them and obviously there’s variables in terms of how much they feel this about the situation.

Sometimes maybe it’s just slightly and sometimes it is significant, but they are going to be suspicious when you reach out. They’re going to think “Oh, here it is. I knew this was coming. They’re going to reach out and try to get me back.”

And again, I talk about this a lot in my Emergency Breakup Kit and in other videos, so if you subscribe you’ll be able to get more videos on this topic and on relationships, attraction, mindfulness, and marriage.

But basically, your ex assumes that you’re going to keep pursuing them. That’s what makes the breakup easy for them – because they don’t feel like it’s a breakup.

They feel that if they want you back that you are always an option. So they don’t ever have to feel the loss.

You, of course, did feel the loss because they were the one who had the power and broke up with you.

So you felt the loss and they felt control – and I talk a lot about how we make our ex our dictator a lot of times, because we give them all the power and all we can do is beg for their mercy which is a terrible situation to be in and you make that worse when you are still the one to reach out.

When you reach out after 30 days, you basically keep them in the role of dictator because you’re still trying to get them back and so even if you two do get back together, there’s still likely that feeling that you were the one who did the dirty work.

You’re the one who cleaned things up after the breakup and you’re the one who fixed what they broke.

It basically puts them in a position where it’s easier to break up with you again because they feel like there’s no danger of losing you.

You’ll just come back again and you’ll take care of it for them if they want it.

That’s not a good thing.

You want to be in a relationship with them so badly that they think, “If I break up with him/her it’s no big deal because I can always get him/her back. In fact, they’ll come back to me and they’ll make it easy for me.

You want them to have to come face to face with the idea that they could lose you.

That’s very important because they need to learn what it’s like to actually feel like they’ve lost you or that they could.

When they feel at least that they could lose you, that’s when they really see what you mean to them and your role and your value in their life.

And that’s what you want them to see.

You need them to see that if you want to get them back and to keep them.

If you just wait 30 days and contact them, you’ve just taught them that you will wait 30 days and contact them. That’s a good recipe for you to get dumped again.

It also puts you in a less attractive role so ideally, it would be that you would go into no contact and your ex would be the one to reach out to you.

It doesn’t always happen perfectly and I’m not into making a philosophy of something that always has to be followed perfectly, but understanding the general concept will help you to at least have direction and a guide and in this case, 60 days is more like an appropriate number (and no, I’m not going to call it the 60-day no contact rule because, again, ideally you would not contact them at all but would let them be the one to come to you BUT it doesn’t always work out that way either.

But that’s the ideal version that gives you the best chance of getting them back.

That also gives you the best chance of keeping them.

It’s the best over all for you to get your ex back because you should be the one who has your ex realizing their mistake and asking for you back

The real “putting back together the pieces” is when they come back to you on their own.

That’s why the so-called 30-day no contact rule really just doesn’t cut it.

All you can do is your best. You can put yourself in the best position to get your ex back and take it one day at a time.

I highly recommend my Emergency Breakup Kit or Emergency Marriage Kit to give you the best chance possible of getting your ex back!

No matter what, I wish you the very best.

–Coach Lee
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