What People Do Wrong After A Breakup

Educating yourself gives you the best chance to get your ex back.

Your heart is racing and your stomach is in knots.

The only response more intense than your feeling of shock is your sense of urgency to catch your now-ex as they seem to run away from you.

You are panicking.

To say the least, you are desperate to say the “right thing,” in order to cause your newly-ex boyfriend to change his mind or, to be more accurate, his heart, and to want to stay with you.

But the person across from you stares back with what seems to be disengaged and even numb eyes.

As you begin to realize that your promises of change, improvement, and decrees of devotion are falling on deaf ears, you change your strategy. You beg for mercy.

“Please,” you say, as the tears well up in your eyes. “Give me another chance. Give us another chance.”

Surely the person who seemed to care so much for you, who experienced such beautiful, romantic times with you, and who said that he loved you will have a difficult time seeing you in such pain.

Surely he will want to take this pain away from you and all that he has to do is to simply say, “Yes,” that he will end this nightmare and take you back.

But your heart sinks even further, to depths you didn’t even know were possible, at the realization that your aspiring ex is showing you no mercy.

“I have to go,” your ringing ears manage to hear as he attempts to walk away from you as you cry.

It can get worse from here. Much worse.

In my YouTube video, “What Not To Do After A Breakup,” I explain that one of the things that baffles people who are being dumped is why their boyfriend or girlfriend won’t commit to working on things and to trying to save the relationship.

The reason is because their motivation is gone.

Their emotional attraction for you has fallen. That’s why they are, in fact, breaking up with you.

That provides a powerful clue as to what your next course of action should be if you want them back.

Because you can’t convince them to work on the relationship at this moment, you must do something that reignites their motivation and spark to try again.

They have to miss you.

The only way that this can be accomplished is for you NOT to be there. But because people who have been dumped so often want to feel like they are “doing something,” to get their ex back, they will attempt to talk to their ex.

They will call, text, or show up at their ex’s home or work.

The feeling is that if you can just speak to your ex or see him or her face to face that somehow, some way, the relationship will be restored. That your ex will want to get back together just from being around you or seeing you. But as I stated above, the exact opposite is usually true.

It is only in your absence that your ex will have the ability to see that he does not want the breakup.

It is only when you back away from him and give him the breakup that he can see that he in fact, does not want it.

That is why it’s so important to apply the no contact rule so that your ex can see that you are not going to chase him or her, that you can stay away, and that you have the ability to move on completely at some point.

Your ex must be able to believe that you can move on. And it is by reaching out, begging, pleading, and the like that they are convinced otherwise.

The Other Extremes Are Just As Ineffective

While you should not try to get your ex back by reaching out, calling, crying, begging, pleading, etc.

You also should not become cold and cruel.

Here are some other things that people do wrong after a breakup that will push your ex further away and lower the odds of them wanting to get back together with you.

Trying To Incite Jealousy

Some people believe that if they start going out with someone else who is a romantic possibility and then post pictures of it on social media (I’m on Instagram by the way) that their ex will see and become jealous.

Then, because of the jealousy, the theory is that your ex will reach out, wanting you back.

This might sound good in theory, but it’s not practical. In the eighteen years that I’ve been consulting and coaching people on relationships, I’ve seen that in the majority of cases, such a stunt will usually turn an ex further away.

For starters, your ex will likely feel that the relationship wasn’t that important to you if you were able to start dating someone so soon. It could also make it look like you are desperate for anyone to fill the role of boyfriend or girlfriend in your life.

What’s more is that if your ex does want you back or think they might, they will likely see this as an uphill battle now that you are with someone else. Who wants to compete? They are more likely to simply stick with the breakup, even if it hurts seeing you with someone else.

The Cold Shoulder

Being rude or cold if your ex reaches out is another on the list of what people do wrong after a breakup.

If and when your ex reaches out to you, you shouldn’t ignore them if you want them back in most cases. Using the no contact rule simply means that you don’t initiate contact with your ex.

It doesn’t mean that you ignore your ex.

It doesn’t mean that you block your ex either.

Time Is On Your Side 

If you do the right things following a breakup like not contacting your ex, but instead, going out with friends, visiting family, enjoying your hobbies, and refining or adding a skill, you have the best chance of getting your ex back.

Though nothing is one-hundred percent guaranteed, if you allow your ex to feel space from you and to see that you are not trying to get them back (at least it doesn’t look that way) you show strength and maturity.

Many people can’t stand not getting their way.

This shows that you are different.

You also let them experience life without you so that they can see that they like it better with you.

If you stay in contact, even if you don’t annoy them (though you likely will), you only let them continue to experience you in their life and you allow them to feel that if they ever wanted to get back together romantically with you that they could simply and quickly.

If you stay away, you put the right kind of pressure on them.

You allow them to experience the fear of losing you.

That’s what you felt after the breakup but your ex did not because he or she was the one in control.

By removing yourself, you allow your ex to feel that loss after they have experienced time without you and to assume that since you are not chasing them, that you can and will move on in time.

When your ex realizes that and feels the fear of loss, the odds are good that he or she will reach out to you.

Stay strong. Avoid the wrong things and do the right things and you give yourself the best chance of getting your ex back.

To get my guide to getting your ex back, get more information on my Emergency Breakup Kit.

-Coach Lee