How to get your ex back? - What is no contact rule?

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Previous Chapter:  How to get your ex back? - No Contact Rule

Let’s define the No Contact Rule:  

When a person dumps you, you SHOULD NOT initiate contact with that person in any way. You don’t call, message, email or mail this person. You also do not contact indirectly: No indirect communication through friends or family and no social media likes, clicking on stories, commenting on their posts. You also must stay away from social media, messaging apps. You can unfollow them but don’t block. 

Although the name No Contact implies no communication, it only means you don’t initiate the contact. If you want your ex back, you should make it easy for them to reach out to you. For example, you can and should stop following your ex in social media but don’t delete their number or don’t block them.

No Contact Rule only stops you reaching out to your ex and the main point here is simple: to give your ex time and space to feel the consequences of the breakup and let them go through the stages of the breakup fast. Eventually this increases the probability of your ex missing you, getting scared of losing you and eventually calling you!

Ideally, the rule starts at the point of breakup. When your ex dumps you, you should not go into argument and a very long negotiation. You should try to keep your cool and just say this:
“I love you and I don’t want to break up with you. But I accept it. If you change your mind and want to give it a chance, please give me a call.”

Doing this would have the biggest effect. But unfortunately, almost all of the people who came here or consulted me did not do this. People usually try to reason with the ex, go into deep discussions or arguments. They sometimes beg for days before realizing that they are doing something wrong. Very very wrong.

But don’t worry. If you have done these mistakes, you still can start no contact. Start it right now. You don’t need to write anything or explain anything. You definitely don’t explain what you are planning to do. If the breakup is fresh, you can write a short “I have thought about it and …” message which simply contains the above “I love you but I accept” talk.
When you accept the breakup like this, you should immediately go into no contact. You should immediately walk away, turn your back and start to walk into your post-break up life. From now on, if your ex does not reach out to you, you will not communicate at all.

You must strictly have no contact with your ex under any circumstances. Birthdays, special days, Valentine’s day and special occasions (like graduation, new job) are included. Even if your ex’s mother dies, you do not contact them!

At this point, you have declared what you want but your ex preferred to walk away. You also did not shut the door to their face. Your ex can contact you if they change their mind. Until your ex calls or messages you, your ex does not exist anymore! And as far as your ex is concerned, you don’t exist either! As if you have disappeared from the face of the world. You will not accept “let’s just be friends” bullshit or continue to communicate with your ex.
Look, you need to realize that you are not trying to bluff or manipulate your ex. You are not going to call or message your ex until your ex reaches you. IF YOUR EX DOES NOT REACH YOU, YOU WILL NOT SEE THEM AGAIN!

Your ex has decided to break up instead of staying and saving the relationship. By walking away you are showing yourself and you are strong and disciplined enough to not accept their rules and walk away. You are not telling this to them but your walking away and not looking back will talk louder than words.
Let me repeat this:

NEVER EVER look like walk away and then call or message your ex. Walk away and do not look back. Be strict on this rule: If your ex won’t reach out to you, you will NEVER reach out to your ex. PERIOD.

Initially, your walking away will have ZERO effect on your ex. Why? Well first, your ex does not know the fact that you have walked away. 90% percent of the dumpees cannot or do not walk away so your ex assumes (even if they does not want it at the moment) that you will reach out.

So shouldn’t you tell your ex that you won’t reach out until they reach out to you?

NO! You should only say this:

“I love you and I don’t want to break up with you. But I accept it. If you change your mind and want to give it a chance, please give me a call.”

If you tell your ex that you will not contact them, you ruin the no contact process. You may hope that if you tell this to your ex, your ex will get scared and will reach out to you. But this is a false hope. If you vocalize this, they will think that you are trying to manipulate them or give an ultimatum. And if your ex knows that you won’t call, they will not go through the break-up steps which we will explain in this book. These steps are important because they are your best chance to make them feel an urge to call you.

You won’t tell the dumper that you won’t call them. You just will not call them and your actions will speak. Not your words.

There is another reason for your no contact not having an effect on your ex initially. They have a subconscious expectation that you will call, try to reason or beg for them to come back. I don’t say they want you to do this but they expect you will behave like this. If you stick to no contact rule, you will break this expectation but it will take time. Because since they are expecting that you will reach out, they will feel no need or urgency to call you. At least in the first few weeks. Once they see you are not contacting them, they will first think you are bluffing. But slowly, they will realize this: They won’t hear from you again if they don’t reach out to you.

If you start the no contact rule as I have described above, your ex will start to think these:

“Wait a minute, was it this easy for him/her?”
“How was it so easy? How can this be possible?”
“Is there anyone else?”
“Has she/he ever loved me?”
“Why hasn’t he/she loved me?”
“Is there anything wrong with me?”

BUT, these thoughts will not affect the dumper immediately. Because, the dumper will first feel RELIEVED to dump you. I know, this is the last thing you want to hear now and it hurts you. But continue to read. In the following sections, we will talk about the stages the dumper will pass through and you will see that if you are sticking to no contact rule, the RELIEF stage will be temporary.

Breakup Decision

To understand why you should not chase the dumper after the breakup (and communicate what you want and step back), you need to understand that your ex did not suddenly decide to leave you.

The dumper did not decide to breakup that morning!

They did not wake up from their sleep and said “I will dump my partner today and it will be a very good decision”.

You heard it that day but they were thinking about this for weeks or sometimes even months. If you have dumped someone before and not a psychopath, you know how long and painful the process is. And since this decision is painful to come to, the dumper will feel a huge relief after having the breakup talk. This relief stage will also continue for a while.

I am not talking about the breakup day. That day will be very stressful for both (although it will be still less stressful for the dumper). I am talking about the first few weeks or even sometimes for the first few months after the breakup. In this stage the dumper still feels sorry about the breakup and the dumpee but they will still be relieved by the end of the painful process in the previous weeks or the months of the breakup. They will be focused on “Oh I at last could do it and it is over!”.

Breakup would probably be a surprise and shock for you, much more intense than it is for the dumper. They would be prepared for these for weeks or months. And for this reason immediately after breakup, dumper would be more powerful than you. When the power balance is against you, you should not try to plead with the dumper, chase or worse bag them. This won’t get you anywhere positive. What you need to do first is restore the power balance again.

And how would you do that?

You need to accept the breakup asap and then start to apply no contact rule. This way, you calmly refuse to play the expected game from you and immediately start to restore your power.

You have made the breakup talk and you have left the table. Although you communicated your desire to work things out together, you did not plead with them to continue. You will not wait for it to cool down a bit and then try to reach out to them to talk. You will not chase, cry, beg for them to come back. This was the game you were expected to play but you calmly refused to do that. Your hand is not strong at the moment so you did not sit to negotiate but walked away.

This very behaviour itself will make the dumper review their position and immediately start to increase your value in the eyes of both you and the dumper. You are not talking but your calm behaviour and walking away tells this to the dumper:

“You are free to do what you want. You are as free as you want. You are so free that you don’t need me in your life. I am walking away.”

Again NEVER tell these words to the dumper. If you talk like this, this will only be understood ad butt hurt. Your walking away will tell this.

They are free now but also they lost you! They may not know it yet but they will soon realize that. And slowly they will start to look back and think:

“Is this the right decision? Is this what I really want?”

Time and Space

No Contact will bring necessary time and space for both of you.

Yes, you also need this time and space. Not only these will allow your ex to miss you, they also let you heal from the breakup and collect yourself.

Power balance is against you immediately after the breakup. Your brain is full of toxic chemicals. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is eating into your brain:

“You have to fix this!”
“You have to do whatever is necessary to fix this!”

“I don’t care how you do it. Go and beg or cry in front of his/her door but do something now!”
There are legit reasons your biology evolved like this but there is a problem here:

YOU HAVE NOT DONE ANYTHING!

Yes, you have not done anything. This is done by the dumper. The breakup is not your decision. Maybe what you have done and said made the dumper decide to leave you. But they chose to leave instead of staying and sorting things out together. Your brain may want to be free of cortisol and scream at you to do something but you don’t have to do anything.
You need to understand this: Your brain is responding to stimuli but you don’t have to act based on this response.

In this book I will repeatedly suggest you to leave the table and walk away and mean it. I will also repeatedly urge you to improve yourself as much as you can. If you want the No Contact

Rule to work, you need to improve yourself in any area you can think of.

Start to improve yourself pyhsically. For example if you are overweight start to go to a gym.

Start eating healthy and less.

Start to improve yourself emotionally. If you need, go to a therapist.

Start to improve yourself spiritually. If you are a believer, you can pray more.

Start to improve yourself socially. Go out with your friends more. Start that language course you were postponing indefinitely. Go out more.

Start to improve your career. Work for a promotion or maybe even find a better job.

Start to fix everything except the breakup in your life. And try to focus on them, not the breakup.

Don’t waste time negotiating the relationship with your ex. Walk away and focus on improving yourself. Otherwise if you execute No Contact Rule by waiting for a call from your ex in front of the phone or crying and eating on the couch, you will drown in your negative emotions.
“Yes, I get it but can you tell me when will he/she call me?”

I don’t know and actually your ex doesn't know it too. Your ex is a human being not a math formula. But based on experience I can say that if you apply No Contact Rule with patience and discipline, they would contact you in 2-3 weeks to a few months time.

If you really want an exact number, No Contact Rule generally works in 3 - 4 weeks average. Some dating coaches will use a magic 45 days number. I have seen 3 - 4 weeks more but I have also seen them to contact months later.

BUT your ex may never call back. This happens relatively less compared to ex calling back after a successful No Contact but it is still a possibility. Your ex will definitely miss you and think about you but it is not certain that these will cause them to call or message you. In this book we will talk about what you should do when your ex reaches out but there is always a chance that they don’t message or call at all.

Some dating coaches are demanding money for magic formulas which “guarantee” them to come back. These people are lying to you. Yes there is a high chance that ex reaches out especially if the relationship was good and relatively long term (above 3 months). But it is never 100%.

Sorry, I am not selling empty hopes but if you execute what I am outlining here you can increase your chance to get your back to the highest point possible.

Think also about this: You improve yourself and your ex comes back or not. But if they come back, you would positively shock them. If they don’t come back you can find someone better because now you are better. Many people who improve themselves would not want their ex back when they come back.

If you improve yourself and you get over your ex, you would be much happier with your new partner. Think about the person you can attract if you are more healthy, emotionally strong, richer and attractive.

We can summarize No Contact Rule like this:

1 - You will not reach out to the dumper. 

2 - You will immediately start to improve yourself to be the best version of yourself.
We cannot know what your ex will do. Most probably they will call back but maybe they won’t. But if you can use this breakup as a tool to be the best version of yourself, it is 100% certain that one of these two outcomes will materialize: 

(a) You will get your ex back or,
(b) you will find someone better than your ex.

Let’s say your ex reached out and you met. They will see the improvement. They will realize that you did not waste your days crying on the couch when you were not together. Without them your life went better not worse. This will boost your attractiveness.

Or let’s say your ex reached out and you met. You have done nothing except waiting for them to reach out. You are still the same or maybe worse. They will realize that you are dependent on them, your life has nothing without them. Maybe they will feel sorry for you and feel guilty about your situation. Unfortunately, pity and guilt significantly reduces your attractiveness. When someone feels sorry for a person, they perceive that person as weak. And no one can feel sexual and emotional attraction to a weak person.

No Contact Rule is very difficult to apply. It requires emotional strength, discipline and a lot of patience. Sometimes the urge to call them will turn into a storm. Expect this will happen and take precaution. You will not block the dumper (I will explain why) but this also means that you will have a fully open channel to reach them (if they did not block you already). You assign a good friend who will not talk about you to your ex as a last line of defence. When that “calling / messaging” urge comes, call this friend. This friend would be instructed to come and take you out immediately. When the urge comes, let this friend take you out of that depressing urge. Don’t reach out to your ex. If necessary, go to your bed and under your blanket, cry like hell but don’t reach out to your ex.

Especially in the first few weeks or months, that strong urge would attack more than once. This urge will be very strong in the beginning but if you can let it pass, each wave will be weaker than the previous and eventually the urge will go away.

But if you fail and reach out your ex, it will create a temporary relief but then you will feel worse and the next wave will be stronger! And if you reach out, you will be weaker (you will also show your ex that they have the power and you are weaker). The reason you apply No Contact Rule is to repair the power balance.

If you need to, read this book repeatedly to feel better. I promise you, No Contact Rule works. But as in everything which works, PATIENCE is the key here. You have to be PATIENT. PATIENCE is a very powerful tool and actually this is a good opportunity for you to cultivate patience.

30 Days No Contact Rule

If you look at other resources on No Contact Rule, a lot of them define it as 30 or 60 days no contact rule. They urge the dumpee to wait for 30 or 60 days and then call. This will not work in most cases. The real benefit comes from the fact that you won’t reach out to your ex unless they reach out to you. If they never reach out you will not see each other again. PERIOD!
 

Why?

To let No Contact Rule work, you need to stop chasing or reaching out to your ex and totally focusing on your life as if they will never come back. This is the only way to restore your power and power balance between you and your ex. One week, 30 days or 60 days does not change the fact that if you reach them out before they reach out to you, you are still chasing them.

One huge benefit of No Contact until ex reaches out is that it removes the huge weight of the illusion of action from your shoulders. You don’t need to worry about when to reach them out, how to time it or what to say when you reach out. You won’t reach out and need to think about this.

Next Chapter How to get over breakup pain?