There are good reasons and bad reasons to keep communication open with your ex. But if you want your ex back, the good reasons to stay in contact outweigh the bad ones. On top of the list of good reasons is the importance of having open lines of communication.
Communication is one of the top causes, if not, “the” top cause of break-ups. It’s no surprise that “communicating with your ex” is one of the biggest challenges post break-up; and also the most polarizing when it comes to how to attract back your ex.
Reasons to keep communication open and not to go no contact
Some people believe no contact will make their miss them and want to come back. Others like myself believe that; the easiest way to send a message to your ex that you don’t want anything to do with them now or ever is to cut off communication. The message you send is that you want to be left alone and not be contacted; and most exes listen to you and never reach out.
Let alone the fact that it is harder to reconnect with an ex after weeks of no contact than most people realize. In your head is looks all clear. After no contact, you will reach out and your ex will be happy to hear from you. But the reality is much different than the theory in your head. Some exes will respond, but most exes don’t respond. Even when they respond, you will struggle to get back that emotional connection; because emotions are not something you can just turn on and off at will.
If you want your ex to know that you want them to contact you; it is necessary to keep the lines of communication open. To send the message that you are open to some form of contact.
These 5 compelling reasons to keep communication open with your ex increase the chances you will get back together:
1. Keep communication open with your ex to slowly rebuild trust
Break-ups leave lingering feelings of suspicion, mistrust and tension, particularly when things haven’t been going well for a while. The message you send by blocking communication is that the relationship is beyond repair. That message is louder and clearer if poor communication or trust was what caused the break-up in the first place.
2. Keep communication open with your ex to stay up-to-dateÂ
After a break-up, things simply are not what they appear to be even if you think you know your ex. Loss of communication means that you are disconnected from each other and from what’s happening in each other’s lives. The longer you stay away, the more disconnected the two of you become. You become “strangers” to each other.
Keeping the lines of communication keeps you up-to-date with what’s important to your ex. These can be topics for emotionally connecting conversations.
3. Keep communication open with your ex so you can show you are safe
Willingness and ability to keep the lines of communication open in unpleasant situations is a one of the traits of a securely attached person It shows you are secure within yourself and are able to compartmentalize your emotions. While “No Contact” helps you avoid misunderstandings and potentially explosive situations, it sends a subtle but powerful message about your inability to handle your own emotions and the emotions of others. Whatever happens later, it’s hard to change the implanted image of someone who can’t handle difficult emotions.
4. Keep communication open with your ex to take advantage of opportunities to show your ex you’ve changed
Many people don’t believe people change, until they can actually see the change. Your ex is more likely to believe you have changed if they can experience the change as it happens than if you disappear for months and reappear claiming you have changed. Open lines of communication give you opportunities to demonstrate that things can be different.
If for example, the relationship ended because you argued a lot or you overreacted to things, open lines of communication offer you opportunities to avoid arguing or show you can listen to your ex and accept their perspective and not overreact simply because you disagree.
5. Keep communication open with your ex to assess your chances sooner than later
So many people waste 1-3 months doing ‘no contact’ and holding hope of getting their ex back only to reach out and find their ex has moved on; or doesn’t want anything to do with them. Open lines of communication provide better clarity of where things stand and if there is even a remote possibility of the two of you getting back together. If you see there is no hope, you can cut your loses and move on.
As you can see, keeping the lines of communication open with your ex significantly increases your chances of getting back together.
To make the best of the open lines of communication, make sure that you focus on quality and respectful communication instead of just timed contact. It is also important that you don’t expect or demand the kind of contact and communication that two people who are still together enjoy.
A break-up changes everything. Trying to force things to be like before the break-up can do more harm than good. You find yourselves continuing the destructive pattern of communication that caused the break-up; and things are getting worse instead of better.
RELATED:
Why Avoidants Get Angry When You Reach Out After No Contact
It just seems obvious to me that when a relationship ends it is counter productive to continue communicating or as friends.
I don’t think it’s obvious at all. People and relationships are very complex. Whether to continue communication or whether it is even possible to do so depends on:
1) why and how the relationship ends
2) the personalities and attachment styles of the individuals involved
3) ability to handle rejection
4) if there was a friendship in the relationship to begin with
5) other ties binding two people together (children, assets, careers, finances etc)
6) the desire to maintain a relationship with one’s ex
Someone also raised a very interesting factor that may be overlooked — individual and/or cultural values and beliefs.
It makes sense, however it takes two to have a healthy relationship. Also most people doing no contact are just trying to get their ex back and all the experts say no contact is the “must do” thing to get your ex back. After a couple of fails using no contact with two different ex-girlfriends, I decided to study it more carefully and realized that the experts have not done a good job of explaining the risks of using no contact. No contact is marketed as some kind of magic solution that if you follow strictly will bring your ex back. If you want your ex back, you will do anything the experts say.
I really appreciate you taking the time to have this discussion with me. Best!
Again, you are right… it takes two. But since you can’t change your ex or force him or her to be emotionally healthy or mature, change has to start with you. That’s who you can change if you want the dynamics of the relationship to change. It’s borderline narcissism to want or demand a healthy and mature relationship when you are acting self-destructively immature.
I created this blog partly to offer an alternative to all the “NO CONTACT” experts out there. I got tired of listening to my clients who had a very good chance of getting their ex back tell me how they blew it with a stupid “No Contact” rule.
Reversing the damaging effects of “No Contact” rule is probably the hardest part of my work and where I have the least success. Most times people come to me when it’s too late — it breaks my heart.
I’ll take the best… sending back more your way…(:
Your blog is truly inspiring. I have been telling myself that it’s just not working and finding all kinds of reasons to justify why I should give up. But reading your blog helped me see that what I should be giving my relationship my very best shot because it’s worth my time and effort. I’m changing how I think and making that extra effort to keep the lines of communication open even if it’s me doing most of the initiating conversations. He never was a talker in the first place and that’s what I loved about him, why should I resent that he does not communicate as much now?
This is a great website, its helped me a lot.
I broke my exes trust by looking at porn, she caught me twice and split up with me a few months after the second time saying she does not think she will get over it.
She is the love of my life and I am seriously gutted. The difficulty is we were building a business together and I need her to run my business. She wants to be involved but for me its really hard.
I have changed and hope that she sees this in me as we continue too work together.
Thanks for your advice Yangki!
Hello. I bought your book, following it to the letter, and progressed from texting with my ex to an agreement we talk on the phone every Sunday. Reason why I proposed it and he accepted, is because he doesn’t like texting and you pointed out I should communicate with him in his preferred way. So far so good….
Good or you. Hopefully, you connect more emotionally and you get to speak more than once a week. You need momentum to move things forward. As mentioned repeatedly in the book, it’s not so much about number of contacts but level of emotional engagement that shows progress/interest. Without emotional engagement, you may find yourself speaking once a week for the next 2 -3 years, or until one of you moves on.
Thank you! Thanks to your book I realized I was engaging in mindless chatter and with our weekly phone calls (his preferred way of contact), I aim to achieve meaningful communication, with the goal to connect when he comes home from work in a few months and socialize…. Wish me luck and wisdom… 🙂
I want to add I did not contact her for 4 weeks to give her time and space. I started contact again sending her a text “”Hi, how are you?” she did not reply. I waited three weeks then I sent another text also no reply. She replied to the third one and i have since sent her two more, no reply.
Every 3 weeks or once every week won’t make a difference. Communicating with your ex is not just a matter of contacting them every few days/weeks with updates of your life or the superficial “Hi, how are you?” and “Hi, what’s up”. Contact for contact’s sake or communication that is meaningless is not only ineffective, it can also make things worse.
If you are not interested in the book, then spend some time reading my articles. I’ve written extensively on effective communication that creates a desire in your ex not just to respond but to start seeing things in a different light. I’m sure you will understand that repeating what I’ve written over and over just isn’t the best use of my time.
I’d really like to buy your book but I have bought so many books on getting your ex back and followed the advice and contacting my ex every 3 weeks with updates of my life. She has only replied once and did not seem interested. I’d like to keep the lines of communication open. Do you think I should contact her more may be once every week?
It is true that post breakup communication can be very confusing. I did no contact and reconnected with my ex after six weeks. I asked him if he wanted to go out with me and he said yes. But as he was telling me about his life I realised he isn’t the same man that I met three years ago. We still text each other but we’re slowly drifting apart. Some times we have moments when it’s like the old days but the more we communicate the more I see that we have less and less things in common. I’m not sure if no contact has anything to do with it or if we naturally drifted apart.
No contact may have something to do with it, but it could also be that you are naturally drifting apart, which is normal. As people change, the relationship also changes; sometimes people get closer than ever and sometimes they realize, as in your case, that there is less and less to keep them together.
Instead of forcing this to end with no contact or trying to keep alive what’s dying naturally, talk to him about it. You may find that he feels the same way. The two of you may decide that since you still care about each other, you can remain good friends — no bitter feelings.