When someone comes to me asking for help getting their ex back, one of the things I look for is if there was strong emotional bond. A strong emotional bond with your ex means that enough time had been spent creating an emotionally safe relationship.
Many people are quick to say there is a strong emotional bond with their ex. But when I ask a few questions, we both quickly realize that the emotional bond is weak or wasn’t there at all. Not much attention had been paid to creating a safe environment for a strong emotional bond to develop. And sometimes there wasn’t enough time to create a strong emotional bond with their ex. The relationship moved too fast and ended quickly too.
When the emotional bond between two people is weak, it usually shows
While the relationship may seem stable – and even exciting and passionate on the surface, the emotional safety needed for open and honest communication, trust, respect, and even liking may be missing.
Nowhere does lack of an emotional bond and emotional safety show more than when two people go through a a break-up; especially just before, during and soon after a break-up.
Where the emotional bond between two people is weak, the first casualty of the break-up is communication.
1) No communication
Communication is almost non-existent before and during the break-up. After the break-up, it just seems redundant to stay in contact.
2) Dysfunctional communication
Communication before the break-up is mainly arguments, fighting and yelling. During the break-up, there is bad feelings and animosity; and after the break-up the same pattern dysfunctional communication continues until one person shuts is down with cutting off all lines of communication.
A break-up where there’s strong emotional connection with your ex is different
When the emotional bond is strong, two people talk over their issues; sometimes for days and even weeks before finally breaking up. Neither person is ready to suddenly cut off communication because there is no reason to. They find it painful to just break away and act like they never knew each other.
After the break-up four things are likely to happen:
- Both people agree to remain friends
- One person asks for a little space to grieve with a definite time to reconnect
- Both people agree to keep the lines of communication with no labels or expectations
- One people still wants to work on the relationship and there is an agreement to see where things go.
When trying to get back together, a strong emotional bond with your ex may be the deciding factor.
It goes without saying that no relationship is perfect, and there are varying degrees of emotional bonds. See how you answer these five questions. Zero being “never” and ten being “all the time”. Be completely honest with yourself, it doesn’t do you any good lying to yourself.
1. Did you both feel safe enough to tell each other everything (your inner thoughts and feelings) holding nothing back?
2. Was there a strong desire (on both sides) to share your ideas, thoughts, and interests with the other; and were you able to build on each other’s ideas, and thoughts to a point where you always felt that you both wanted what’s best for yourselves and for each other?
3. Did you both have the feeling that the other was emotionally invested and making enough effort to nurture the relationship?
4. Did you trust your ex and did they believe that you were honest, trustworthy and had no hidden agenda?
5. When you had a disagreement or fight; did you communicate honestly, forgive yourselves and each other, and talk about what you learned from the experience and move on?
Congratulations, if you feel good about your answers. You’re already half way to getting your ex back.
If your responses leave you feeling like you didn’t do enough to create safe environment for a strong bond with your ex to develop; this is where you start trying to attract back your ex. If your ex doesn’t feel emotionally safe to return to the relationship, nothing will work.
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Wow! Great article. I read through the five questions and I feel like we nailed everyone of these questions. We were definitely great together. Its been 2 months. I finally wrote to him (thanks to you) just to see how he’s doing, which him the best and take away his anxieties. I hope to hear from him soon cause it took a lot of courage to write. Thanks for your articles.
Thank you for this article. I recently had someone break up with me out of an emotional security issue and fear of being loved. Two days later he contacted me and said he was wrong and wanted to come back to me if I’d let him. I agreed to “try again”, but I’m guarded now and not very excited about it because I’m so afraid this is going to happen again (probably more than once). I do love him. I know he loves. What can I do to become a little more happy about trying again?
You said the breakup was due to an emotional security issue and fear of being loved, until that issue is sorted out, you are not going to be happy about trying again, or the relationship…
And yes, it’ll most likely happen again (probably more than once).
Now 2 weeks since ex and I started talking again. I initiate all contact and sometimes she responds and sometimes not. I broke up with her and my gut is telling me the reason she doesn’t want to talk to me is because she is protecting herself from getting hurt again. Should I let her know that I want her back or should I try to attract her back to me?
You are right in that she may be protecting herself from getting hurt again. But it could also be that she moved on and responding out of politeness, especially if you’ve been broken up or have been in no contact for too long.
You could let her know that you want her back, but I don’t think it will change anything. Your best chance (if there is any), is to slowly attract her back to you.
I got my ex back after 8 long months of hard work. We were together for 5 years and have a child together. I think we were both not ready for the responsibilities of parenting and it tore us apart. He had basically given up on us and was dating someone new but I never gave up. With hard work and patience, I won him back.
We’re proof that many problems facing a relationship can be fixed. Unless you’ve reached the point where one or both of you don’t want to fix them, you should keep trying.
Don’t lose hope. Stay positive, anything can happen!
Anything can indeed happen… Congratulations Cece!… 🙂
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
I was always able to convince myself that my ex had changed and take him back. For the first few weeks he acted like he’d changed, but then things went back to how they used to be. This is our 4th breakup and I have accepted that he will never change.
I am ashamed of myself for how I cried, begged and pleaded with him not to breakup with me. I haven’t seen or talked to him since the breakup. I want to reach out to him just to know how he is doing but I don’t know if that is a good or bad idea. What if he has moved on? What if there is someone else? It’s been 6 months.
No need to be ashamed. A break-up experience is hard on almost everyone.
6 months is a long time. It’s possible that he has moved on or has someone else, but if you are reaching out just to ask about how he is doing, then it shouldn’t matter if he has moved on or if there is someone else.
The hardest thing for me was accepting that the emotional connection must be worked on by both sides. Where as i was building the bridge, the “surface passion” was all that existed for him on his side and he made no effort to open up to me and let his guard down. As a result, he never developed the attachment for me as I did him. One sided is so very hard.