Question: Yangki, my ex broke up with me 5 months ago. We did not have contact for 4 days, I reached out to him and he responds but I can still see that he’s guarded because I hurt him with my actions and words. I have since realized all the things that I did wrong and I’m working on fixing them. My question is how to convince him that I’m still the person that he fell in love with?
Yangki’s Answer: First of all, I don’t think you should be trying to convince him you are “still the same” person. That’s a mistake. Remember, the person he fell in love is also the person he fell out of love with.
That person he fell in love with is not good enough anymore. You have to bring more/a better you to the table to convince him that this relationship will be better.
In my experience, “convincing” works best if you do not come across as trying to “sell yourself”.
Work into your communications (text, email, IM, Facebook, phone, face-to-face…all fronts) how you are changing or have changed. It has to happen as a part of natural conversation, otherwise it will be “selling”. He has to see the change in the words you use, the way you think, respond, act or react, but most importantly, in the way you relate to him.
Keep in mind that he will be looking for old behaviours and may even test you to see if those “issues” are still a problem. Every time you say or do something that reminds him of the things in the old relationship that made him want to break-up, he becomes more and more convinced that you haven’t really changed. So make sure you have indeed changed, before you start telling your ex that you have changed.
