Question: How long should I text my ex before asking to meet? My ex and I have only recently reestablished contact. She broke up with me and asked for one months of no contact. I respected her wish but after one month she did not reach out. I found your site and bought you book, and decided to reach out. Her responses were cold at first but I followed your advice and she slowly warmed up. She apologized for not reaching out as she had said; she thought a long time had passed and I had moved on. In one of our chats, she asked if I dated other people and I told her I had been out on a couple of dates. She also had been out of a few dates.
I can honestly say the conversations are encouraging. We now text every 2 days, still mostly me initiating. My question is, what is your experience with meeting an ex face to face to try to get them back? I’d assume it woks faster than sending texts or calling them. Right? How long should I text my ex before asking to meet?
Yangki’s Answer: I can’t say a face-to-face meeting can get your ex faster, but seeing each other in person (as often as possible) helps in many cases.
There are instances when a face-to-face conversation has helped two people talk things over and agree to see where things go. I have also seen cases where two people got back together right away after a face-to-face meeting.
Usually this is when the relationship was relatively stable/good and the break-up was a sudden and an impulsive decision based on pure emotion. After a couple of days, the emotions have calmed down and the dumper is open to a more rational conversation about what happened.
I have also worked with couples where one or both parties never opened up about their true feelings of love for the other, and the relationship ended without the other knowing how the other felt, or ended because the dumper felt the dumpee didn’t love or care about him/her.
After a completely honest and open face-to-face conversation, they both realize they care about each other enough to try to give the relationship another chance. Some couples get back together right away and some decide to take it slow and see what happens. Whether or not they stay together is another matter.
But I have also seen cases where a face-to-face- meeting ended any possible chance of ever getting back together. Usually this is when people push for a face-to-face meeting too soon, when emotions are still high. A meeting that was meant to improve things gets emotionally out of control. Things go from bad to worse.
The advice I give in my Dating Your Ex eBook is to assess the emotional temperature and try to re-establish a sense of connection and goodwill before asking your ex to meet.
If you have a strong emotional connection and both of you are in an emotionally good place, you can ask to meet face-to-face anytime. How long you have been in contact doesn’t matter.
The worst that can happen is that they will say no. But because you have a strong emotional connection, it will have absolutely no impact on things moving forward. As long as you don’t nag or put pressure, but instead build momentum and wait for another opportunity to ask again, you will be just fine.
I strongly advice not to ask to get back together on a first face-to-face meeting. It’ll look like its’ the only reason you wanted to meet; and may come across as selfish and self-serving. It’s always better to slowly work towards the get back together talk; get yourselves to a point where it’s almost a sure thing that your ex will say “yes”.
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