Learn what pressure free contact is and why this approach to getting back your ex works better than pushy contact or no contact.
There are three ways to approach contact with your ex:
1. Pushy or aggressive contact
You apply pressure to get your ex to come back and keep pushing them until they give in. Pushy contact includes, begging and pleading with you ex to give you another chance; or promising them that you’ll change. As many of you may have found out, if you push your ex to get back together, their natural response is to push back.
2. No contact
You ignore your ex for 30 days or more in an attempt to make them miss you and come back. It’s also an avoidance way of approaching relationships; and uses someone’s anxiety and fear of rejection and abandonment to pressure them into taking you back. Most couples break-up again because once you get back together; there is no more fear of rejection or abandonment, and your ex wants out again.
3. Pressure free contact
You stay in contact with your ex and instead of focusing your energy and time on getting them back; focus your energy and time on making them feel safe enough to want to come back on their own.
With pushy contact and no contact, you are focused on only on what you want. Most exes can see that you don’t really care about them, all you want is to get them back; and they build more blocks and walls.
But with pressure free contact, you earn their trust because they can see you want them back; but you also want what’s best for them. The more your ex sees that you want is best for them, the more likely they are to trust you. With time your ex becomes more receptive to getting back together because you are not pressuring them.
Is the same as “pressure free contact” the same as low contact? No. The two are not the same.
1. Quantity vs. Quality
The assumption behind “limited contact” is that if you contact your ex just the right amount of times; they’ll think you are not needy and clingy and will want to come back.
Not true. People don’t fall in love because of how well you time your contacts. People fall in love because of how well you emotionally connect and how you make them feel. You can spend all your time and energy trying to figure out how often you should contact your ex; or you can spend your time and energy trying to figure out how to make your ex feel loved the way they want to be loved.
Pressure free contact is about quality. The focus is NOT on “number of contacts” but in the “effectiveness of communication”.
Some people need many contacts or constant communication to feel that feeling (of safety, closeness, importance or excitement); and some people need just a few emotionally powerful words to feel that they are in love. So, instead of putting all your energy trying to get just the right number of contacts, pressure free contact allows you to work with the needs (safety, closeness, importance or excitement) and attachment style of your ex.
2. Doing Vs. Being
Just like “no contact”, “limited contact” is about how long you can sit on your hands to stop yourself from picking the cookie you are not supposed to be eating. It doesn’t say you have the mental toughness to not pick up the cookie; it says you are “trying too hard”. This can help if you have no “self-control” and have a tendency to get anxious and go off contacting someone needlessly. It may make your ex feel less overwhelmed with your number of contacts; but it still doesn’t get you closer to your ex emotionally.
Meaningless “Hi, how are”, “Hi what’s up?’ “Hi, how is your day?” every few days or once a week; and “I’m doing fine”, “My life is good”, “I’m on my way to the gym” etc. replies every few hours or days is just that; meaningless and superficial!
Shallow gets you as far as shallow does. After sometime, you run out of things to say and contacts become further and further apart. Next thing you know, you are panicking and over-contacting again.
Pressure free contact is focused on the energy you send out and is sensed by your ex. I think it was Anthony Robbins who said ” The quality of your communication equals the quality of your life”. If you don’t have a quality life, no matter how “perfectly” you time your contacts; the quality of your communication will always be poor. That’s the bad news.
3. Calculating Vs. Flexible
Limited contact is focusing on a particular outcome. That is “I’m doing 1+1 to get to 2”. There is a lot of fear, anxiety, and worry there. You not only spend a lot of time, energy and emotion trying to figure out how to do it “perfectly”; you also also spend just as much time, energy and emotion second guessing yourself and beating up yourself for your “mistakes.”
The real smacker is that you can’t get it “perfect” every time. And because you keep making “mistakes’ (which you will, because you are human), you conclude that things aren’t working and walk away; or muddy it up some more (with desperate pleas, emotional outbursts, over-reactions etc).
Pressure free contact implies just that – no pressure to get the desired result. 1+1 might get you 0, 1.5 or 3; and that’s okay. You take that into consideration and make your next move based on what is happening as things unfold. Instead of always trying to get the result you want; you operate from a place of transparency, openness and trust (self-trust and trusting the goodness of the other); and let things add up how they will.
There is no fear, anxiety, and worry because you are not busy scaring yourself with what might happen if you don’t do things “perfectly”; or torturing yourself for what you didn’t “do right”. Your times together are relaxed, easy and more fun — in a very natural way. Even if there is someone else, there is no fear, anxiety, and worry because you are not jumping up and down screaming, “choose me! choose me!”; but allowing your ex to “choose you” (on their own free will).
4. Ineffective Vs. Effective
Low Contact is like showing up at work exactly when you are supposed to, but doing absolutely no work. You check in and sit back waiting for the day to end so that you can show up again tomorrow – on time as expected.
Showed up alright, but achieved ABSOLUTELY nothing!
Pressure Free Contact is about moving things forward at the pace that is comfortable to your ex. It’s about achieving results!
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Yangki, it’s been a week and 4 days since my ex asked me to meet up for a drink. I sent a text back saying it’s ok, a drink would be good but I also wanted to talk about us because it was important to be clear where things stand. I haven’t heard from him since. I’m thinking of sending him a text but I also don’t want to come across as pushy because he had said he was busy with a work project. What do you think? Do you think I should give him some time to get in touch?
I don’t think he’s going to get in touch, at least not any time soon. I also don’t think the reason he’s not reached out is because he’s busy. I think you saying you wanted to talk about the relationship to be clear where things stand scared him off. He just wanted to have a drink with you, but you upped the stakes.
You have to first get someone comfortable with the idea of the two of you being back together before you can start taking about “where things stand”.
Send him a text, not asking about going out, but asking about his work. The way you do that is by showing someone that even when you have nothing to gain from it, you still care if he is okay. See what happens…
Hey yangki!
First off, great advice!! The problem I’m having is, having deep meaningful conversation with my ex instead of the shallow ones you mentioned. How do I go about doing that?? Please help!
Thanks for your kind words.
I am happy to work with you on deep meaningful conversations. Here is a link to sign up for coaching.
Yangki, I really need your advice because you seem to be the only coach out there who does not encourage mind games. I worked with a coach who told me to act like I don’t care about my ex when around him so that he realizes I’m getting over him and be more willing to do the chasing. We meet at parties and before I got this advice he would come over to me, ask how I was doing and chat a little bit. Since I started ignoring him he’s kept his distance. I wasn’t mean to him or anything, I just didn’t look his way and continued having fun with my friends because I thought he’d see I’m having a good time and remember the times spent together. I want him to come over to me again and talk to me, how do I fix this?
I’m sorry you got bad advice. This is exactly why I discourage mind games. They almost always backfire!
I don’t think there is a remote control way to get him to come over to you and talk to you again. Swallow your pride, go over to him, ask how he is doing and chat a little bit. You may have to do this a few times before he gets comfortable with approaching you again.
Hi Yangki, your advice has been most helpful. My ex and I have had several good conversations on phone, but when I text him he rarely responds. We used to text each other “have a good day” but now he just ignores my morning texts. He also has not initiated contact. But when I call him, he sounds like he’s happy to hear from me and we talk for 10 – 30 minutes. I don’t know what to do to get him to reply to my texts.
He may be ignoring the morning texts because it’s something you did as a “couple”. You are not together anymore.
It’s also possible that he’s avoiding any possible miscommunication that’s typical with texts. This is especially true, if it’s something that’s happened before.
What is important is that you are making progress. For now, go with what he’s most comfortable with… talking on the phone. Over time… and if you are connecting… he’ll become comfortable communicating by text, and will start to initiate contact.
Yangki, since reading about the bids for emotional connection in your date back ex book, I have started noticing some of the examples you give. To be honest, I used to get frustrated with him sending me photos of his dog because I thought we should be talking about us not the dog. The last time I responded to his bid for emotional connection, the conversation slowly shifts to him asking questions about me. He’s also initiated contact a couple of times. My question is, how long do I have to do this? Do I also send him bids for emotional connection? What are some examples of things I should be saying?
Connecting emotionally is something you do throughout the course of any relationship. There is no start and end date.
Yes, you should be not only be appropriately responding to his bids for emotional connection, you should be sending some too. I don’t know what it is you want to say, so I can’t come up with any examples that apply to your specific situation. My advice is to use the general idea behind the examples that I give in the book. Send different ones at different times. It works!
My ex and I broke up because I pushed him too hard to get married. We’d been living together for 3 months and my parents wanted us to get married. We remained in contact. but at first i was the one mostly initiating it. he started to initiate more and things are really going well. My question is, when do I tell him I want us to get back together? My parents apologized to me when we broke up and said it is my decision when I want to get married. I told him and he seemed happy about it? Is it the right time to talk about getting back together? Btw, I’m 38, he’s 32.
When to bring the topic up and how, is tricky. I think you will find my response to a similar question helpful: Ex Initiating Contact Does He Want Me Back?
I’ve had my share of relationships where I felt like I was the only one putting in the work, compromising, and making personality adjustments. And now I feel that I’m doing the same trying to get my ex back. I’m doing most of the initiate contact, he always responds but does not initiate. I don’t want to give up on the relationships, but at what point do I realize that he does not want me back, and move on.
It’s normal in the initial stages for you who wants the other back to be initiating all the contacts. To get your ex to start initiating contact you have to do more than just contact him.
But if this is a pattern in your relationships, may be you should be asking yourself why this keeps happening to you.
My experience with clients is that, people who “give too much” do so to try to control a relationship. It’s hard to think of “giving too much” as a control strategy, but it is. It’s mainly born out of fear — fear that if you don’t say this or do that, you will not get the outcome you want.
Try stepping back a little and see what happens. Stepping back means “stepping back”, not stop all contact. It can’t be all or nothing. There has to be balance!
When doing pressure free contact with a ex? Is it fair to expect that communication should be going both ways. I am the dumpee. I.e if he was happy to hear from me and said he call me. Should my expectation be that he does? Or take it as it comes? Thanks
It doesn’t matter if you are the dumper or dumpee, if you are the one who wants the other back, in the initial stages, you are the one who’ll do most of the heavy lifting. But as I mention several times in my articles and eBook, contact for the sake of contact doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t inspire the other person to respond and after sometime he/she just stops contact altogether.
Your contacts have to be emotionally effective for you to be able to move things forward.
I’m sure your next question will be…”how do I make my contacts emotionally effective?”. There are many articles on my blog and website on how to do that, and also in my eBook. You have to have a plan, just winging it by asking questions on blogs isn’t going to get your ex back. You have to have a plan — and a strategy.