Get Your Ex Back By Letting Go

When you want your ex back, you try to hold on to them every way you can.

But the harder you cling to them, the faster they slip through your fingers.

If you want them back, the only option is to let go.

But letting go of your ex is just the beginning.

You need to free yourself by letting go of everything that’s not serving you during this process.

Letting Go Of Your Ex

After a breakup, it can be really hard to separate yourself from your ex. This is a very human reaction. You’ve had your future ripped away from you and it feels like your world is falling apart.

So it’s only natural that you’d cling to the person who always gave you so much comfort, even if they’re the source of all this pain.

And if you want them back, then you have all the more reasons to try to keep them close.

You think if you give them space then they’re going to slip away. They’ll forget about you, meet someone new and move on from you.

But in reality, the opposite is true. The more time you spend chasing your ex after the breakup, the faster they’re going to leave you behind and move on.

This happens for a few reasons. First, it comes down to how your ex sees you. Of course, and I know that this is hard to hear, but they now think of you as someone from the past…their ex, basically.

But that’s only half the story.

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Since the breakup is a recent development and since the two of you made the bulk of your memories together as a couple, that’s what they associate you with, deep down in their subconscious mind.

So when they see you, they can’t help but remember all the good moments that you two had together, the bonds that you created, the love that you felt, and the experiences you shared.

On that level they think of you as their partner, the one they love.

But that can change. If you keep hanging out with them post breakup, they’re going to build new associations.

They’ll start to see you as an ex first, and a partner second. This will happen regardless of how these interactions go but—of course—if you’re acting pathetic, depressed and needy, then this process will happen fast and be very hard to reverse.

If you’ve ever been through a breakup, you’ve experienced this. Those relationships that ended fairly quickly without much drama.

These are the people that you still think about fondly and wonder if they might just be the one who got away. These are the people you think about reaching out to and getting back together with.

Then there are those relationships that went down in flames, led to giant explosive fights and long drawn out breakups. And now when you think about those people, you struggle to look past all that drama.

The same principle is at work here. The more time you spend playing the role of their ex, the more they start to look at you as their ex, rather than as the love of their life.

And so the more time you spend chasing them, texting them—really, interacting with them in any way—the more you’re pushing them away.

This is why you need to let them go. But it’s not always that easy. And here’s something that people don’t talk about: letting go gets even more complicated and difficult when your ex is actually holding onto you!

In fact, I run into so many cases where a client tells me that their ex won’t leave them alone but is also completely shutting down the idea of getting back together. It can be maddening.

How can you let them go when they’re making the effort to connect with you?

You don’t want to risk offending them or losing whatever link you still have left. But you also know that you can’t continue down this road. It’s only going to lead to resentment and confusion.

I mean think about it. They’re still dodging your desire to get back together. They’re still disappearing whenever they want.

They’re still treating you more like a friend or an ex than an actual romantic prospect. Even if you’re together, you’re still heading in the wrong direction.

That’s why letting go really is the only option. It’s a way of resetting the relationship and starting fresh.

It’s how you both get your needs met and connect in a real way.

So how can you make this happen? Well it starts right now. You need to commit to the idea of letting go of your ex, at least for a significant period of time. Until you accept it in your mind, it’s never going to happen in reality.

You can’t commit halfway to this. So don’t say “I’m going to keep them at a distance but I’ll still check in” or “I have to talk to them sometimes” or “I’ll just give one word answers.”

You have to make a firm commitment to let them go and cut contact for a significant period of time.

I’ve found you get the best results by committing to a whole month of silence, but if your relationship was quite short—say, under 3 months—then you can make do with just a couple of weeks.

And that’s not the end of it. Because it’s very possible to cut contact with your ex and then just sit at home, counting down the day until you can reach out again, constantly refreshing their social media page and dreaming about being together again.

If this is your approach, you’re not really letting go of your ex at all.

You’re just postponing your clingy behaviour.

Instead, consciously uncouple your mind from your ex. Think about other things. Distract yourself by having fun and spending time with the people you care about. Set goals and make moves towards achieving them.

Just do your best to move on and live your life without your ex.

This isn’t admitting defeat. It’s preparing for your future. Because once this period is up and you start reconnecting with your ex, you’re going to feel better, look better and have a bunch of new memories to share with them that you’d never have made just by sitting at home.

And there are other things you need to do during your time apart…

Letting Go Of The Past

One of the biggest barriers that stop people from getting back together is all the baggage that you carry from your time together as a couple. That’s not to mention all the negativity around the breakup.

Above all else here, I’m talking about resentment. Despite our best efforts, it’s very, very common for resentment to form between romantic partners.

I’ve seen it destroy the strongest of marriages and prevent two people who love each other from being together again.

Now I’m sure your ex has done a lot of things that you haven’t liked.

Maybe they’ve been inconsiderate, hurtful, cruel, and selfish. Maybe they broke your heart and kicked you when you were down. They failed to meet your needs even while having over-the-top expectations that made you feel like you weren’t enough.

None of this is okay and it’s understandable that it hurt you. It’s also understandable that you’ve been carrying it inside for all this time, letting it fester and affect the relationship that the two of you share.

But that’s all in the past now. This breakup provides you an opportunity to have a fresh start with this person. Now are you going to take it or are you going to keep living in the past?

Because the more you hold onto that resentment, the more it starts to guide your actions and your words.

You probably can’t see it at all, but it’s there, just under the surface. It’s the reason that you blow up at them over something small, like forgetting to respond to your text. It’s the reason that you’re dismissive of their accomplishments and their interests even if you don’t mean to be.

It’s the biggest thing that’s standing between the two of you and if you want to be together again, you’re going to need to address it.

So start by acknowledging any resentment that you feel for this person. Remember, this is a perfectly natural human thing.

It’s normal to have a little unresolved beef, even with the person you care about the most. In fact, the reason that you have this resentment is BECAUSE you care about them so much. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t really care about how they felt about you or the little mistakes they made.

So really, resentment is a sign of a deep connection. It also represents times that you’ve held your tongue to avoid hurting your ex’s feelings.

If you didn’t care about them, you’d have lashed out and resolved your resentment right there but because you care about them, you didn’t want to hurt them or lose them by voicing your concern.

So don’t judge yourself or your ex for feeling a little resentment. It would be weird if you didn’t. But know that this resentment is no longer serving you. It’s only clouding your judgement and causing issues between you and your ex.

Do your best to accept the things that happened in the past and let them go. This is where a breakup provides perspective.

Remember your ex’s ex that you were always jealous of? Remember that fight you had when they ate the last piece of cake that you were saving? Remember that time when they shut down and downplayed your feelings?

Ask yourself, don’t all these problems seem so much less important now that you’ve been through a horrible breakup?

When you have to face the possibility that you and your ex will never be together again, suddenly it becomes much easier to forgive them and move past even the biggest issues. But you have to actually consciously take this step if you want to wash away the resentment.

So think hard about all the things from the past you’re holding onto—resentment, jealousy, anger, shame—and vow to let them all go.

This is going to mean no longer letting them bubble up in arguments and ruin the mood. It means no longer using them against your ex whenever you get an opportunity. It means seeing your ex with fresh eyes.

Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that your ex is going to do the same, but it’s a good start.

Often the cycle of conflict is broken when one person decides to treat the other with more respect and to let go of the past.

And that’s going to go a long way to helping the two of you reconnect without drama and hurt feelings.

Letting Go Of The Future

So you’ve let go of your ex, and you’ve let go of the past. But what about what comes next? Many people get so caught up in their expectations that they end up pushing their ex away and they find themselves all alone.

Even though it’s easy to see how this happens, it’s also quite hard to avoid falling into this trap.

Because after a breakup, we’re so desperate to hold onto any kind of hope. Whether that’s hope that you’ll get back together or even just hope that you’ll be happy again.

And while both of these things are possible, if you make them your sole focus—if you try to manifest too hard—it’s going to come through in your actions and it’s going to be a major issue.

It doesn’t matter if you keep it all inside. If your inner monologue is “we’re going to get back together and be together forever and this whole breakup is going to be like a bad dream” then your ex is going to be able to tell, and they’ll feel that pressure that you’re subconsciously putting on them.

It’s not exactly the same, but this is similar to how desperation kills attraction. When someone is desperate, you can practically smell it on them. Because being desperate is about being motivated purely by connecting with another person.

They’ll do whatever it takes, say whatever it takes and they’ll even act against their own values just to make that connection.

This comes through in how they treat you, it creates pressure and it’s extremely unattractive.

And the same goes for people who can’t let go of the future they’ve built up in their heads.

They’re inflexible and they’re laser focused in a way that will drive people away. Because suddenly the other person feels like they have no say in this, as if they’re just a prop in a perfect love story that they don’t get to write.

Now this one is harder than the others to let go of. You have so much invested in this emotionally and it’s so linked with your ex that you just naturally fall into these rhythms whenever you talk to them, see them, or even think about them.

So remember this: the relationship with your ex is never going to be the same as it was before the breakup.

It could be better. It could be worse. But it’s definitely going to be different. And it’s going to be different in ways that you can’t predict.

So instead of getting ahead of yourself and trying to push your ex down a path to create the perfect relationship, take a step back and let things unfold naturally.

Put your focus into listening to your ex. Try to understand what they’ve been through, what they want, and how they’ve changed since the breakup.

If you can do that, you’ll see that there is a future where the two of you can be together. It’s going to be a different future than the one you’re imagining, but the important stuff will be the same. You’ll be together, and you’ll be happy.

Brad Browning

Brad Browning is widely regarded as the world's most trusted breakup experts, boasting over 12 years of experience working with clients from around the world. Brad's #1 best-selling breakup reversal guide, The Ex Factor, has helped more than 130,000 people from 131 countries to re-unite with an ex. Brad is also the author of Mend The Marriage, a comprehensive self-help guide that teaches married couples how to save their dying marriage and prevent divorce. Brad’s YouTube channel has over 400,000 subscribers and 50 million views, and he has been featured in a number of well-known media outlets and industry journals.