How to get him back: 13 no bullsh*t steps

The heart wants what the heart wants. And rightly or wrong, your heart wants him back.

When you’re feeling heartbroken, it can be hard to see how you can get him back, but trust us, it happens all the time.

Couples fall apart and come back together every single day. It just takes work.

If you are willing to do the work, you can have your relationship back, stronger and happier than ever.

Here’s how to get your ex-boyfriend back and move forward together.

1) Remember that time is your friend

The first thing you need to do after you break up with him is to cut off ties with him.

This sounds extreme but the truth is that if you want him to think about you, you need to make sure he has limited access to you.

Blocking him on social media, ignoring his phone calls, and avoiding the places you know he goes are all ways to get him thinking about you on the regular, even though he can’t see you.

While you might be inclined to start living your best life out online so he can see you and be thinking about you, the truth is that absence makes the heart grow fonder so if he can’t get access to you, he’ll be looking for you.

Before you jump into anything new or even try to get him back, remember to take some time to grieve and make meaning of the situation for yourself.

Decide what you want. It’s easy to get caught up in the drama of a breakup, but you don’t have to make any decisions right now.

Allow time to do what it does best: heal all wounds.

In order to get him back, you need to be healed from the breakup and ready to start a new direction for this relationship.

If you are expecting to just pick up where you left off, you’ll be disappointed.

The truth is that there are no rules on how long it might take you to get him back.

You need to heal yourself before working to bring him back. This is going to hugely strengthen your position and help you take control.

2) Get control of the situation

The next thing you need to do is get very clear on what you need from him and keep that handy for when he does come back to you.

You don’t want to seem desperate when you finally pick up the phone, so you need to get a grip on your thoughts and feelings.

Make sure you don’t see him before you can control your outbursts of crying or sobbing.

It’s okay to miss your ex, cry and sob, but not in front of him while you are trying to get him to see the error of his ways.

It’s best to let him think you aren’t fazed by any of this. It’ll drive him crazy.

3) Pull on his heartstrings

The question is, “How can you deal with someone losing feelings for you?”.

The problem isn’t that he doesn’t love you — your past relationship has shown how strong his feelings can be.

The real problem is that he’s closed his mind to the possibility. He’s already decided not to give you a chance. That’s the emotional wall you need to climb over.

The simple truth is that emotions run the show when it comes to his decision-making — and this is actually your best shot at winning him back.

Here’s how.

Scientists have recently made an interesting discovery about humans. When relaxed, 80% of the time our mind is imagining the future. We spend a little bit of time contemplating the past and focusing on the present — but most of the time we’re actually thinking about the future.

According to relationship expert James Bauer, the key to getting back with your ex-boyfriend is changing what he feels when he pictures you in his life again.

Forget about convincing him to give things another try. Logical reasoning with him won’t work because you’ll just reinforce the painful emotions that drove him away from you in the first place.

When someone tries to convince you of something, it’s human nature to always come up with a counterargument.

Focus instead on changing the way he feels.

To do this, you need to change the emotions he associates with you so that he can picture a whole new relationship with you.

In his excellent short video, James Bauer gives you a step-by-step method for changing the way your ex feels about you.

He reveals the texts you can send and things you can say that will trigger something deep inside him.

He talks you through the biggest emotional reasons why men pull away in the first place, so you know what it is you need to fix.

The idea is simple: silently and subtly pull on his heartstrings (without him even realizing it) so that he becomes emotionally addicted to you again.

You can watch his excellent free video here.

Because once you paint a new picture of what your life together could be like, his emotional walls won’t stand a chance.

Here’s that link again.

4) Don’t beg

Could it be that he doesn’t want a relationship with you anymore?

During the time you are taking for yourself, be sure you don’t seek him out and beg for him to come back. Sounds silly, but people do it.

Desperation is about as unsexy as it gets.

Don’t be so needy that you can’t do anything without him. That might have been part of the reason he left in the first place.

Giving yourself (and him) some space means that you don’t throw yourself at him. It’s just bad for everyone and you’ll regret it later if he only comes back because you wouldn’t stop asking him to.

That’s not how you get him to realize he needs to come back, which is what you want. You don’t have to ask for anything. He’ll come around to the idea on his own.

5) Don’t bother with him

How do you get him to come around to the idea on his own? You don’t bother with him.

Cut off his contact with you on social media, email, text and don’t answer his phone calls. It sounds extreme, and it is.

You need him to be forced to think about you without seeing you or hearing from you. That’s the best kind of thinking.

This means he is wondering about you and wanting to know what is going on with you.

If he can’t see you, he’ll want to, especially if he had it in his head that you were going to come knocking after him.

6) Work on yourself

While you keep him at bay and get a grip on your emotions, be sure to take care of yourself and figure out your next moves.

This could go on for a while, so there’s no need to let all that time go to waste wallowing over a guy.

Get out and have fun, hang out with friends, clean your apartment, take a road trip, buy yourself something nice.

Do things that make you feel good. Get back into projects you were putting off. Throw yourself into your work.

Whatever you do, don’t just sit around feeling sorry for yourself. That won’t turn the guy on.

If you need help processing your emotions and feelings, you can reach out to your closest friends, family, or even a professional.

Personally, I spoke to a coach at Relationship Hero when I was at a low ebb in my relationship – this is a site where highly trained relationship coaches help people through complicated love situations.

It helped me clarify where I went wrong in the relationship and what I could do to improve myself for next time.

What I really love about Relationship Hero is that, unlike therapists who just provide a sympathetic ear, their relationship coaches actually offer you practical advice.

So if you have a particular goal in mind (like getting back your ex) they’ll strategize with you.

That could involve anything from coming up with a tailor-made plan of action based on your unique circumstances. All the way down to crafting the perfect text message to send to him.

If you’re interested, check out Relationship Hero here.

The bottom line is this:

Becoming a better version of yourself will make you feel better and be more attractive to your ex; it’s a win-win for you.

7) Don’t act desperate

If you do happen to run into him when you are out living your best life, don’t act like you care. Don’t act desperate.

Don’t ask him questions and keep it short. Say hello, don’t break into a song about how you broke up, and move on.

Then get out of there as fast as possible. He doesn’t need to see you, especially after you run into him unexpectedly.

Make him want more. If he’s with friends, talk to his friends. Don’t give him the time of day. He’ll get plenty of your time when he comes back.

How do you heal a broken heart? Let me share with you these essential steps to help you move on.

8) Check all the boxes

Getting your ex back is a journey. Along the way, pay attention to the signs that your ex is warming up to you.

While you are working on yourself and your life, you’ll have lots of opportunities to pick up the phone and call him, but before you do that, and before you answer his calls, there are a few more things you should be mindful of in order to successfully get him to come back.

• Make sure you haven’t talked to him in a full month.
• Make sure you’ve gone on at least one date – even if it’s not really something you want to do, do it anyway.
• Make sure you’ve put energy into improving yourself and figuring out your own life without him.
• Make sure you believe you’ll be okay even if he doesn’t come back. Make sure you are feeling good about yourself.

When you can say that you’ve done all these things, you are ready to start taking his phone calls or answering his text messages.

9) Text him

Okay, I’ve already told you to give him space and have limited contact with him.

However, there comes a time when you can start chatting with him again. And the best way to do this is through text.

In fact, one of the easiest ways you can win your ex-boyfriend back is by simply sending him the right text messages.

Yes, it’s entirely possible to effectively “text your ex back”. Even if you thought that it was impossible to ever rekindle any sort of romance with him.

There are literally dozens of text messages you can send your guy that will compel him to keep texting you. And ultimately lead you guys back together.

10) Ease back into it

After a while, when you feel strong enough to handle yourself in his presence, start slow.

There’s no need to jump back into what once was, mostly because it’ll never be that way again. That relationship has passed.

You are not just continuing on with your relationship, you are starting a new one. You are different people now and need to relearn to be together.

If you decide that you want him back, ask him to go out for a drink or dinner. Take your time to rekindle. Don’t just have him move back in.

11) Identify what went wrong and change it

You know what they say: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

That means if you are going to make another go of it, you don’t want to make the same mistakes twice.

Avoiding that relies on taking a long hard honest look at the relationship stumbling blocks that got you here.

As Tiny Fey explains in her book ‘How to Get Your Ex Back’ you’re going to get loads of clarity from understanding exactly why you split in the first place:

“It’s essential you unpick what happened before you consider trying to patch things up. So, I want to ask you: do you really know why your relationship broke down? Take out a journal and note down the issues and behavioral patterns that showed up in your relationship – not just at the end of your relationship, but throughout the time you were together. This is uncomfortable, but it’s necessary if you want to move forward and to genuinely make a go of the relationship again.”

Armed with these realizations you need to be confident that the problems you have are something you can resolve together.

Don’t be tempted to sweep issues under the rug. They’ll only appear again eventually.

12) Make a plan for the future together

If he comes back, don’t just let things slide. The point of breaking up is to shake things up and make you both realize that you want more.

So be more for each other. Talk about what this new version of your relationship looks like. Don’t settle. That’s important for both of you.

Don’t just come back together because you worry that there isn’t someone else out there for you.

If you want this relationship to work, you need to make a plan for the future together and you both have to be invested in making it work.

That’s not easy for some people and even if he comes back initially, it might not last.

Consider how serious you are about this relationship and what kind of work you are both willing to invest in it.

If it looks like you both want the same things, go for it. If not, at least you’ll know you can move on without regret.

But if you’ve followed the steps and built yourself up again, by this time, you’ll be so far removed from him that you might not even want to get back together.

Which brings us to the next point.

13) Decide if you want him back

You might think he’s holding all the cards, but the truth is that you get to decide what happens in your life. You don’t need to wait on this guy to make a move.

If you want him back, go get him. If not, let him down gently when he comes crawling back.

After a few weeks apart and no contact, he’s going to have lots to talk about, but you don’t have to hear any of it.

You get to decide. If you want him back, great, move forward together and live happily ever after. If you aren’t sure now, take the time you need to decide.

He doesn’t get to decide for you. You might be enjoying this new free lifestyle more than you thought you would.

It’s hard but you can get over your ex.

Above all else, remember that you have options and you are in control of your own destiny.