Today we’re going to be doing something a little bit unique. You see, most of the times when I start these podcast episodes I have a really clear idea of what I’m going to say whenever I take a voicemail from a listener.

But today I listened to this voicemail from Brian, I believe his name was, and I came up blank on exactly what he should do. And I thought this is a perfect opportunity for not only me to challenge myself but for you to maybe get an insight into how my brain works and how your brain should be working if you’re going through a breakup.

What makes Brian’s situation unique? Well, essentially he’s not only trying to get his ex-girlfriend back, he’s trying to get his Fiancé back. His Fiancé essentially left him, moved out of the state and blocked him.

What is he going to do? Well, that’s what we’re going to try to organically come to a conclusion about today. But first things first, the number one question that I’m always getting on my websites and on my YouTube channel and even on this podcast is, “Chris, what kind of chance do I have of getting my ex-girlfriend back? Should I be trying to get my ex-girlfriend back or should I be trying to move on?”

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Why Did His Ex Fiancé Break Up With Him For Flirting?

Hi Chris, my name is Brian.

I’m a follower of your channel and I just had a quick question for you about my breakup. Me and my ex-fiancée have been together four years and we broke up two months ago because she found out that I had been talking to an old girlfriend online, an emotional affair type of thing.

Never met up with her, never done anything with her outside, just had a short little conversation with her. She got mad, she moved out of our home, left the state that we lived in to go live with her sister, changed her phone number and blocked me on all platforms of communication.

We’ve been at no contact for two months since this happened. I was wondering what the chances were of trying to rekindle this.

I have to say that without a doubt Brian is in one of the most difficult situations that you can imagine.

You see, one thing I always tell people is they need to get comfortable with this idea of no, embracing the no, embracing rejection, because ultimately rejection is where you learn but it also opens up some type of communication with an ex. If you reach out to them and they’re angry at you for example, that’s a lot better than you reaching out to them and they block you completely.

Let’s get an accounting of Brian’s situation.

• Brian basically is trying to get his ex-fiancée back and she broke up with him because she caught him flirting with his ex.
• Now, the flirting with his ex maybe, he says there was nothing physical there so it seems like it’s more emotional support than anything.
• He says that he just had a short little conversation with his ex-girlfriend, but obviously this made his ex-fiancée mad.
• She moved out of state with her sister and blocked him.
• Now, I don’t know the extent of the block fully but we’ll get to that later.

And essentially he’s wondering what are the chances to try to rekindle this?

Let’s Talk About His Ex Blocking Him First

Okay, there’s a lot to go on here, there’s a lot to unfold.

And I think I’d like to first start with the blocking bit, because ultimately what you need to understand from what we’ve learned about when exes block you, it is almost always an emotional response to the breakup, that seems to be what happens here.

Most of the times, I would say probably above 80% of the time, when you actually go through a situation where you’ve been blocked, guess what’s going to happen? Your ex will unblock you at some point. They’ll just get curious to see what you’re up to, they’ll just not be able to help themselves and they will unblock you.

But I will say that there is also a percentage of exes who are, or subscribe to that theory of one and done, like, “Hey, this is it.

You had your one chance and that will be it for everything,” and they won’t unblock you. Time’s going to have to tell to see which of the situations Brian has found himself in.

Personally speaking I like to believe in statistics and the statistics do say that Brian’s ex will unblock him in any way, shape or form in the future or in some way shape or from, excuse me, in the future.

It’s just a matter of being patient and waiting.

Yet, what do we mean by wait?

I mean, what happens if she has him blocked for a year?

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What does he do then?

Well, it’s a good question.

That’s where I’d like to maybe talk about the differences between a hard block and a soft block.

• A hard block is where your ex girlfriend maybe blocked you in every way you can potentially communicate with her.
• And a soft block is where she blocks you in most ways in which you can communicate with her, but there are a few still open like Instagram DMs, or Facebook messages, things of that nature where you can still maybe have some type of a reach out.

He didn’t really specify what that is but my first advice to him would be figure out where you are, are you in a hard block, are you in a soft block?

Because if you’re heard a soft block, don’t worry so much about her unblocking you because guess what? She will probably be responsive towards you if you try to reach out to her in one of those methods of communication that she has still left open. But that’s not really solving the deeper issue here because the deeper issue here has to do with cheating, and that’s the truth.

The Differences Between How Men And Women Cheat

Your ex-fiancée broke up with you for flirting with another woman and that is the truth.

How do you handle that?

Well, I think what we need to first do is educate Brian on the differences with cheating between men and women.

There’s a lot of statistics out there that basically say, “Men cheat more than women,” but I’m here to tell you that it’s BS, women cheat just as much as men. In fact, it’s probably equal and I think you can even make the case that sometimes women will cheat more than men, but I would probably not put my name to that so I’m going to say it’s probably equal, as all things should be.

But what’s the not equal are the reasons that men cheat and women cheat.

Now, this is where the story gets interesting because the differences between why men cheat and why women cheat and the frame of mind they’re in are so staggering, it is shocking to me that not more people are talking about it. Okay. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s take a look at cheating from your ex girlfriend or ex-fiancée’s point of view, Brian.

One thing that we do know about how men and women cheat or the reasons they cheat is that men will often cheat and can still be deeply in love with their partner.

That sounds really interesting, doesn’t it? Something that probably you wouldn’t expect?

I mean, why would you cheat on someone if you’re still in love with your partner?

Well, it’s because biologically human beings are produced to spread their seed. I’m not a biologist but I think that’s pretty standard in the animal kingdom, survive and replicate. Those are our two functions in life and human beings are programmed to cheat. Now what makes us interesting as people is we also understand instinctually that if we bond we tend to live longer in life plus we also get more or sex, that’s also true. But we are programmed and men can sometimes fall victim to that programming.

Now, I don’t want to chalk it up to biological programming at all, but the point I’m making is men are more capable of cheating while still being vastly in love with their significant other. Women are not. Now, this is where the big difference occurs. Women who cheat, they will usually only cheat, and remember, there’s always exceptions to the rules, but women who cheat will only usually cheat if she’s checked out of the relationship and doesn’t want to be in it anymore.

One thing we also do know about people in commitment is times women will have a really hard time of getting out of a long commitment with a significant other if they have a lot invested into that relationship, so the interdependence theory is something that I’ve been positing or talking about for years.

The interdependence theory basically posits that human beings basically make relationship decision on a cost and benefit scenario. Essentially they’re always making these little pros and cons lists but the criteria in which they make those pros and cons, there’s basically three big ones, satisfaction, alternatives, and investment. But what’s really fascinating when you look at those three factors is that even if you’re satisfied in a relationship and even if you feel that you have a better alternative in that relationship, you’ll still stay in the same relationship if you feel like you’ve invested too much.

And that is a reason why I think women cheat. They feel they’ve invested too much in the relationship to just let it go but they’re emotionally checked out so they’re no longer usually in love with you. And I bring up this explanation, Brian, for one specific reason, because you and her have been operating on different wavelengths. To you this conversation you had with your ex-girlfriend was just more emotional support. It was a short little conversation with her, you didn’t meet up with her, nothing physical happened.

To you, cheating is looked at in a different lens than your ex-fiancée.

Your ex-fiancée is only looking at things from her perspective and her perspective and in her mind, she wouldn’t give a guy the time of day unless she was checked out of the relationship. And she took this as an indication that you’re checked out of the relationship, that you’re having cold feet, that you no longer want to marry her.

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And what does she do? She has an emotional reaction. She freaks out, she yells at you, she moves out of state, goes to live with her sister. Her sister of course isn’t going to be on your side. Her sister is going to be like, “Hey look, he was just talking to her.” Her sister is going to be like, “I’m on your side, I got your back, no matter what.” You’re not going to find any sphere of influence help there.

But what’s important for you to understand is that if you do get the opportunity to talk to her by understanding her frame of mind, when you talk to her you can have that tactical empathy. You can literally parrot her emotions back to her and literally tell her what she’s thinking but too afraid to say. Maybe she’s not afraid to say it though, maybe she’s saying exactly what she’s thinking. “I think you’re checked out of the relationship because why would you be talking to this other woman?” Right?

And what I think really is a huge indicator in big mistakes people make is when they do talk to their significant other, number one, they talk to their significant other when the emotions are out of control from both parties. This is one of the reasons why we love the no contact rule because it allows you to settle down, you to take stock and it also allows your ex to settle down, your ex to take stock. So that when you do talk, you’re not overly emotional yet this is an emotional decision so it’s an interesting paradox.

Utilize Tactical Empathy

We need to enter this negotiation where you’re basically negotiating over your relationship without her emotions being out of control and without your emotions being out of control, and yet the paradox is it’s an emotional decision so you need to touch her emotions, so to speak. That’s what will make her come back to you, that’s what will make her more interested with you. And one way that you can do that is with tactical empathy, by understanding her wavelength, by understanding her point of view.

What I don’t think a lot of people also understand is the self-interest aspect of relationships. We usually only enter into relationships if we feel they benefit ourselves yet the interdependence theory basically said that it’s a pros and cons list. We always want to stack the odds in our favor so to speak with relationships. And we have different criteria in which we grade relationships with, but your ex doesn’t think it’s worth being with you anymore because she feels you betrayed her. And what I think is important is for you to acknowledge that to her when you do talk to her.

Usually I tell people, “Hey, the first thing you want to do after a no contact rule is just start bridging the gap so that communication can be open.” And I still think that’s a good idea for you. I still think it’s a good idea to reach out to her and just get some conversation flowing. But at some point, what you want to do is you literally want to talk to her and tell her that you understand how she’s feeling but you need to do it in a very specific way. You need to do it like, “Hey, I know you feel I betrayed you. I know you feel like I shouldn’t ever do this and I shouldn’t ever do this and I shouldn’t ever do that.” And the more you do that the more she’ll be like, “Yeah, that is how I feel, that is how I feel. That is how I feel.” And she’ll start feeling that you understand her, which allows her to be more open for communication.

Now, the challenge is picking your spot. Timing is just as important as the rest of this BS, because timing won’t work if you do that right out of the gate. What do we mean by that? Okay, you go through a no contact rule, you said you’ve been in no contact for two months. Let’s say she unblocks you or let’s say that you aren’t blocked everywhere but you decide, “Hey, let’s reach out to her.” So you reach out to her. Let’s operate under the assumption you’re in a soft block so you are going to reach out to her through Facebook messenger.

You reach out to her. You don’t just start with this huge long de-vomit of text. What you do is you start with something that is going to intrigue her to want to respond and get the communication avenues open. And then you work on her very slowly, but very surely just getting back in the habit of talking every day and that is when you get her on the phone or you send a video where you basically talk to her about basically parroting her emotions back to her.

But you can only do that if you look at it from her perspective. Because I think people when they communicate they’re doing things from a self-interested perspective, meaning you when you would talk to your ex-fiancée are probably only going to be talking to her from a frame of mind where you’re literally sitting there and thinking to yourself, “What’s best for me? I want to talk about things that interest me.” And what you need to do is the exact opposite of that, you need to go against your programming. But Chris, how do I know that she’s just saying things to be nice to me? Let’s assume that your ex-fiancée, Brian, does respond to you and she seems okay with it. She seems like she’s okay with engaging in a conversation with you. How do you know she’s just being nice and how do you know if she’s being serious or not?

Learn To Spot A Lie

In Harvard Business School, there’s a professor and I’m going to butcher his name called Deepak Malhotra, sorry if I butchered your name Deepak. Anyways, he actually created this study on the components of lying. And it’s something that I think we can use here for our purposes, Brian. Here’s what his study found. On average liars use more words than truth-tellers and you use far more third-person pronouns. They start talking about him, her, it, one, they, there, rather than I. And this is done very, very subconsciously, it’s a way for them to put distance between themselves and the lie.

If you notice that your ex-girlfriend when she’s talking to you and she seems like she’s engaging is using a lot of third person pronouns, she’s saying a lot of him, her, it, one, they, there, as opposed to first person pronouns, I, me, things like that, it’s a good indication she’s not being truthful with what she’s saying. And this is something that she’s not going to be aware of and something you shouldn’t freak out about. It just means you haven’t touched her emotionally to the point where she’s willing to open up and consider your perspective because really this is a test of rebuilding trust.

The best way to rebuild trust is to actually put your ex in a frame of mind where she’s open to considering your point of view, and the only way to do that is through tactical empathy not sympathy. Sympathy I’ve been talking about forever is basically not only feeling empathy but wanting to make the other person feel better by taking an action like giving them a hug or something like that, that’s not what’s going to work here. What’s going to work is you showing that you are listening on a level that no one else is, that’s it. It doesn’t have to be complicated but that is the overall general goal I will come up with for you, Brian.