Today, we’re going to be hearing from a listener named Daniel, who has an interesting situation.

He’s in a long distance relationship and he sort of reeling from the breakup and as you listen to his voice message, you’ll notice that he’s a little noncommittal on whether or not he wants his ex-girlfriend back.

It seems like, and this is a sentiment I can totally understand.

It seems like he doesn’t want to put in the work if there’s not going to be a guaranteed result.

And that’s probably the most difficult thing for a lot of people when they begin this process, whether they want to get their exes back or not.

When they’re making that decision, a lot of it’s going to be based on, well, what are my chances?

How good of a chance do I actually have?

Is this going to be a waste of my time?

And unfortunately getting your ex back from what we understand is an inexact science.

In other words, there’s nothing I can say that will guarantee your chances of success.

But what we can do, is lay out the options for you and give you a clear idea of what we think might be best for you in the long run.

And Daniel is going to tell us about his situation in a minute here.

But one thing I think is important to mention is, when you’re trying to make this decision of whether or not you should be getting your ex-girlfriend back, you should first figure out what kind of chance you have of getting her back.

Now, luckily on Ex Girlfriend Recovery I’ve put together a special quiz.

And this quiz is special because it’s designed to make you or ask you questions.

And I want you to be brutally honest as you answer these questions.

And then we’re going to take your questions, we’re going to run them through what we see between our success stories and the people who aren’t succeeding, and we’re going to spit out a score for you that will give you an idea of where you stand with your ex. So you know if you’re wasting your time or not.

So if you want to take that quiz, it’s pretty simple.

Let’s hear from Daniel!

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Daniel Wonders How To Get His Ex Girlfriend Back In A Long Distance Relationship

“Hey Chris, my name is Daniel from San Diego.

I recently got out of a relationship that was about a year and a half to two years long. And how it went about is, I was in a really tough spot emotionally, my dad passed away and I lashed out on other people through cynicism. And so, it ended up to the point where my girlfriend couldn’t really take it anymore. We were doing long distance by the way.

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And she just needed like, as she put it, to be selfish. So, I wanted your advice on whether or not I should try to give her the upper hand and say, she’s justified in doing that, and try to re-establish at least a friendship with her. Or if I should just let it go and accept that she wasn’t really justified in doing so. Just let me know.

Thanks.”

What To Do To Get Your Ex Girlfriend Back In A Long Distance Situation

All right, Daniel from San Diego.

I want to talk about your situation quite a bit.

Because there’s a lot of parallels that I’m seeing between the women who were trying to get their ex-boyfriends back through the Ex Boyfriend Recovery Podcast, and what you’re saying as you went through your breakup with your ex-girlfriend, right? So, let’s first recap Daniel’s situation.

So, Daniel says that he recently went through a breakup after about one and a half or two years with his ex-girlfriend.

And what he believes the catalyst for this breakup is, is the fact that his father passed away.

And of course, this just devastated him emotionally and caused him to view the world in a very cynical lens, right? So, by doing this, he pushed his girlfriend away, and then he mentions an interesting piece of information that I think is essential.

And that’s the fact that they’re long distance, right?

And so, I actually think that can play into breakups a lot more than you would actually believe. And I’m going to explain that in a little bit. He also said that one of her reasonings when she broke up with him was that, she deserved the right to be selfish. And he’s wondering if he should tell her that she’s justified, and play into purposely friend zoning himself.

So, there’s a lot to tackle here, but ultimately what I’d like to do is start by talking about some of the differences I’m noticing between men and women.

So, as you probably have heard, if you listened to the first few episodes of this Ex Girlfriend Recovery Podcast, I also run another podcast that’s quite a bit bigger, on the bigger website Ex Boyfriend Recovery.

Essentially thousands of women come every single day to the website, Ex Boyfriend Recovery, and basically try to get their exes back, their ex-boyfriends back.

And what’s interesting is, you get to notice after you interact with men who are trying to get their ex-girlfriends back and women who are trying to get their ex-boyfriends back, you notice some differences between how they interact or how they approach the situation.

Now, these are broad strokes. So by no means are they indicative of fact. I’m a big believer in that every single situation is unique, and it is in a way impossible to hit a one size fits all situation, but we can get close.

Looking At Success Stories

So what I’m looking at all of the data in front of me, the one thing I noticed about the big differences between men and women is how serious they are about getting their exes back.

Women, what I notice, when you talk to them, especially success stories, and I’m actually going to talk a little bit about this in a second.

Lately we’ve been doing this thing on the other podcast, we’ve being interviewing a lot of the success stories that are going through the program. And I’ll actually come into the conversation blind so I don’t know anything about their situation. And I like this because, ultimately if I don’t know anything about their situation, I can literally think to ask them some of the first thoughts that pop into my head.

And by doing this, the goal is to get closer and closer to understanding what the people who are succeeding are doing versus what the people who aren’t succeeding, well, they aren’t doing.

And what I’ve tend to notice is that women tend to be very, very focused from the get go on them wanting their exes back. Now, what’s interesting is today we don’t have a ton of conversations with men who have gotten their exes back because we didn’t have this podcast until just now.

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The podcast is an invaluable tool, in my opinion, because it allows me to have conversations with men who are wanting to try to get their exes back succeeding and also failing. So that we can understand some of the subtle differences and basically understand what works in this process.

But there was one time in our private Facebook group. And if you go to the show notes of this episode on the Ex Girlfriend Recovery website, I’ll actually post the interview I did with the guy. But there was one guy that I did interview a couple of years ago who got his ex-girlfriend back.

His name was Aaron. And what I noticed is, even though he got his ex-girlfriend back, he seemed to be a little sort of iffy about whether or not he wanted to continue the relationship, or even totally put his all into it. And that’s actually a sentiment I noticed by a lot of men.

Women, when they go through the breakup, they want their exes back right away. Not all of them, but the ones who do, they know right away, there’s no if’s, ands, and buts about it. They want the exes back.

Men on the other hand, they know internally they want their exes back, but they have a hard time convincing themselves that that’s the right approach. And so, I couldn’t help but notice that Daniel has that same feeling. He sort of half in half out about it. He doesn’t know. You could tell he’s reeling, he’s been through a lot emotionally with the passing away of his father and now the breakup. So, for him, he’s definitely in this mentality, at least from my view, he’s in this mentality where it’s like, when it rains, it pours.

He’s thinking to himself, well, when things go bad, my father passed away and then she breaks up with me. And so, it’s really easy to get into this victim mindset as a male. And I would actually encourage you not to do that. Because one thing that we’re doing right now is actually revamping our entire program for men.

And so, in doing that, what we’re doing is basically giving people PDF courses, audio courses, and I’m filming video walk throughs as I go through my programming, trying to figure out what works.

And recently I just, and this is why it’s so on the forefront of my mind, but recently I just recorded this video walk through where I’m talking about downward spirals.

Downward spirals is essentially something that we noticed a lot of men go through after a breakup.

And that’s the fact that, when it rains, it pours.

So essentially, like one bad thing goes wrong and then another bad thing goes wrong. And next thing you know, you look at life in this very cynical way, which I think is what happened to Daniel. And what’s interesting about this, is there is a way to get yourself out of it, but ultimately before we talk about that, you need to first understand the mindset of someone who actually has what we call a downward spiral.

Where they let things go out of control and they have the victim mentality in how it goes.

But ultimately there’s like a self fulfilling prophecy that goes with these downward spirals.

So, imagine for a moment that you have this limiting belief, you think to yourself, you know what? My life sucks. And so, as you tell yourself this, you go through life and something bad happens to you. This further reiterates this negative internal belief you have that your life sucks. So you further believe that it’s true. Your life really does suck.

So you go through the next few days and you think to yourself, my life really does suck. Remember that one thing that happened to me? And then another bad thing happens to you, which further reiterates your internal belief that your life sucks.

And next thing you know, you just have this downward spiral where the more your internal thoughts, even when you think they don’t really matter that much, the more you tell yourself that your life sucks, it becomes this thing where you actually start believing it.

And so, what you need to do to get out of this self fulfilling prophecy, this negative belief system, I’m not saying Daniel has this totally, but he’s got a bit of this I think. Is start looking at the glass half full, which is a hard thing to do for people like Daniel, maybe, when they’re going through a hard time.

But try to find small wins to get yourself on the board, and then start feeding into those wins and believing that.

Because it will interact with all sorts of areas of your life. So instead of thinking your life sucks, correct yourself into thinking, my life sucks right now but it’s going to get better. And then when something good happens, start believing that, you know what?

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This is proof.

It is going to get better.

And the next thing you know that will interact with all the other areas of your life that you wouldn’t expect it to interact with, which is a cool thing.

And we can create what we’d like to call an upward spiral.

So you go from the downward spiral and you turn it into an upward spiral.

And so, I think part of the issue Daniel’s having with whether or not he wants to get his ex back, is he’s in the midst of this downward spiral, he’s reeling. The other problem, I think, with Daniel’s relationship, is I happen to notice that he mentions he’s in a long distance relationship.

And this is where I think there’s a big disconnect between a lot of people who go through breakups that are long distance relationships. Because ultimately long distance relationships, and I will go to my grave saying this, they’re destined to fail, every single one of them.

All Long Distance Relationships Will Fail Unless You Do Three Things

Even long distance relationship marriages are destined to fail unless you have three things.

So, I’ll go from least important to most important.

What are the three most important things that you need in order for a long distance relationship to survive?

1. Time
2. Money
3. A Plan

Let’s dissect!

Time

The first thing you need is time.

So, think of it like this, long distance relationships, one of the things that the two of you don’t have a lot of is time to be together.

So you have to make time out of your day. She has to make time out of her day. And then you also need to make time especially, and I only know this because I was in a long distance relationship before i got married to my wife. And so, what we would do is often, since I worked from home and I run my own business, and this is my gig, the breakup thing.

I could make my own hours, so I could basically do whatever I wanted when I wanted, but she didn’t have that ability.

She had a normal job. So she would have to go to her boss and ask for time off. And then I would have to go and travel to see her or she would travel to see me, but time was an essential component. And sometimes time isn’t the easiest thing to get, especially if there’s kids involved.

Because kids take up time. You have to find someone to watch them. It can be a complicated thing. So some people, and this is just the hard truth. Some people can’t make long distance relationships because they don’t have time. The other thing and you need is money. Now, this is an odd one, but it’s an important one as well.

So, I’ll use myself as an example. I only know this because I went through a long distance relationship before my wife and I got married.

We had the time thing sorted out, because I was able to be patient and she could get time off of work every month or something.

She’d get like three or four days and I’d go see her for three or four days or she’d come see me for three or four days. And then we’re apart again. But in order to see each other, even if you’re not like super long distance, you have to just drive to each other.

Money

You need money.

I had to buy plane tickets to go see her.

She had to buy plane tickets to go see me. Even if we were driving to each other, you’d have to pay money to get gas. You’d even need to pay money especially if you decide to get a hotel together or something along those lines. Money is an essential thing. And it’s one of the things that no one ever talks about with long distance relationships.

But again, if you don’t a lot of money, especially if you’re just coming out of college or you’re just in college and you don’t have a lot of money, you’re going to have a hard time making a long distance relationship work.

But those two things, time and money, pale in comparison to the third thing.

A Plan 

The third thing you need to make a long distance relationship work is a plan to close the distance. So ultimately, what I’m wondering when I look at Daniel’s situation is, he’s in the long distance relationship for one and a half to two years.

But in that time he didn’t mention like, oh yeah, we moved in together. He’s still long distance. So my point is, both of you need to be working towards a plan where you close the distance and are together. You don’t need to be living together, but you need to be moving close to each other to the point where it’s not long distance anymore. I mean, ideally you would like to move in together.

But long distance relationships, I can only see truly being successful for, and this is maybe a hot take, feel free to disagree with me. But I only see them typically being successful for people who are a bit older, who have money, who have time, and are willing to basically move in together to close that distance. And sometimes even when you close the distance you find you’re not the right match when you get together.

My wife and I, we decided to move in together. After about seven or eight months, we decided, let’s give this a try. We both had time, money and a plan.

We both worked towards that plan tirelessly. And so, what I’m wondering Daniel is, if you didn’t have a plan to close the distance with your ex-girlfriend, you’re going to have a hard time even trying to get her back because something needs to change the second time around if you even try to get her back.

And these are things to keep in mind. I would say, the plate is like the ultimate hope that you’re looking forward to throughout the long distance relationship, is the thing that keeps you going, that you’re both working towards a way to be together where you don’t have this distance, where you can see each other more consistently.

And if you don’t have that plan, if you don’t have that thing to look forward to, you’re going to have a hard time, maybe even convincing her to get back with you. Now, there are certain ways in which you breach conversations like that, of course, Daniel. But I think those are the things I would keep in mind for you. Generally speaking, your situation is not like… The strategy I would recommend for you is the general long distance breakup strategy.

But the reason I’m harping in so much on this time, money and plan ideal, is because that’s the part that no one ever focuses on. They only focus on the strategy, like, okay, I’ll use the no contact rule for 30 days and then I’ll start texting my ex, and then I’ll start phone calling my ex, or then we’ll start working towards that meet-up. And it’ll be this big romantic meet-up once enough value has been built. And once I see her in person, that will be enough to have her ask for me back or have me ask for her back. But it doesn’t matter if you don’t have those three things. You need time, money, and a plan.