Hello there, and welcome to our first official episode of the Ex Girlfriend Recovery Podcast.

Today, we’re going to be talking about a situation where you think you really have a chance, but your ex girlfriend has moved on and is now dating another dude.

We’re going to be talking about what the chances are of getting your ex back in that particular situation, as well as really what we’re seeing working and what’s not working when your ex girlfriend has moved on to another guy.

And really, before I really get started, the first thing I want to always tell everyone who is starting this process out is you really need to figure out if you have a chance of getting your ex back before you even embark on the adventure of trying to get your ex girlfriend back.

Luckily for you, we get asked this question so many times that on my website, Ex Girlfriend Recovery, I put together a special quiz that’s designed to basically answer that exact question for you and give you a few next steps on what to do going forward.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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Tom Has A Question About His Ex Girlfriend Moving On

But this podcast, like many others of its kind, it’s going to be taking listener questions. And today, we’re going to be hearing a question from a man named Tom, who has an interesting situation where his ex girlfriend has moved on to another guy. But his ex girlfriend, now that she’s with the other guy has a bit of the grass is greener syndrome and is thinking maybe it’s not going to last with the new guy.

So you’re going to get my thoughts on Tom’s situation, as well as exactly what I think he should be doing to give him the best shot of getting his ex girlfriend back.

So without further ado, let’s just hear from Tom.

“Hello. My name is Tom. My girlfriend and I broke up about nine months ago. And during that time she got with another guy, but it’s been rough for her. She says it’s been ups and downs. Recently we’ve reconnected over text and she said that she doesn’t know how long this is going to last, but hasn’t given me any indication. I told her that I really want to give it another shot, and then she started to ask me to help her sister with an issue, so I did. Then she started to send me some pictures over texts of just fun pictures of her, and then she was reminiscing our relationship, joking about how I have long hair now and she always insisted that I have short hair.

So, I’m wondering what the chances are of us getting back together. Bottom line is she’s with a guy that she told me she doesn’t know how long it’s going to last, and then she’s given me these hints over text about reminiscing, and then sending me pictures of herself doing fun things like walking the dog. What does that mean? Do I have a chance? Thanks very much. Bye.”

His Ex Girlfriend Said She Doesn’t Like The New Guy She’s With

So Tom is in one of the more interesting situations that I’ve heard in a long time, and that’s where his ex girlfriend has moved onto someone new and has basically come back to him and said, “I don’t like the guy I’m with,” but she still hasn’t broken up with the guy.

What’s up with that?

It looks like her breakup with him was around nine months ago.

He didn’t give us much details on what caused the breakup, which in my opinion or in my experience rather, usually there’s always a big catalyst for what causes a breakup when women initiate it. But I’d actually be interested to figure out if she initiated the breakup or he initiated the breakup.

So she gets with this new guy, but she’s messaging him constantly saying that she doesn’t think it’ll last with the new guy, and what does it mean when she’s sending him pictures and everything like that?

The Being There Method

The first thing I want to point out to Tom is this concept of the being there method.

This is a concept that we accidentally stumbled upon in our private Facebook support group, and that’s essentially we had a situation where my wife was essentially coaching this woman. T

his woman had been in this situation where she had been broken up with by her ex boyfriend. I realize it’s not totally relevant here, but it’s the thing that we stumbled across that really makes the difference. She ended up coaching this woman and she asked for me for help.

So this woman who had been broken up with by her ex boyfriend, her ex boyfriend had moved in with another girl and was with that other girl and living with her. She came to us and she was like, “How do I get him back?”

Before we accidentally stumbled upon this technique, we would look at each other, my wife and I, and we would be like, “Let’s try this, let’s try this, let’s try this.”

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And oftentimes, our efforts were not yielding many great results. So out of the ordinary, one day, I don’t know if it was her or if it was I, but we came up with this drastic idea of, “Hey, let’s just recommend her go into a super long period of no contact, a longer period of no contact. And then when she gets done with no contact, let’s purposely get her to friend zone herself and see if the new guy or the new girl gets intimidated.” That’s almost exactly what happened.

So it’s a little bit more of the gray, I’ll be the first to admit that, but my job isn’t necessarily to find out people’s morals.

It’s to test and see what works in helping you reconnect with your ex if that’s the thing.

If it’s morally gray to you, hey, that’s on you.

That’s not on me, don’t blame me.

So anyways, what we learned is oftentimes what happens is when your ex moves on to a new guy, you need to actually have a longer period of no contact and actually get back in touch with them, but without any kind of dating involved.

You need to purposely friend zone yourself so that the new guy becomes intimidated and bam, it’s just like things.

What’s interesting is I maybe feel that’s what Tom here did without even realizing it. But he still hasn’t gotten enough to push her over the hump. She still hasn’t broken up with the new guy, even though she’s saying, “He’s not treating me very well.” And I feel like the reason that Tom is getting these reach outs from this girl is because this girl is starting to have a bit of the grass is greener syndrome.

This is maybe an odd analogy, but it’s the most relevant one I can think of.

So those of you, and I realize I have another podcast called the Ex Boyfriend Recovery Podcast, it’s got over 150 episodes or something.

So a lot of the listeners there know me and they know how nerdy I am.

Leaving Your Ex Constantly Wanting More

But since this is technically episode one of the Ex Girlfriend Recovery Podcast, you guys aren’t really familiar with me, but I’m a nerd, super big nerd. I will read epic science fantasy or science fiction and fantasy books. I’m all over that stuff. I’ll play video games in my free time. I find out I don’t really have much free time anymore.

But anyways, my birthday was a few weeks ago. Right. And because of the pandemic and everyone being stuck inside, no one would ship me anything other than they gifted me an Amazon gift card. So what was fun is with this Amazon gift card, I’m thinking, what do I want to buy? And I ended up just buying books. I ended up stumbling across this book and I knew I figured with $300 worth of an Amazon gift card, if I can’t find at least one book that interests me … and I promise, it sounds like I’m going in the woods here but I’m not, I am going to get back into the ex-girlfriend’s situation. But let me make the analogy first.

So anyways, I thought if I can’t find one book, writers must really suck by now, or I’ve read everything that’s any good. So anyways, I went through and just for two days straight, anytime I had free time, I would go through Amazon and try to bookmark books that I thought might look good before I made my purchase. And eventually I came across this book that I was thinking, “Okay, yes, I’m sold. I want to read that.” So I read it the first night and I maybe read it for an hour and I thought, “Okay, that’s okay.” I read it the second night. I read it for maybe two hours and I was like, “Okay, it’s heating up. I see where this is going.”

Then I read it the third night. And the third night I just couldn’t put it down. I just kept reading and reading and reading. The next thing I know, I had been spending five hours reading at night. It was like 4:00 AM in the morning and I’m thinking, “I need to sleep.” So anyways, it was like, I would work really hard all day. I would come to read the book at night and I get really excited when I would read the book, and it got to be like this for a week straight. That’s all I would look forward to at night.

I would like wait til my wife and daughter were asleep, then I’d go and read this book. I would read it for as long as humanly possible because it was like, I was thinking, “This is the best thing I’ve ever read.” Then I finished it and then it was like a hole in my heart happened. I couldn’t find anything else. And the first thing you do when you read a good book is you go and see if there’s a sequel. Well, the sequel hasn’t been written yet. So it’s like, “Well, what do I do? Well, I’m going to find a book just like it.” What I think a lot of people don’t realize is going through a breakup and having the grass is greener syndrome is just like that.

How The Grass Is Greener Syndrome Plays A Role

Especially when women go on the rebound, they go through this breakup where they actually reminisce on the past. There’s this theory called the peak end rule, and the peak end rule states that, “Human beings actually have horrible memories.” We tend to categorize memories based on two distinct points. The peak, the most exciting part of the experience, and the end of the experience. So at first, we’re only thinking about the end of the experience. The end tends to be pretty bad when you go through a breakup. But after some time goes by, you reminisce and you start thinking about the peak. You just start thinking about the good parts and you start forgetting about those bad parts at the end.

So what ends up happening is you have these knee jerk reactions from women who move on to new guys. They’re only thinking about the end. They’re thinking about how bad it was at the end, but then they get into the new relationship with the new guy and everything’s great for a little while, until the honeymoon period subsides. You start peeling back all the layers, you don’t really like what you find and you get bored. And it’s just like, “Oh, what have I gotten myself into?” So what I think is happening here is maybe your ex girlfriend had that book, knee jerk reaction where she has this really great relationship with you, where she’s now beginning to romanticize the past of that relationship.

She’s moved on to a new guy because she’s trying to find something to fill the void that relationship left and realize that the new guy can’t fill the void. So she’s maybe trying to connect with you on the way things used to be. But also at the same time, she’s caught in between a rock and a hard place, because I think she’s scared to break up with the new guy.

Here’s another example. One of my good friends is actually going through a breakup right now. He said to me, he was dating this girl and he said, “I really liked her, but now I don’t like her so much, but I’m just going to see what happens.” And I said, “Well, why don’t you just break up with her right now?” And he said, “Well, I’m afraid of hurting her feelings.” Women are especially conscious of your feelings. Men tend to be a little bit more primal, women tend to be a little bit more nurturing in general. So they are a lot more concerned with your wellbeing. So sometimes if she’s caught in between a rock and a hard place, Tom, she’s going to be sitting there and thinking, “Well, you know what? I don’t want to deal with it right now because I know it will hurt the guy.” And maybe there are some good aspects about the new guy, but what your job should be, assuming you want her back, is to try to find a significant enough reason to give her an urgent reason to break up with the new guy.

The Importance Of Scarcity

So here’s what you can do. In order to get that urgent reason, because I already think you’ve done pretty much your job when it comes to getting her to want you back, she’s already showing some signs of that, and I think you’ve made progress where I’m like, “Hey man, you almost got this in the bag.” But what you need to do is get her to commit to you and you need a scarcity or urgent reason … a scarcity. You need an urgent reason to cause her to want to break up with the new guy, and sometimes that’s you getting hit on by other women. Sounds as weird as it possibly can, but she needs to realize … and I think part of the problem too, is this is a concept I see a lot more with men than women, where men, my men clients, if you’re going to ask me the difference between the women clients and the men clients, I would choose men as having an easier time of getting their exs back than women. But I think men fall susceptible to being used more often than women do.

That’s an interesting statement, but think about it. A lot of times women will use their ex boyfriends for emotional support to get through whatever hard times they’re having with the new guy. And that’s what you got to be careful not to fall into. You got to be careful not to be the hero all the time. You got to be careful to stoke some of her mothering instinct, but not stoke it enough to where she’s getting enough from you in return. Because there needs to be something that you’re holding back from her before she’ll actually … You’re only going to get me listening to your problems all day, every day, if we’re in a relationship together. So let me give you a quick crash course on what we found works to gain commitments from human beings.

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There’s this concept called the interdependence theory, which posits that human beings, we make commitment decisions based on a pros and cons list, essentially. And the pros and cons list is made up of basically three distinct aspects; how satisfied we were with the relationship, if there’s a better alternative out there and how much we’ve invested in the relationship. But over the years, I’ve actually amended and added to the list because I find that the interdependence theory gives you the why people commit, but they don’t give you the what makes them commit.

What I mean by that is you can make every interaction you have satisfying with her, you can become the very, very best alternative to the new guy that she’s with, you can even become this superstar where you’re getting her to invest a lot of time into you, but it still won’t be enough to get her to take action. What gets people to take action in my experience is fear of loss and urgency. And often, the two there’s this interconnected relationship between the two, where if you create enough fear of loss, where if she thinks she’s going to lose you as a staple or as an option, that will get her to wake up and realize, “You know what? I need to be with the guy.”

Some Homework For Tom

So here’s the homework I would give to you, Tom. Think of it like this.

You’ve done a really great job with the being there method. You’ve been there, you’ve been this constant presence. She’s already showing some signs of cracking, but what you probably need to do is create a bit more urgency through fear of loss, and also make sure that you’re ending conversations first. That’s a big thing, especially I think a lot of women take advantage of men when they’re going through breakups. Women want emotional support from their ex boyfriends. And what they end up doing is they’ll come, and it’s often a sign that things aren’t going well in the current relationship they’re with, if they’re asking you for emotional support, and that’s what looks like what’s happening here, Tom.

But what I notice is oftentimes, men can leave themselves open to being taken advantage of. What I mean by that is if you’re giving only emotional support and she’s getting that aspect for you, she’s got no reason to leave the guy because she’s got you to rely on. So sometimes, it’s important for you to end conversations first. You want to have a satisfying conversation, but you don’t want to make it to where you’re taking care of her every single problem. It’s okay to listen, but don’t offer advice. That’s an important distinction because you don’t want to put yourself in a … you want her to be miserable with the new guy. That’s the important thing, and this is that morally gray area we’re talking about here, but that’s what works.

The other thing is ending conversations first leads you into this pattern where she’s always seeking more validation in another conversation with you, which could only lead to more investment, and more investment can often lead to more satisfying interactions, and more satisfying interactions can often lead to you being the best alternative. And then if you are the best alternative and you create a fear of loss and she sees that you’re not going to be around forever, guess what happens? You’ve got the momentum rolling. You’ve got the snowball effect going. She breaks up with the new guy. It takes a little bit time and then starts flirting with you. That’s what we want to have happen. That’s what we see happens.

Now, here’s the other piece of advice I’m going to give you, Tom. No matter how well you plan, something is going to go wrong. It just always does. The number one skill that you probably need to master is adaptation and also calmness, being calm in the face of basically all the chaos that occurs when you go through this situation is the best thing for you. So that’s it. Do that, Tom. Good luck.