Today, like always, we’re going to be taking a listener question.

Now, if you didn’t already know the format of the show is basically we take listener questions, we’ll take like a minute-and-a-half question, and then I just riff and give my thoughts on the situation based on what I’m seeing because I’ve dealt with so many breakups situations from people who want to get their exes back and even for people who want nothing to do with their exes.

I give my best piece of advice to the person on how they should approach their situation going forward.

Now, the number one question that people tend to ask is what kind of chance do I have of getting my ex girlfriend back?

I think probably the better thing to do when you find yourself asking this question is to actually just hop over our website and take a special quiz that I put together that’s designed to answer this question for you. Now, all you have to do if you want to take that quiz is simply just stop everything you’re doing, go to Google or just type in your phone exgirlfriendrecovery.com.

Then right there on the homepage, there’ll be a little ad to take this free quiz.

The free quiz basically will give you an idea of where you stand with your ex so you’re not wasting your time, because believe me when I say there’s nothing worse than wasting your time in a situation where you really don’t have a great shot.

Okay, with all of the precursor-type stuff out of the way, let’s actually talk about what we’re going to be talking about today.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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What Do You Do If Your Ex Girlfriend Has The Grass Is Greener Syndrome? 

What’s up, man? Long story short, since I only have 90 seconds, my girlfriend broke up with me about a month and a half ago. We were dating for two years. She just said that she seems really confused and she doesn’t know what she wants. At first, I thought there was another guy in the picture or another guy that she possibly started to like, but I know for a fact there’s not now.

It’s funny because her behavior on social media, just you can tell that she’s confused. Even my friends are like, “What’s she doing?” She’s just posting a bunch of stories on her Instagram, which she never really has done before. I actually saw her a few nights ago and she came over and she gave me a big hug and was flirting with me. She just said she feels really weird, but even when she came over, it seemed like we weren’t even broken up. We still acted like a couple.

I’ve been going no contact and it seems like every four or five days she’ll reach out to me and tell me she misses me and all that. Yeah, I’m just, I guess, just trying to give her her time and space and hopefully she figures out what she wants soon, but yeah, it’s just a confusing situation. If you have any input, that’d be great.

Okay, let’s take it from the top. The first thing I like to do typically when people leave questions is to just summarize them so we’re both working from the same page. I was actually trying to pick a question, and for those of you who want to be featured on the podcast, my best piece of advice to you is to be clear and concise like this message.

This message from Anonymous, you’ll notice he wasn’t all over the place. He spoke very clearly, he had a very good connection, and his question was something that I feel like a lot of people struggle with.

Let’s summarize his situation.

• Him and his girlfriend broke up about one and a half months ago, so it’s been about 45 days since they broke up, after dating for two years.
• Now, the reasoning she gave for the breakup was pretty standard.
• She broke up with him saying that she’s confused and she doesn’t know what she wants. I have some thoughts on that, but I’ll save that for later.
• At first, he was worried there might be some other guy, but after some time he realized, no, there’s not some other guy.
• His ex-girlfriend seems to be acting very odd on social media, posting things that she typically didn’t post when they were together.
• He also said he’s trying the no-contact rule, but he’s also seeing every few days she’ll reach out to him.
• A few nights ago he actually saw her in person, she came over and said she feels really weird.
• They’re still acting like a couple and he’s just confused about the whole situation to begin with, and he wants my thoughts.

Here are my thoughts, Mr. Anonymous. First things first, let’s go back to the start and talk about this breakup.

Does His Ex Girlfriend Have GIGS?

Typically, what I tell my clients is that when a girl breaks up with you, she’s not going to often tell you the real reason she broke up with you because she’s worried it will hurt your ego or hurt your feelings. On some level, even if there is a lot of anger and maybe even hatred, they don’t want to hurt you deeply. I find women are especially sensitive to a men’s feelings.

When she says she’s confused and when she says she doesn’t know what she wants, that is technically a lie.

The fact is, she does know what she wants, she just thinks it isn’t you. I’m also getting vibes here of the grass is greener syndrome.

If you don’t already know, the grass is greener syndrome is this very common thing that people go through when they’re with someone for enough time to feel like they peeled back all the layers and understand everything they need to know about the relationship and what’s in the relationship and so on and so forth.

I noticed you said that you’re dating her for two years, and then this breakup occurs where she says she’s confused and she doesn’t know what she wants, which is basically an admission that, “Hey, I don’t want this. I want something else.”

You also are immediately worried that there may be some other guy, so instinctively you kind of understand she’s looking for other people, thereby she has a bit of the grass is greener syndrome. Typically, there’s one of two reactions that will occur when you have the grass is greener syndrome.

Number one is you essentially learn the grass is greener on the other side.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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Now, what do I mean by that? Well, what I mean by that is let’s say you had, Anonymous, broken up with her, and the whole reason is you think you can do better than her. You go out, you go on a few dates, and you realize you can do better than her. You find someone else who’s better than your ex. That’s outcome number one.

Outcome number two is the grass is greener syndrome and the grass isn’t greener on the other side. I actually tend to think this is the more common thing that happens, and it’s interesting if you look into the psychology behind why it happens. Especially in long term relationships, and granted, dating for two years can be a pretty long time I think, especially with our attention spans now. With the millennials going into the dating age so much, we have been almost structured in a way where we expect instant results in our lives.

Oftentimes, the number one thing that always pops into my mind or the number one anecdote is my dad, when he used to go on trips, he would literally have the map out. He’d mapped the trip out on the map with the roads and everything.

Now, if you asked me to do that, guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to get lost because I don’t know how to do that. I’ve been trained by my phone to use GPS. You get instant, quick results. This is really great because people often pay for convenience, right? We pay to have things delivered quicker to us, but it’s not very good or it doesn’t have really any applications to relationships.

What I mean by that is oftentimes our quick results mentality can come into relationships where you expect everything to happen really quickly. When dating for two years, while that doesn’t seem like enough, your ex-girlfriend may feel like she knows everything there is to know about the relationship, everything that it has to offer, and it gets boring to her.

Therefore, she goes and starts dating someone new or starts looking for someone new.

But a really funny thing happens.

Why Letting Her Date Others Might Work In Your Favor

They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that has been my experience as well.

You can even see the recent … I was reading some really interesting articles over the weekend on the psychology of playing hard to get and why it works and how it still works even in today’s day and age. What’s really interesting is when your ex-girlfriend breaks up with you, assuming you had a good body of work in the relationship to draw from, assuming there was lots of good memories, assuming you were a great boyfriend and all of that stuff, the longer she spends away from you and starts experiencing going on dates with other people, she doesn’t have to sleep with someone, she doesn’t have to even go get a new boyfriend, just simply going on dates with other people, she will begin to romanticize the past. This is where that grass is greener syndrome comes into play, where she realizes, “Hey, maybe I had it better than I thought.”

What’s really interesting is I can’t help but notice that your specific ex-girlfriend, she’s coming over and acting like you’re still dating. This to me indicates that she does have a bit of this grass is greener syndrome, where she’s gone out maybe to experience life and it’s not going as well as she thought.

Now, you can also take the devil’s advocate side of that and come into it from a perspective of, oh my goodness, she is settling. She’s going back into old routines because she’s scared of going out there and she wants to go to someplace safe, where she feels you’re safe.

What do you do if this happens?

Because this is certainly a worry that you have to worry about. Well, I couldn’t also help notice that you said you’re trying the no-contact rule. The paradox is you said you’re trying it, but it seems like you’re breaking it, so you’re not really trying it. One thing that we do know is the more times you do the no-contact rule, meaning you try it and then you fail it, the less effective it can become. Now, is that the be all, end all? Will it fail every single time? Let’s say you fail eight times, will it fail the ninth time? Not necessarily, but for the most part, it will become way less effective the more you have to do it. it’s almost better to just go in and kind of go and skate.

You’re not going to really give your ex a chance to properly miss you unless you are willing to make that commitment and do that no-contact rule, and it seems like you haven’t done that. That’s where my tweak of advice should, would come in for you, because yes, you’re getting some kind of positive results. I mean, she’s acting very odd on social media. This is, to me, not that crazy, right? A lot of people hyper obsess about the likes they get on social media or what your ex-girlfriend is posting or things like that because they’re paying attention. I actually think her acting really weird on social media is normal breakup behavior.

But in order for you to build the foundation of starting over, you need to take a situation with your ex-girlfriend and get through a full no-contact period without seeing her or talking to her. That’s going to be hard because especially in your situation, where you have an ex-girlfriend this volatile who will literally come back and she will probably confront you about the fact that you’re ignoring her, your brain and your worry is going to take hold. Your fear will take hold and you’ll be thinking, “Oh my God, what if I lose my chance of getting her forever?” The thing I always like to remind people of is you’ve already lost her. What you’re doing is you’re trying or you’re taking a calculated risk to improve your position. You’re taking a calculated risk by using an action to show her that you’re not going to allow yourself to be used emotionally.

What You Are Doing During Your No Contact Rule Matters

That’s the other, and final, thing that I’d like to talk to you about. We talked so far about the grass is greener syndrome, Mr. Anonymous, and we’ve talked a little bit about why you say you’re doing the no-contact rule but you’re really not doing the no-contact rule. You’re consistently failing it and why you should not fail it. But there’s a third thing that I want to talk to you about, and that’s being the emotional crutch for your ex-girlfriend.

One of the big things about breakups that not a lot of people realize is the routine that we get into. Routines, we’re slave to our routines, but we have more routines than even we realize. For example, you have a talking routine, you have a certain way in which you communicate with her. Most of us it’s through texts nowadays. Some people, especially in long distance relationships, it will be through phone calls. Other people, it will be just seeing each other in person, they communicate better that way. Those are routines. Then of course you have the frequency routine. How frequent are you guys talking to each other? Then you have the emotional support routine, which is your ex-girlfriend coming to you or your girlfriend coming to you and talking to you about her day and you lending support.

What we tend to see happen, especially in long term relationships … I can classify yours as a long term relationship, two years is a long time to be with one person, specifically when you’re not married. When you’re married, the rules shift and the dynamic shifts, but you’re not married, you’re just dating. Two years is a pretty long time to be with someone. After two years, she’s probably so used to coming to you and relying on you for emotional support. She always has this innate feeling that she can always rely on you, so when times get tough she’ll come back to you and try to get that emotional support. This is the challenge, because men, we often fall victim to the hero complex. We always want to be the problem solvers. We want to be God in their minds. We want them to be coming to us for their problems. Yet, the difficult part is after a breakup you need to basically say, “I’m not going to do that for you anymore.”

What I’m thinking is happening here is she’s got a bit of the grass is greener syndrome, she’s coming back to what feels familiar with you, and she feels that she can rely on you for emotional support. Maybe it seems like there might be some physical aspects to it as well. I mean, you didn’t get into that, probably because you were embarrassed to talk about maybe you slept with her. It does seem like you were alluding to that, because she came over a few nights ago and you were acting like a couple. I can only imagine that means you guys got physical. This revolves around the same idea as well. She’s coming back into what feels familiar physically and emotionally.

My point is, if you want your ex-girlfriend back, if you really truly want her back, you don’t want to be the same guy she fell for. Now, that’s weird because most of us want that, but what my point is is you want to be the guy that she literally looks at with a new twist. Yes, you have the ability to offer all these old things, but there’s a new side to you, something new that she can look at you for and say, “Wow, that’s different. I like that.”

Think of it like the sequel to a movie. Let’s say there’s a beloved movie that you watch in the movie theaters and you’re like, “This is like the best movie I’ve ever seen.” What’s interesting is a lot of times people will go and watch the same movie over and over and over again. It doesn’t really hold the same punch that first time that you watched it, the second time you watch it. It’s still really good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as good. Well, if you’re with someone for a long time, it’s kind of like watching the same movie over and over and over again, until the sequel comes out, and then the sequel comes out and you get real excited.

Think of this like your sequel. It’s going to have a lot of the same elements of that first relationship, but you want to add new elements, new layers for her to peel back and be fascinated by. I think this analogy, it’s a really great allegory for being in a long term relationship as well, because the number one issue long term relationships face is growing stale. It’s because it feels like you’re watching reruns over and over and over again. That’s why you need to add a sequel in every once in a while.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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That’s my advice to you, Anonymous. Be the sequel, not the original.