By EBR Team Member: Ashley

Updated on July 17th, 2022

You’ve told her again.

“I want you back.”

But she doesn’t budge. She politely turns down your offer and now you’re wondering what is wrong.

No matter how many times you tell her,

“I’m ready,”

she still pushes you away, telling you she needs more time. She needs space to think.

And all the while she’s giving you excuses about why she doesn’t want to get back together with you, you’re thinking,

“How can I make you ready?”

With your exgirlfriend, if you want her back, you need to bide your time with her and allow her the space and time to realign everything in her life. See, despite what you think she’s doing during your time apart, your ex was probably spending your No Contact period figuring her life out.

With that said, if you’re in a position right now where you’re ready to get back with your ex-girlfriend but she is resisting your advances, there’s something I want you to think about…

You May Be Ready…But Is Your Ex Girlfriend Ready?

Look, you can’t just expect your ex-girlfriend to be gung-ho about getting back together just because you are. I know it can be frustrating because you’re ready to be with her again and make it work this time. No matter what circumstance may have broken you two up, the fact is that she isn’t ready just yet.

I could tell you to wait it out, let her figure things out by herself because chances are, that’s exactly what she needs – time to think everything over. You’re probably rolling your eyes at me and scoffing, saying,

“Yeah, like she needs more time.”

Uh, yes she does, bro.

Just like you hate it when you’re rushed to do something you’d rather take your time with…

…she isn’t going to make this decision without taking the time to give it some serious thought. It isn’t some impulse buy she’s making while doing a Target run. This is about her love life and her future, which she won’t take too lightly.

Like I mentioned before, women mostly act on their emotions, and their emotions will play into their decision to get back together with you or not. There could a number of reasons holding her back from going back to you. The biggest reason is probably one you already know…

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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She Doesn’t Want to Get Hurt Again.

We’ve all be down that path before.

“I was hurt before you or by you, so now I’m not sure if I’m ready for this to happen again.”

It’s what prevents really good connections from turning into super awesome relationships. It’s also what’s preventing your exgirlfriend from making the ultimate choice to get back together with you, drop the “ex” and be your girlfriend again. The best thing you can do is wait it out for now. Give her more time and space to clear her head.

That’s the bad news. Here’s some good news. While she’s thinking things through, you don’t have to be inactive. You can be proactive. There are many things you can do while you’re waiting. Because if there is one thing I know about you men, it’s that for the most part, you all hate waiting around for something to get done. That’s why you’re all looking for some new project to do, why you wanna fix something that doesn’t need to be fixed. So take this time to focus on something. Here are some suggestions.

  • Work on reassuring your ex of your intentions
  • Work on yourself and Let her work on herself
  • Be there, but also be there

REASSURANCE Is Important To Your Ex

Before we get cracking at this, let me just provide with a short list of what you may have already done to try and get her back.

  1. Told her you want to get back together  – Okay, so you’ve accomplished the first item on the list. If she’s rejected this proposal right off, fear not. Just consider the second item on the list.
  2. Reassure her time and time again that you’re 100% all in – I feel like this is an obvious thing to consider. Most of you may have already known this already, but let’s just go over it again for those who might not. If you want to get back together with your ex, you’re gonna have to work your ass off to get her back to a place where she knows she can trust and open up to you again.

Unless a woman straight up tells you otherwise, she’s pretty much looking for some kind of assurance about whatever relationship she gets into. She wants to be assured that

  • the relationship will go somewhere this time
  • you really feel the same way she does
  • she isn’t going to be wasting her time again.

Essentially, she just wants to make sure she’s not gonna get hurt in this entire process… again.

The great thing about this is that since you’ve already been with her, you already know how to reassure her and what you can do to get her to be ready again.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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A woman really just needs to know you’re all about her and only her.

Maybe you’re doing what is expected to get her back – one big romantic gesture, a declaration of love with flowers and chocolates, or an Instagram photo of your girl as your #WCW, that’s “Woman Crush Wednesday, to you social media-impaired, not World Championship Wrestling.

While the romantic gestures are sweet and everything, most women are just looking for a verbal

“Let’s get back together.”

It’ as simple as that.

And it has to explicitly be said in that sense, if not verbatim. Not

“Wanna try again?”

Not

“What would you do if we got back together?”

Keep hypothetical situations and questions out of your vocabulary.
The thing with verbal reassurance is that you need to be straight up with her.

IT’S IMPORTANT.

I cannot emphasize this more.

We women like to take everything you’ve ever told us, dissect every syllable of every word, go over each word in our heads with any kind of tone you can imagine. Sometimes, we do this with our friends until we’ve exhausted them.

So, if you want her to get on the same page as you you have to be deliberate with what you say.

It’s like when a woman gets frustrated when guys tell us they

“Wanna hang out?”

instead of just saying

“Let’s go on a date!”

We hate the ambiguity of your words. And we get it, you don’t want to be put in a vulnerable spot yourself. But, if you’re vague once, we assume you are being vague always.

And if you’re expecting your ex to open herself up to the vulnerability of being hurt, you have to open yourself up to that, too.

IT’S NOT HER – IT’S YOU

I hate using this word loosely, but it applies in this sense. I literally just read a post on the ExBoyfriend Recovery, ExGirlfriend Recovery’s sister site, Facebook group by a woman who said she wasn’t ready to get back with her ex even though he asked. Someone had asked her why, and her response was:

“He has some things he still needs to work on.”

I don’t think she meant to be rude about it. She was just being honest about the way she felt. Sometimes, even though men are ready to take back their exes, they may not be ready for that commitment yet.

Often times they don’t even realize that they are still holding back.

Some men would admit it, though, I’ll give you that. Some men would tell their girls what their current situation is – good or bad, and would still love to have their ex by their sides as they deal with it.

That’s perfectly fine. But just know that it can be a huge burden for most women.

If you think about it, getting into a new relationship is already a hard enough transition in someone’s life. You have to take on your partner’s schedule, their emotions, their wants and needs – basically their everything. It can be taxing – for either partner. But getting back together, knowing already that one or both of you have things you still need to work on? It’s a lot to ask of someone.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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Assuming she is taking the time apart to make personal strides, your ex is probably at a point in her life where things are finally falling into place for her.

I’m not saying that she’s doing good because you’re not in the picture – not at all.

I’m totally rooting for you to get your ex back.

It’s just that sometimes removing distractions makes it easier for other areas of their life to fall into place. And it could be that right now is not the right time for her to take on her life’s challenges as well as yours.

I don’t want to get all philosophical on y’all, but like they say – Things happen for a reason. The breakup probably came at a time where both of you both really needed it.

When She Says “I Want To Be Left Alone”

Its likely that neither of you realized it at the moment.

Hell, you probably still don’t want to know it right now.

You shouldn’t rush back into a relationship again if you have some big issues that need to be resolved.

Bottom line here is that, if there’s something you need to improve on, whether it be with yourself or how you approach a relationship, then fix it before you jump back in a relationship with your ex. Once whatever she’s worried about is all worked out and smoothed over, she’ll probably be more willing and ready to get back together with you.

BE THERE, BUT LIKE, BE THERE, YA KNOW?

So maybe you don’t have any faults or things to fix, and you wasted five minutes of your time reading that last section.

But, hey, knowledge is knowledge, right?

Here’s something else you can do while you’re waiting for your ex to be ready to return to you – Be there for her.

This advice comes in two-fold because there are two ways you can be there for her. There are probably more, but I’m only gonna touch base on these two. You can be there for her by actually being there for her when she needs you, which I’ll talk about first because it ties in better with the overall idea of this article. The second way is by making your presence known to her, which is your fallout plan when she tells you to give her time and space.

So, look, let’s lay out what you’ve probably done up until this point. So far you’ve:

  1. Told her you want to get back together and…She turned you down
  2. Reassured her time and time again that you’re 100% all in and… she said ‘I need more time’
  3. Worked out your own issues and… she ain’t biting the line just yet

So now what is there for you to do?

Just be there for her.

  • If she needs advice on financial stuff – be there for her with answers or advice.
  • If she needs a ride because her car broke down – be there with a ride.
  • If she’s having a particularly bad day – be there for her to vent it out if she needs to.

But more than that, your ex might be going through some issues herself. And while I advised against getting back together before resolving these issues on either side, I think it’s safe to suggest that you could just be there for her without being with her as her boyfriend.

Again, women are emotional creatures, so throwing yourself at her romantically while she’s trying to get her life together might throw her equilibrium off-balance once again.

The thing to keep in mind here is to help your ex stabilize her emotions and situation and give yourself time to stabilize yours too, so you both can have a clear mind before re-establishing your relationship.
Once she sees how you’ve been there for her while she’s getting her life back in order, she’ll see that you’re all in for her and it won’t be JUST words.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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That’ll help with the reassuring part, as well. She’ll know you haven’t totally abandoned her when she needed some stable grounding, and she’ll also realize that you’re not trying to play with her emotions. You’re there for her, through good and bad.

BE THERE 2.0

So, maybe that didn’t work out too well for you. Huh, well…no problem. Let’s revisit that list one more time. Now at this point, you’ve:

  1. Told her you want to get back together
  2. Reassured her time and time again that you’re 100% all in
  3. Worked out any issues within yourself or your relationship
  4. Been there for her

At this point, I think you’re ready to pull out the big guns and start playing dirty. I normally keep this card up my sleeve as a last resort, but I’m gonna allow you to put it up your sleeve since you’ve already been through all of the other tactics.

Ready for it? Here it is.

BE THERE!

Okay, so you’re probably thinking,

“Is this broad dumb or something? She just said that!”

No, I’m not dumb, but yes, I did say that already. But this time, I just said, “Be there.” That’s it.

Help Your Ex Girlfriend See What She is Missing

You may or may not know this tactic, but it’s very popular in the EBR group. I’m not sure what Chris has let you in on with the Ex-Girlfriend Recovery book and what strategies he’s gone over with you to use already, but I do know that sometimes men and women have different tricks up your sleeves. So if you’re not particularly familiar with this, you’re learning something new here. If you know this already, then boy, are you one step ahead.

“Being there” is a method that allows you to ride out the time for your ex to figure out what she’s feeling and thinking before taking you back, but also lets you be proactive while she’s doing so. Being there basically is showing your ex what she’s missing out on. While you may not be with her physically, right by her side, you’re still visible to her.

The most popular way you can do this is sharing on social media.

  • Go out with the guys for the night.
  • Watch a game together.
  • Hang out with your family.

Post those pictures up, Snapchat your night out, and even write status about it on Facebook and tag your friends and family. It might elicit some jealousy from your ex, which might help her make that decision faster.

But here’s where it gets tricky. I should warn you fairly right here and now to be careful how you choose to do this.

You want to get your ex’s attention, but you don’t want to get on her bad side.

So if you know that the presence of other girls is going to hinder your progress with your ex-girlfriend, maybe don’t hang out with other girls, even if they’re “just friends.”
I’ve seen this get out of hand a million times before. So, if you decide to do that, good luck getting out of that one.

Like I said, we women are emotional and we always need reassurance. With that said, when choosing how to “be there” – Guys Night Out, a bar crawl, etc. – make sure that it will help elicit the right amount of jealousy in your ex, enough for her to call you up or text you.

If you’re not sure how to do that, then maybe stick to safer activities, something recreational like hiking or golfing. Or even babysit someone’s kid. Choose something that will make your ex want to message or text or comment you,

“Aww…I wish I was there with you.”

Believe it or not, just showing her that you still have a life and aren’t pining over her can stir up a little jealousy on it’s own.

Because chances are if she sees you “being there” that way, that is definitely what she’s thinking.

Another safe route in “Being There” on her social media is by liking pictures she’s posted and commenting on her statuses or posts. This way, you’re not ruffling any feathers and taking two steps back on the progress you were making. If she sees that you’ve liked her recent pictures, even asked where she went to have brunch with her family, she’ll know you’re still interested in her day-to-day life. Which is really reassuring for her.

Not to mention, it will steer her towards checking up on your social media.

IS SHE READY YET?

Let’s go over the checklist one more time. So now, you’ve already:

  1. Told her you want to get back together
  2. Reassured her time and time again that you’re 100% all in
  3. Worked out any of your issues
  4. Been there for her
  5. Been there in her view

Hopefully, all of this has culminated in her being ready to be with you once again.

If it hasn’t quite yet, then don’t lose hope.

There is nothing sexier to a woman than a man that bears his heart to the woman he loves without holding back.

We all loved it when John Cusack’s character held up that boombox for Ione Skye’s in Say Anything.

It melted our hearts in Titanic when Jack told Rose he’d “never let go” and let her live on to see the rest of her life.

And come on, when Ryan Gosling’s character tells Rachel McAdams’s that he never stopped writing her letters for a whole year. For a whole year, guys! 365 letters!

I don’t know what day you’re on, but I just want you to know not to give up. You’re fighting the good fight! It’ll take a lot of patience and a lot of reassuring. It might take one of you, maybe even both of you, realizing that you this stalemate won’t go anywhere unless something is resolved.

The point is you can’t make her do something she’s not ready for. But you also don’t have to be out of the picture, just prepared to support her from the sidelines.

You already know she’s worth it. You just need to give her time to realize you’re worth it, too.

		

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