Welcome to another episode of the Ex Girlfriend Recovery Podcast.

Today, we’re going to be tackling one of the most common questions that I tend to get, and you may be wondering after your breakup, which is the quandary of going through a breakup and having your ex girlfriend basically say, “It’s not you. It’s me.”

We’re going to really dive down deep and explore what she means when she says that and what you can do about it. And in some cases, understanding or coming to the realization that there’s nothing you can do and being okay with that.

So what I’m going to do, and if you don’t know, how this podcast typically works is I take questions.

So basically, listeners of this podcast come, they’re able to film a quick question for me anywhere between usually a minute to a minute and a half.

And I play the question, and then I answer it as organically as possible.

But before I actually play the question from our listener, I would first like to say that if you’re going through a breakup, and you’re really determining whether or not you should be trying to get your ex-girlfriend back or really just moving on from your ex-girlfriend, probably the best resource that you can use is something called the Ex Recovery Chances Quiz on my website, www.exgirlfriendrecovery.com.

It’s a simple two minute quiz designed to basically answer the question of whether or not you have a good chance of getting your ex back. And you can use that information to really determine whether or not you should be trying to get your ex back or should be focusing on moving on.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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A Listener Asks What It Means When An Ex Says It’s Not You, It’s Me?

Hello, Chris?

My question is the following. What does that mean when my ex… Or yeah, when a girlfriend tells you, it’s not you, it’s me? She says she is not in love with me, but she loves me.

And how is that possible, from someone who loves you the previous month? And then the next month, they don’t love you anymore.

Why is that?

It’s not you it’s me.

So first off, I want to say like always.

Thank you so much for basically recording a question. I know sometimes it can be hard to put your heart out on the line and make yourself vulnerable, but you ask a really good. And the question is, what does your ex mean, essentially, when she says, “Hey, it’s not you. It’s me.” And what’s interesting is a few months ago, I actually wrote an article for Ex Girlfriend Recovery, entitled What She Says Versus What She Means.

The article was entitled to be basically a starter article that, as time went on, I was going to add more to it, based on real life consensus from women.

So if you don’t know, anyone who buys any of the programs that I basically have gets access to this special private Facebook support group.

I believe there’s 4200, 4300 people in there, as of today. And what’s really interesting is it’s a really nice mix of women and men, but more so women because the group originally was started for women, and it gained so much traction and success that we opened it up for men.

But what’s really cool is most of the time what I’m finding from our male clients who are going through a breakup, that get into the Facebook group, is they’ll actually use women to decipher, “Hey, what does it mean when my ex-girlfriend says this or this?” And so what’s interesting is that was kind of the approach I took when I was writing this article on what your ex girlfriend says versus what she actually means.

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And so essentially, what I did was I polled people in Ex Girlfriend Recovery and I asked them,

“Hey, what is the five most important things that you want girls to decode for you?” What does my ex mean when she says this?

And I came up with those five most important things, but what’s interesting is not one of them was, “Hey, what does it mean when my ex-girlfriend says, “It’s not you. It’s me.”

But one of the things that men were wondering what women meant when they said it was, “Hey, what does it mean when my ex-girlfriend says that her feelings have changed for me, or she’s not into me so much anymore?”

And I actually think that’s kind of close enough to what the it’s not you, it’s me type mentality that women have is. And what was really interesting is for pretty much all of the other four things that I had polled people that men wanted to know, there was a pretty clear consensus.

Women were pretty united on what they thought. Maybe there was a couple of different meanings that women thought it could mean, but for the most part, it was pretty straightforward. Actually, you know what? It’s probably even helpful for me to just pull the article up for you, so that you can actually know what those five things were.

Okay. So here they are. The five things, the five most important things that men really wanted to know what their ex-girlfriends meant.

1. What does it mean when my ex-girlfriend says that she changed?
2. What does it mean when my ex-girlfriend says that she hates me?
3. What does it mean when my ex-girlfriend says it’s too late?
4. What does it mean when my ex-girlfriend says we’re just friends?
5. What does it mean when my ex-girlfriend told me to move on?

And really, when I look at these five things, the one that really sticks out to me as closest to the it’s not you, it’s me mentality is, “Hey, what does my ex girlfriend mean when she says she’s changed?”

Now like I said, for the other four things, the consensus was pretty standard. Women typically thought that those four things meant usually one thing. The one exception was number one, which is what does my ex-girlfriend mean when she says that she’s changed. And it’s interesting because that, I think, is the closest to the it’s not you, it’s me mentality phrase that your ex-girlfriend is saying.

Here’s What Your Ex Girlfriend Really Means When She Says It’s Not You, It’s Me

And there were actually three patterns that we noticed emerged from the women in this Facebook group, that basically just told me what they thought that it meant. And here were the three patterns.

Number one is my feelings have changed for you, or I’m not feeling attracted to you anymore.

So essentially, and I noticed in the listener’s question, he had mentioned that just last month, everything seemed normal.

We were just going about our lives normally. She was saying, “I love you.” I loved her very much.

And then all of a sudden, it just falls off. Well, it just seems like some type of catalyst caused her feelings to change, or maybe she was doing a good job of hiding the fact that she wasn’t as attracted to you as she thought.

But that’s not the only thing women thought it could mean.

They also thought it could mean, “Hey, I don’t like you very much.”

And this is a typical thing that I’ve seen, actually, with women who are really angry about the fact that you’re flirting with other women.

Not saying that’s what’s going on here. I’m just brainstorming, giving you kind of the broad view of what women thought it meant.

And then I’m going to give you my thoughts on what I think you should do.

But like I said, they thought, “Well, okay, well, they don’t like you that much anymore.” I’m not into you that much anymore. This is almost very closely related to the my feelings have changed for you type thing.

The third one I think is probably the most insightful, and that’s the fact that she feels that she has outgrown your relationship.

So she feels like maybe a month ago, you were in a good place, but sometime in that month she decided, or had some sort of epiphany and decided, “I’ve outgrown this relationship,” or “This relationship has beneath me.” And I think it kind of does stem from the fact that maybe she feels she can do better than you.

And really all breakups are kind of an emission of that.

All breakups, when your next girlfriend breaks up with you, is her basically admitting to the world and to you, “Hey, I think I can do better than you.” And some men take this really personally.

They take it and make it into this attack on their ego and everything. And I understand. That’s a normal thing.

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And the number one thing they typically do when your ex-girlfriend says, “Hey, it’s not you. It’s me,” is they will try to counter it by saying, “No. I’ll change. I’ll be better.” They try to push. They push for her to change her mind. And what happens?

Well, more often than not, she does not change her mind, and it almost reinforces the decision.

The Mistake Most Men Make When Their Ex Tells Them This

Now, here’s an interesting thing that you probably did not know.

Why is it such a mistake to try to counter her saying, “It’s not you. It’s me,” by saying, “Oh, I’ll change. I’ll be better.”

Well, it’s because constantly being pushed into doing something that she doesn’t want to do will make her, and really anyone, more defensive and less likely to give into what you want them to do.

So pushing her for a, “Hey yes, let’s get back together,” constantly, is a turn off, and it makes her more defensive and almost puts her and you in the aggressor and defensive mode. So basically, she looks at you as this aggressive person who’s trying to force her into feeling this particular way.

And sometimes, as men, we can be blind to this fact. We can be blind to the fact that maybe we’re being too aggressive in our approach. Society teaches us men that we need to be the aggressors. We need to be the ones who ask out girls.

We need to be ones to ask girls for their numbers and set dates up and be the romantic gesture type thing. And sometimes we can take that too far, and we need to take a step back. So being constantly pushed to do something someone doesn’t want to do makes them more defensive.

And ultimately, what’s interesting is the fallacy I think most people will run into here is thinking or saying that they’ll change and they’ll be better will make a difference. Studies constantly show… This is kind of a weird analogy, but it’s true.

The kidney transplant list, the thing they always talk about on TV shows or movies, and you have to be super good behavior.

You can’t drink it all. You can’t do what have you. If your kidneys or liver are failing and you need a kidney or liver transplant, you get put on this list. And this list is determined by how well of a lifestyle that you’ve lived.

What’s interesting is they found that people who they’ve given these kidneys or livers to often will say, who have maybe smoked too much or drink too much or what have you, they’ll come back, and they’ll say, “No I’ll change. I’ll be better.” And sometimes people fall for it, and they put them or move them up the transplant list or what have you. And studies have consistently shown that they always, once they get their new kidney or whatever, they always go back to drinking. They always go back to smoking.

So I guess my point here is that saying you’ll change and you’ll be better doesn’t mean anything. It’s not as powerful as showing that you’ve changed or showing that you are better. Writers are often told one of the first rules is to show, don’t tell.

What does that mean? That means if you’re going to write a story, and you want to make the story appealing to an audience, it’s better to almost have the one plus one mentality as opposed to teaching someone one plus one equals two. And what do I mean by that?

Well, Game of Thrones is really good at this. Game of Thrones is one of the best TV shows before the disaster of the final season. There’s many reasons we can talk about it was a disaster, but it was a really good show at dropping these little hints.

So essentially, what they do is they give you a little piece of information in the show. And if you pay close enough attention, you can take this piece of information and add it to a second piece of information, and that will equate to this big reveal. But the show doesn’t tell you. It makes you do the extra work. People like that.

They don’t like being told directly. And this is a problem. This is the reason that tropes in storytelling exists. It’s such a big trope because it’s been done so often, and people are often just telling you one plus one equals two, as opposed to just saying one plus one equals… And then you have to figure out what it equals. That’s the essence of showing and not telling.

So how do you show your ex that you’re better or that you’re changed? Well, if your ex is saying, “It’s not you. It’s me,” you need to take the approach of, okay, this is an admission that she thinks she can do better than me. And you need to live your life in a way to make her regret that decision. And I think actually, the key… The more I study breakups and what works to get someone back, the more I realize that it’s really important for you to find something that you care more about than your ex. Not another person, but another thing.

Often I call this the Magnum Opus. What do you want to be remembered by or for when you die? Do you want to be remembered for chasing this girl, looking super desperate, begging for her back? Or do you want to be remembered for this amazing story that you told or this amazing thing that you built?

What Is Your Magnum Opus?

What is that one thing that you care more about than your own life? Because if you can find that, getting your ex back becomes so much easier. It becomes a lot easier to level up your life in all of these different areas. Health, wealth, relationships can go through the roof, and you can show your ex. You can not tell her, but show her what a big mistake she made. Because eventually, and this is kind of a common thing that we see happen, whether you realize it or not, your ex will begin to romanticize your relationship at some point in the future. She will think back fondly on those positive memories together.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

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This is often called the peak end rule. So when people remember experiences, they actually are really horrible at remembering all of the experience. Typically, they just hone in on two distinct points. The peak of the experience, the most exciting point, or the end of the experience, the last point.

In your case, you’re going through a breakup right now. Your ex girlfriend is saying, “It’s not you. It’s me.” She’s focusing on the end of the relationship, how she felt, how badly she felt. But after enough time goes by, the romanticizing begins. And the once the romanticizing began, she starts thinking about those peak exciting, great moments. And then she’s thinking to herself, “Hey, what’s good old Oliver up to?” Or “What’s good old Alexander up to? Let’s check her social media profile.” She checks your social media profile. And if you look worse than you did when she broke up with you, it reinforces her decision to break up with you. But if she looks at your social media profile and sees you’ve basically become this ultimate, extraordinary person, she starts getting curious and thinking, maybe there was more to him than meets the eye. Maybe he was better than I thought. And then she contacts you.

And it’s almost like you can play with an even playing field, not quite, but you can almost play with an even playing field. And that’s the key, I think, to ultimately trying to get someone back. You see a lot of people focus on the tactics and the techniques. What should I say to get them back? I learned a long time ago that what’s more important is what you’re focusing on with yourself. Because if you get that part right, you don’t have to play or pitch a perfect game with what you say or what you do. You are allowed a bigger margin for error, and that makes this process so much easier.