Should I Text My Ex After A Breakup?

When you find yourself in the middle of emotional turmoil wondering what your next step should be after a breakup, you might find the little voice in your head asking…

“Should I text my ex?”

In this post, I’m going to answer this question and reveal some important texting tips that will give you confidence as you take steps to get your ex back.

What The “Experts” Want You To Believe (And Why You Shouldn’t Listen To Them)

Do a quick search online and you’ll probably find countless advice columns discussing the horrible experiences people have with texting in relationships. Things like…

• “I looked at my boyfriend’s phone and was horrified when I saw he had been in regular contact with 3 other women over text messages.”

• “I had a gut feeling my girlfriend was cheating on me, but I wasn’t sure. I found her phone and the flirty texts I found from another guy made my heart sink.”

• “I wish I could just throw my phone away. My girlfriend is constantly asking me where I’ve been, who I’m with, and what I’ve been doing. I feel like I’m dating my mother.”

• “My boyfriend is constantly texting other girls. When I ask him about it, he always says, ‘Oh, she’s just a friend.’ I’m trying to be cool about it, but it’s driving me crazy.”

• “I hate texting! All we ever do is fight and argue in the text messages we send.”

It’s these types of experiences that cause many relationship experts to advise against texting your ex after a breakup. They feel there’s just too much risk and too little reward.

But that’s not why you’re here. That’s not what this site is about. So take any bad experiences you’ve had over texts and push them aside.

Texting is an addiction, and it’s here to stay.

Relationship coach Michael Fiore says…

“But the fact is that these days TEXTING is the most direct and personal method we have for intimately communicating with each other. Your average teenager sends 300 or more texts PER DAY (and has giant, swollen thumbs that can crush an average man’s skull). Even adults say that their actual “talking time” on the phone has radically declined since unlimited texting became standard on mobile plans.”

Those of us who understand just how ingrained texting is in our lives and how powerful, personal, and intimate it can be choose to use text messages to improve human connection in our relationships…and, yes, that includes helping you get your ex back after a breakup.

So should you text your ex after a breakup? Absolutely…but with a few important guidelines.

A Few Guidelines For Texting Your Ex After A Breakup

If you want to text your ex back into your life after a breakup, it’s important to understand the pitfalls and perils of texting so you can avoid them. It’s clear from the experiences above that bad things CAN and DO happen when sending text messages.

And it’s true that sending the wrong texts at the wrong time to your ex can really mess things up and make things worse. Raise your hand if you know what I mean. Guilty? Me too.

But I’ve learned from studying the work of Seattle based author and relationship coach, Michael Fiore, that text messages have a lot more positives than negatives if you know what you’re doing. (Oh, and Michael’s the guy to follow if you want to get really good at this stuff. Seriously, the guy’s got magic thumbs.)

Here are 7 golden rules to keep in mind as you text your ex.

The Best Time To Text

On the surface, it may seem like the best time to text your ex is shortly after the breakup. Ya know, before your ex boyfriend or ex girlfriend turns into a crazy honey badger and rips up everything that reminds them of you or before they start dating someone else.

But nothing could be further from the truth…

Conventional dating wisdom often recommends a period of no contact. This same rule applies to texting.

Immediately following a breakup, emotions are…well…CRAZY to say the least. Your ex will be confused about how they feel. You won’t be 100% sure about what you want. And the whole situation is just a big discombobulated mess.

Texting your ex at this time will get you nowhere fast.

To give yourself the best chance of getting your ex back after a breakup, wait a solid 3-4 weeks before you make the initial contact. It will seem like FOREVER, but it’s completely worth it to be with the one you love.

Assess Your Ex’s Emotions

When I’m talking about assessing your ex’s emotions what I’m really talking about is looking for the presence of apathy.

Dictionary.com defines apathy as the…

“Absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.”

What we’re talking about here is a general “lack of emotion” from your ex.

An apathetic ex is generally the most difficult to win back. No emotion is even worse than negative emotion.

If your ex shows negative emotion toward you, there are certain texting techniques you can use to change negative feelings into positive ones and turn things in your favor. Author of Text Your Ex Back, Michael Fiore, even coined a phrase for these techniques which he refers to as “text judo”. You can read my Text Your Ex Back review if you want to know more about Michael’s groundbreaking texting methods.

If your ex shows no emotion toward you, good or bad, then you may have a very difficult road ahead of you. When this is the case sometimes it’s best to move on.

But this is a rare case, the exception rather than the rule. It’s rare for an ex to just go stone cold on you and have no feelings anymore, especially if you’ve been together for a while. They may not openly express these feelings around you, but trust your gut on this one.

Don’t Focus On Getting A Response

I see so many people making this mistake and it sucks. Not only can this mistake really push your ex away, but it can also drag you further into the depths of depression and make it that much harder for you to have the confidence it will require to attract your ex back into your life.

What I’m talking about is sending texts with the whole focus of getting a response…and then being devastated when you get no reply.

When you text your ex, you should have a clear plan of action in mind. Every text should have a purpose. Don’t just send random texts hoping your ex will write back. You’ll end up coming across as needy or desperate.

You don’t always need a response for your texts to have an affect. That’s one of the great things about using text messages instead of other forms of communication. In fact, not getting a response (especially to your first few texts) is something that happens all the time. It’s no big deal.

Your texts should never be formatted in a way that makes your ex feel pressured or like they HAVE TO respond.

If you haven’t already tried them, Michael Fiore’s Across The Bow texts are great conversation starters and they follow this guideline exactly. Michael says…

“While your ex COULD use this text as a door to start a conversation if they want to, it doesn’t DEMAND a response or feel pushy in any way. In other words, it gives your ex an “out.” Your ex has a chance to engage in conversation if they want to, but doesn’t force them into a confrontation or to make any kind of specific decision about whether they want you in their life or not.”

The 2 Text Rule

Ok, so this kind of goes along with the rule above, but I think it’s important enough to separate it out on its own. If you focus solely on trying to get a response from your ex, then you’ll probably get really frustrated, stressed out, depressed, and worried when you don’t get a response.

When you start to experience these emotions, you’ll panic. You’ll start asking yourself, “Should I text my ex again?” And there’s a good chance you’ll send something to your ex like…

“Hey! I’ve sent you like 3 texts. Did you get them? Why aren’t you writing me back. Please just talk to me.”

Texts like the one above are a great way to come across as super needy and super desperate. And they make a really good ex repellant in case you never want your ex to talk to you again.

My advice is to follow a “2 Text Rule”. What this basically means is you should never send more than 2 texts in a row without getting a response. If you send 2 texts and still get no reply, then wait a couple weeks before trying again. That should keep you pretty safe, ok?

Be First To End The Conversation

Every time you text your ex, you want to be the first to end the conversation. This keeps you in control of the situation.

Never get into big, long conversations with your ex over text, even if things seem to be going really good. In fact, right when things seem to be extremely positive is a great time to end the conversation. An easy way to do this is to just send a text like, “Hey! Been great talking to you, but I gotta run. Talk soon.”

By pulling away just when your ex is wanting and craving more, you keep your ex thinking about you and the positive vibes they were feeling. The attraction continues to build.

This works great both for breakups and for flirting over text which is another topic we’ll discuss later on.

You need to take baby steps and pull your ex back little by little. If you carry on a conversation too long, you risk it turning from something fun and positive to something boring and/or negative. Talk about total buzz kill.

Focus Solely On Positive Experiences

When going through the Text Your Ex Back ebook, something Michael Fiore says really struck me. On page 28 Mike says…

“NO MATTER WHAT, you MUST refuse to go negative with your ex over text. If he or she starts a fight over text, REFUSE to continue the conversation in that medium, even if it makes your blood totally BOIL. Call instead. Meet in person if it makes sense, but keep texting as “virgin territory.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Don’t use texting for practical, every day stuff and definitely don’t get into any arguments with your ex over text messages. If you want texts to be as powerful as possible, then you need to use them only for creating POSITIVE experiences. Everything else completely kills the vibe.

Be Ready If You Do Get A Reply

Ok, so we’ve already talked about how you shouldn’t EXPECT or DEMAND a reply from your ex. However, if you use text messages properly and learn a few tricks of the trade, there’s a good chance your ex WILL respond, and when they do you need to be ready for it.

You’ll need to know how to respond to 4 different scenarios. These are:

• No response
• A neutral response
• A negative response
• A positive response

Be prepared BEFORE you start texting. Nothing is worse than getting a reply from your ex and then not knowing what to do next.

See you in the next post,
Wiley