If I Leave My Ex Alone, Will They Miss Me?

Craig  (00:00):

Today we're going to be talking about if I leave my ex alone, will they miss me? So Margaret, this is a topic that comes up for me, probably on a daily basis or almost a daily basis. Several times a week, at least. But I understand why it's such a big topic. And so we're going to talk about this today because it's so terrifying, so terrifying to go through a breakup and just feel like your ex isn't going to miss you. And we're going to talk about why and what your ex is going through. And some of the things they might be thinking of feeling as well, as long as, and yourself, because I found it to be so helpful to understand what's going on within ourself during a breakup. Absolutely. Right. Uso, you know, people say to me all the time, do you think they're gonna think about me? Do you think they're going to miss me? And you know, obviously we're dealing with, you know, emotions and we're dealing with a connection we're dealing with love, we're dealing with attachment, you know, and I don't think there's anything more powerful than attachment. And it's hard wired into us. That's the way we are men as human beings is to form a bond, even with our mother pre-birth but it really gets to get to that what three month mark where we really start to bond and have a powerful attachment with them. And that isn't something that you have to talk about or think about it's just, just happens. It's natural. It's normal. Right. So,uI understand that. It's so scary to think about your ex, not thinking about you and letting them go and not reaching out to them that we constantly feel like we have to do something to repair that connection.

Margaret (02:50):

Okay. And not only that, we get hormones that tell us stuff that's right. Mother nature always wants us to propagate. And when A relationship ends, mother nature says, Oh, no kids from these two and sends you more hormones to go get them back.

Craig  (03:08):

So, you know, obviously one of the things that is incredibly challenging is the obsessive thoughts, right? We're dealing with the obsessive thoughts, almost nonstop, and it feels like this almost like you're trapped in this endless cycle of obsessive thoughts, and it's just, you just can't turn them off. And there's a biological reason behind that. And that is if you're a child, like look at, if you're a child and you're disconnected from your parents, you wander off too far, your brain has you go back to them cause you've, you could die. You could literally die. Right? So that's, what's going on there. It's a very similar thing that you experienced as a child wander too far away from your parents. You're gonna die. And so that's why you're going through those obsessive thoughts. But, and I'm going to talk about how this affects your ex as well in a minute. But I want you to understand, because, you know, I remember when I first started researching breakups years ago, I stumbled across a video that talked about death and how we feel like we're dying. And that's why we have these obsessive thoughts. And then it started to really hit me, like, no wonder why this is so painful. I feel like I'm dying because your brain is telling you don't disconnect from that person because you could die.

Margaret (04:35):

And let's go back to our old friend that saber tooth tiger. Okay. And remember that in our evolutionary old days if we got separated from mom, we did probably become somebody's lunch, you know? So it's not crazy. It's it's in a way adaptive.

Craig  (04:53):

Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's, it's very intertwined with our survival. And so that's why so many of you guys are driving past your ex's house. You are calling their job, you're driving past their job. You're calling their, their friends, their family, you're stalking their social media. You need to be honest with yourself on that. You're doing it because so many guys are not going to admit it, but yeah, you really are doing or have done it. And it's because you're desperately feeling like if you don't do it, you're going to die without them.

Margaret (05:28):

But there's a cognitive piece to it too. This is somebody you've been with, you know, for some period of time, enough to classify it as a breakup and obviously that person has said loving things to you and you have said loving things to them. And then all of a sudden they walk away from you and it makes no logical sense. Right? Emotions don't always make logical sense, but there is some logical sense here. How could the person, you know, two months ago told me I was the best thing in the entire universe walk away from me even two days ago. Even two days ago. Yeah.

Craig  (06:05):

Yeah. And I have an email coaching that we'll get to in another video, if we have some time today about something that happened to somebody just like that. But you know, Margaret we're in this obsessive thinking of, are they going to come back? Are they going to miss me? Are they going to think about me, Margaret? What do you think?

Margaret (06:25):

Well, I think they are going to miss you. And they are going to think about you. You can't be with someone on an intimate level and not have some level of attachment. Yes. Okay. So yes, they are going to think about you. Yes. In the beginning, they're going to feel relieved because they've finally done the breakup, but they're going to miss you. They're going to think about you. And they're going to wonder if they made the right decision. That's true.

Craig  (06:48):

Right. But it takes time. Okay. We know that you're experiencing so much physical pain that it's unbearable. I I've been there. Yeah. That's what propelled me to want to learn this stuff. So well is what I went through with my own breakups in the past. And you know, that's why I can relate with you guys because I know how horrible it is and Margaret was there for me during that time. And you know, it's so scary to think, is this person thinking about me? If I leave them alone, if I stop reaching out, if I go, no contact, is that it? Are we done? Are they just going to be out of sight, out of mind?

Margaret (07:25):

Right back in the old days, we had loved letters to save, but now it all takes, takes place electronically. And you can't even, they used to joke about people having an old trunk full of love letters. You know, we don't even have those anymore. So you can't hold on to them.

Craig  (07:40):

Yeah. Unless you have like text messages now, or,

Margaret (07:43):

And the other thing you might have is pictures. And I really think that when you're dealing with any loss, it's useful to look at a picture of that person. Now it might sound like it's going to pour salt in the wound, but I guarantee no, you know, you look at the person's picture and you say, I'm sad. I'm sad about all of this. And that's a very healthy way to go. Yeah. You know?

Craig  (08:05):

Yeah. It's, it's, it is because you have to kind of own it. And you know, that brings up for me. I'm thinking, calling up the object that so many of the people that we're dealing with have had attachment issues and they can't picture somebody, you know, that, you know what I mean?

Margaret (08:25):

And just let me repeat that theory in a couple of sentences, talking about if things work correctly and we are mother is available and we attach and all those wonderful things happen. Eventually we begin to develop a picture of mom that we can hold in our memory, in our head, when mom is not there.

Craig  (08:46):

Up their voice, calling up them talking to us.

Margaret (08:50):

And so forth. And if you can call it, the object, life is so much easier. You can call it up to soothe yourself, or you can call it up if you have to grieve. Yeah. Okay. And I remember essentially being taught by a client when I suggested that he needed to grieve some of the people in his family, he said, I'll have to bring in the family album only then did it dawn on me, that it was easier for him to do it when he could see the pictures, cause he couldn't really call up the object. You know? So it was a wonderful thing. I, I did family albums ever after. No, I thank him if he's out there somewhere.

Craig  (09:27):

Yeah. So what happens is, you know, that inability or that struggle to call somebody up makes us feel like they're going to forget us because in a way we're forgetting them, we're forgetting the sound of their voice. We're forgetting how they talked to us what they were saying to us, what they told us. And so we are afraid that they're doing the same thing that we're struggling with. Absolutely. Right. It's almost like projected.

Margaret (09:51):

Yeah. And is it easier to put somebody out of your mind? Yeah. You can try good luck because those obsessive thoughts will come right back. You miss me. I know you do. I know you miss me. What are the other things I hear often is, does this mean they never loved me? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't at all. And I think that most people break up for whatever reasons they break up. But that at one time when you were together, they said they loved you and they meant it. Oh, absolutely. Okay. People often think there are reasons they have to break up. Sometimes they don't even want to.

Craig  (10:27):

Yup. But you know what happens next is that, you know, your ex has made a decision to end the relationship to move forward. And at that point they really are fairly confident with their decision. They're not always a hundred percent and every situation is very different. Let me put it out there. There are situations that are so different throughout my day that, you know, we're trying to talk in general terms to get you to understand that, yes, in most of the cases they are going to think about you and miss you right off the bat. But there will be situations that your ex is so frustrated or maybe fed up with you or the situation that they're at that point. They're like, I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to think about it, but they can't turn it off forever.

Margaret (11:13):

No, they can't. They can delay it, but they can't turn it off forever. And how many times do we hear tha they sign up on six dating sites, you know, two days later to distract.

Craig  (11:24):

That's exactly it. And you know, what we start doing at that point is we're looking at our behavior and we're starting to beat ourselves up of, Oh my gosh, I couldn't leave them alone. I was, I was pushing, I was shoving them to, to give, to talk to me, to work and out. And we start to feel really bad about that because we realized that we've been demanding and then our ex just gets cold ice cold. Yes. And so when they're at this point, they're not going to act like they're ever going to miss you. They're not going to budge because they don't want you to continue harassing them. So they got to put that wall up. Right. So that's why I'm trying to get you to see is that the process of leading up to this point is they're not going to act like they're missing you or thinking about you because if they do, you're just gonna pursue them like a like an awful salesman. Like you're just interacting like a persistent salesman that won't let the person think about things. Right? So at this point, you, you know, you gotta go no contact, you know, and some of you get there sooner than others. I get that. And you know, when you go no contact, it's actually a really powerful thing to do. Yes, it is. Because your ex, at that point, it's just like, Ugh, they're constantly badgering me reaching out. And so there's no fear there, there, there's no sense of like, am I making a mistake? Am I going to miss this person? Cause they're not missing you at that point. No, at the moment. They're really, and they're like, finally,

Margaret (13:12):

They're leaving me alone. Right. Finally, I have space. We all need space. That's what we hear a great deal. I need space. That's right. Finally, I have my space while you think all you want and your space. Yeah.

Craig  (13:21):

Yeah. But as you, once you stop forward momentum, that is a complete change of dynamics. You're no longer trying to be a used Carlson car salesman. You're no longer trying to force them into something they're not wanting to do. Now. They actually have to sit with a decision of, Hmm, am I really going to want to live without this person? Right. At first they think you're still going to reach out maybe in a couple of days or a week. But as time goes on, they don't stop thinking about you the way they think about you. And the situation changes. They go from feeling angry and frustrated and walls up and defensive to, Hmm. Maybe I am making a mistake. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe the things that were bothering me, then weren't so bad, but it takes time to get there.

Margaret (14:25):

And that's the thing I had somebody say to me today, it's been four weeks. I mean, we're talking, you know, several months.

Craig  (14:35):

Exactly. That's typical, depending upon the situation, why they wanted to end things. But you know, once you have stopped the forward momentum, that creates space. And the more time that goes, the more space that is created, the more they are going to wonder or start to believe. Well, I actually am never going to hear from this person again. And in that space, that's when they start to feel like they've been dumped in a sense right now, sometimes you'll have people that will do breadcrumbs. And every once in a while, they'll reach out and you know, we don't want you to chase them. No, we don't want you to be eager with these people. But you know, like I said, this is so general, oftentimes we're in situations where we don't hear from our ex for months at a time, and we don't want you to ignore them. If your ex is breadcrumbing you and reaching out to you occasionally saying, you know, I mean, sometimes you'll have an avoidant that's reaching out. You know, every couple of days at that point, you don't want to, you know, act like you're available or too interested in them. You know, we want you to be a challenge. Right, right. We don't want anybody to think that you're easily available, but we don't want you to ignore them either. Right. So if you are in a breadcrumbing situation, you're going to do it differently obviously than a situation where you haven't heard from your ex.

Margaret (16:12):

Or the three o'clock in the morning or the drunk call. Don't put up with that.

Craig  (16:17):

Exactly. But I don't want people to get confused because there's a big difference with a breakup. When somebody hasn't reached out to you in four months and ignoring them versus you, haven't heard from your ex in two days and they're reaching out every three days and they're bread crumbing. You, that's a very different kind of breakup. Okay. But more often than that, not the breakup is you haven't heard from your ex for three, four months.

Margaret (16:47):

And the normal response, the normal human response to loss is grief. Okay. And you can put grief off, but you cannot make it go away. And we find out that people don't last a year without getting into that grief stage. Okay. So grief is going to come upon them and they go into, remember you and they're going to be sad. They can delay it for a while. And then eventually it's going to catch up with

Craig  (17:16):

That's a good point. Yeah. it does catch up with them. And if they try going from relationship to relationship, it's just going to be unhealthy. And the losses are just going to amount and they're just going to continue the cycle of unhealthy relationships

Margaret (17:33):

And trying not to grieve.

Craig  (17:34):

Yeah. which is why we are always pushing and advocating for mental health and growing and working through your issues. It's so critical to turning it around once your ex does reach out again. But you know, there are so many different types of situations. That's why I say in the video, every relationship is different. Every breakup is different because throughout all day long, there are very different scenarios that play out on why people break up how they broke up, what happened, why it happened, right? Attachment styles, mental health issues, all of those things,

Margaret (18:16):

The whole package, we're all a whole package, but I've, I've often heard. I've watched him put things out of his head. He can put things out of his head and never think about them again. No, he can't. He lives on the planet with our shared humanity. You know, eventually it's going to catch up with him. He does have feelings or you wouldn't have been with him. Yes.

Craig  (18:33):

So in time your ex does miss you. And they think about those good things. They think about those good times you've had together. They think about the pros of the relationship. They think about the cons to the relationship. And your goal is to work on those things that when they come back, you're not doing those mistakes or you're trying to minimize those mistakes. So they are more willing to try and give it another go. Right? That's the things that they were so frustrated with. Won't be there as intense as they were before. If you can try to minimize those problems, right. Then things will be easier for them. They'll be happier. And, but it takes real work to get to that place. Right. But, you know, leaving them alone is absolutely critical to getting them to miss you.

Margaret (19:32):

Otherwise, it's like a fix for an addict. Okay. If they can call you, get a quick response or if you call them, then they start grieving. You don't want to interrupt the process.

Craig  (19:43):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You want them to miss you, you want them to think about you. They, you want them to remember all those good times and people will talk about the fading effect bias. Have you heard about that?

Margaret (19:56):

No. What is the fading effects? I might have it, is it like COVID,

Craig  (20:01):

It might be you know, I haven't found a lot of good research on it. That's why we haven't talked about it too much in videos where supposedly in time, you start to forget about the bad things and remember the good, but the research I've seen isn't, you know, that significant yeah.

Margaret (20:21):

That happens in domestic violence cases. Oftentimes I'd have to research that. Which I will do if it's, if it's a topic of interest. Yeah.

Craig  (20:30):

Yeah. But somebody had commented on the video today about the fading affect bias. So I thought I'd bring it up real quick.

Margaret (20:37):

You remember the good times instead of the bad ones? Yeah. That probably is somewhat true. Yeah.

Craig  (20:42):

There's, I'm sure there's some truth to it, but the research is more about from what I was about specific amount of days and stuff like that. But what I had seen when I had researched it years ago, I wasn't thoroughly impressed. So maybe that's something you could look into in your research and your studies. But I, I want everybody to know. It's so important that even though your ex is just steadfast in their decision of, I'm never going to give you another chance. I'm never going to work it out with you. That changes over time. Okay.

Margaret (21:21):

Yeah. They will tell me the last hurtful thing that the ex says yes. At which, in which case I immediately quote you and say, Craig reminds us all that feelings change

Craig  (21:33):

Feelings change. But it takes time for those feelings to change and you've gotta be willing and you gotta be strong to leave them alone to allow that for them to actually miss you think about it. If you miss somebody time has had to occur and space has had to occur. You don't miss somebody when they're in front of you. Right. I don't miss Margaret when she's here right next to me.

Margaret (22:02):

But you miss me all week when I'm not exactly.

Craig  (22:05):

If we're not seeing each other or filming videos or whatnot. Right. Or my friends that I don't get to see you, you miss them when you have space and time away. And so yes, they will miss you. Even though they looked upset and angry and hurt and they had their wall up and they looked like they were never going to change their mind. That can change over time. Right. And we, we know that you guys need to hear this all the time because it's so scary what you're going through. And that's why we're always bringing it up and sharing different experiences that we've had. Uwhen we get email success stories, which we get all the time and,uwe can't share them all quite honestly. But if you give your time to your ex, if you give them space, they will miss you. They will think about you. They can't shut off that part of their brain

Margaret (23:02):

For any length of time. They can, they can do it briefly, but it, yeah, it will eventually come back and say, hi, I'm still here. Like all unresolved issues do. Yeah. Okay.

Craig  (23:12):

And when people tell you, they love you, you know, I think on some level they love you forever.

Margaret (23:18):

Oh yeah. I think so too. Yeah. I think that's true. And remember, what's going to happen to the minute you are ready to move on. Yeah,

Craig  (23:27):

Exactly. Right. Yeah. We see that all the time. In fact, I had a comment today. I think it was on my Instagram from somebody who said, the minute I was ready to move on, they came back. They sensed the disturbance in the force.

Margaret (23:38):

Right. And don't forget that we think they're not in touch. They've gone. They've absolutely blocked us out. And then as soon as we're ready to move on, they reach out. Yeah. Which says that the process has gone on for those several months. And remember we live in a world of instant and we've lost our sense of process. Oftentimes we fall in love too fast. And Craig and I are always saying, slow down, don't move too fast. And, you know, we fall into love too fast. And sometimes we fall out of love real slowly, you know, slow is better on both ends.

Craig  (24:13):

Yeah. So yes, if you leave your ex alone and give them time, they will miss you. They will start to remember the good times, the experiences you shared, those moments you had, the connection you had, and you just have to let them do that on their terms, which is so difficult. We know, but they're not going to forget you in that time. They're just not right. Right. Okay. Hopefully you found this helpful.

My Ex Couldn't Take No Contact Any Longer

Craig (00:00):

Today we're going to be talking about my ex couldn't take no contact any longer. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, it sure is. You know, you guys are thinking the same thing, right? I can't take no contact any longer, right? When you're going no contact and you're leaving your ex alone. It's one of the hardest things that you have to do. And I had a nice discussion with somebody about that recently, who has a success story, and she's going to be writing me an email about what it was like for her to do no contact. But when you're not reaching out to your ex anymore, it's awful because now you feel just terrified that they're never going to reach out again.

Margaret (01:24):

And that they'll forget about you. Yes.

Craig (01:26):

Right? Which they do not. No, they don't, but we know why you feel like that. We understand why you feel like that. I felt like that, that you just think that the person's going to move on and it's so difficult to refrain from wanting to reach out, wanting to repair things, contacting them through any way possible. Even through friends and family, it's awful.

Margaret (01:53):

Both of which have to be not done. Don't do that. It'll get you in trouble.

Craig (01:59):

But we understand that when you're in no contact, it feels like an eternity. Every single day feels like an eternity. Every second of the day, you want to check your phone. I've been there. That's why I understand it so well. Cause I have been in that situation and I hated it. It's just the worst. And you watch your phone all day. That's all you do. Every time you look at it, you're just like, Ugh. Or every time it goes off, you're hoping that it's them. Right. That's so hard. But believe it or not, your ex isn't always certain about their decision. Even at the time that they make it. Now, a lot of the times they are certain in that moment in time, but that can change, right? Yes. Feelings can change. And you got to understand that it's hard to know sometimes what your ex is going through thinking or feeling for their situation with you. Cause it can vary based upon what happened in your relationship obviously. But you know, it would be easier for them if you were continuing to reach out when you go no contact and you no longer reach out to them, it makes it harder for them.

Margaret (03:19):

Yes it does. Yeah.

Craig (03:21):

Because they would like to know that you still want to be with them because then that option is there for them. And they don't feel so anxious about their decision. But when you choose to stop reaching out, that puts the pressure on them where they're wondering if you're going to reach out. But then they think, well, are they moving on?,

Margaret (03:45):

And they wonder if you're moving on. So you're kind of giving them back a dose of their own medicine.

Craig (03:50):

Exactly. But oftentimes no contact or when you're not reaching out to them is very difficult for them too. And sometimes they'll put posts up that you know, are about you, but you don't reach out. Sometimes they'll put posts that are implying about you. Right. And they're hoping that you're going to reach out to them because in that moment, maybe they're feeling some vulnerability or some confusion, but you know, you want them to reach out to make the first move.

Margaret (04:26):

Right. Right. The breakup, wasn't your idea of the ball's in their court.

Craig (04:29):

Exactly. So I've got a good email success story today and we haven't done a success story in awhile. No, but they remembered that we like to get success stories and share them with you guys,

Margaret (04:41):

Please, everyone. Remember we love to hear success stories. Absolutely.

Craig (04:45):

So when you have your success story, regardless of what it is with your ex, make sure you email me on the website. Okay. And you know, this is a really good one that I thought people would like to hear. So they said, well, coach Craig, I've been wanting to type this awhile now. Life's been busy. Then I remembered how you said you like to receive the success stories as well. On some of your videos. I spent almost five months going day in and day out in a scary haze after a breakup of over seven years, I was utterly lost in it. In every way I came across your videos. And most, every piece of advice I received from your chat or from your wisdom and knowledge on your channel, helped me get my ex back using no contact. Wow. By far the hardest thing I've ever had to do, considering the woman I lost, I always felt she was my soulmate. Somehow I still do after all this. Not one single text call email, nothing never once. Luckily I found you soon enough. I was determined. But after five months of no contact, she had found it to be almost impossible not to come to me wondering why things went no contact and realized what she had lost when we separated. That is big.

Margaret (06:31):

So she was expecting continued contact. Isn't that interesting?

Craig (06:35):

This is what we try and get you guys to see here. Right? She found it almost impossible not to go to him. And she was wondering why things had gone no contact. In other words, why he stopped reaching out,

Margaret (06:49):

You broke up with me

Craig (06:51):

And realized what she had lost and that's what we want your ex to go through. And that's why we stress the importance of working on yourself in that time. Right. That is the most critical thing because you don't know when they're going to reach out, they could reach out after a month, they could reach out after five months in this case, it could be a year later. Now we don't want you to put your life on hold, but we want you to grow in that time. So when they do reach out, you blow them away. Yeah. And I had a guy this week who was so depressed, just absolutely depressed. I think it was our third call together. And I got on him. I'm like, you've got to stay motivated because you don't know what's going to happen. After the first call, he, I think he's got a little bit more motivated than he kind of dropped. And then our most recent call. He's like, no, after our last call I've been working harder. Okay. So I quizzed him on some certain areas that I had told them to work on and he did better. And I'm like, keep going. You got to get yourself in the right position.

Margaret (08:00):

Because if she comes back and you're just the same, you were as you were when she left. Yeah.

Craig (08:04):

Yeah. But he's working really hard. Good for him. So I'm really proud of him. All right. Let me go on, to put then feelings into words is unexplainable. You're exceptional at what you do. And I can't express enough on how learning my attachment and reworking myself from inside out has changed my view on myself in a relationship. I couldn't afford coaching, but after much hard work done to myself after listening to so many videos and building myself up to that next level. And fortunately my ex had surprisingly done work on herself.

Margaret (08:52):

Wow. How wonderful.

Craig (08:54):

That is great. Through therapy, we were able to come to our senses and move forward with progress in learning and accepting each other for everything we are and are not. Sometimes I think back on the nights of laying there all night, trying to make sense of your videos and how it would work for me. Then it did, bam, late night call. She couldn't take it any longer

Margaret (09:28):

Great. He outlasted her

Craig (09:31):

And we worked it out from there. I am grateful to have found you. Thank you, coach Craig. You really have helped me change my life and relationship for the all around better. If it wasn't for these videos, I don't know how I would've made it through some of those long nights. That's the truth. You're the best at what you do. Stay positive. Add another success story to your list, coach. Thank you so much for sharing that. It's so encouraging to see you guys having success stories, hearing your guys' success stories and being able to share them.

Margaret (10:11):

So he did it himself just by watching the video. Wow. Yeah. That's great. Good for you.

Craig (10:17):

And there's well over 800 videos at this point and plenty more in the works.

Margaret (10:24):

I've heard that recently that somebody had counted them. Yeah.

Craig (10:28):

Well I know we've had certain people that we've worked with that have literally shown me that they've done all the videos. They literally showed me. Cause if you pull up your YouTube it shows the red bar on the bottom when you watched the video. Actually, I will let you know that my next project I have two people in mind that have worked with me quite a bit over the years. This one is one of them. Cause I know she's done the work. She is going to be previewing the project first to get an approval, to give me an approval and the new coach and approval and you to see it, to give us feedback,

Margaret (11:10):

That'd be wonderful. It is what I've seen of. It is absolutely wonderful. We will put the finishing touches on it.

Craig (11:16):

Yup. And by the time you guys see this video, it will probably be fairly close to being done. It's so exciting. But I have several people that are some of my best students that are going to look at it and preview it first because I want to make sure that you guys absolutely love what we have here. And I I'm fairly convinced that you will. But I just want to hear it from people that I know who have done absolutely tremendous amounts of work. So this is a great success story. And even though your situation feels hopeless, it doesn't mean that is one of the things that's the hardest to understand about being in no contact is that there can and will be a day for many of you where your ex does reach out again, despite going months of feeling hopeless and thinking they're never going to reach out, they often do. I mean, this example was five moths.

Margaret (12:16):

And this guy's partner was very honest with us, for which we thank her on saying she didn't really expect the no contact. She broke up, but she didn't expect the no contact. Yeah,

Craig (12:26):

Yeah, yeah. And you know, you guys have just got to stay working on yourself in this time. We know it's not easy when you're anxious and you're depressed. But the worst thing that can happen is that one day they pick up the phone, they want to see you, you get in front of them and you haven't changed and they see right through it

Margaret (12:47):

They'll see right through it. Right. Exactly. Particularly if they've changed.

Craig (12:54):

So you know, stay motivated. You never know what's going to happen either way. You're going to be a success story either. They're going to reach out and you'll have another chance with it or you're going to go on to meet and date amazing people with all this stuff that, you know, and you'll blow them away. Right, right. Right. Well, we'll see, you know, each person is meant to have their own destiny or future and whatever yours may be, you know, just make sure that it's great. Right, right. By doing the work.

Margaret (13:23):

And there's almost nothing that can't be changed if you're willing to work at it.

Craig (13:29):

Absolutely. And you can so great success story. Thank you for sharing it. And when you get yours, be sure to email me.

How Do I Show an Ex I've Changed? How To Change After a Breakup!

Craig (00:00):

Today we're going to be talking about how do I change and how do I show an ex that I've changed? You know, we're always talking about change and personal growth on the channel and it's not easy to do, is it? And Margaret, you and I were talking about this recently, that one of the things that comes along with that is actually fear.

Margaret (01:01):

Absolutely even good change is scary. Any change scares us human beings. We are frail little things, actually we are. Yeah, but even good change is scary.

Craig (01:13):

But you know, when you're trying to repair a relationship or repair your relationships with other people and learn to have healthier relationships, you have to make changes in order to do it, but it's not easy to do. So, Coach Victoria is going to be sharing some research that she did on this today.

Victoria (01:32):

Great. Sure. I have five steps that will help you in conducting change in your life. So the first step is a step if that we talk about a lot on the channel, and this one is awareness. It's recognizing harmful patterns in your relationships. If you're attracting the same kind of toxic people in your life, or if you're the one who's doing toxic behaviors in your relationship, it takes noticing these. And it's also to take it a step further. It's also knowing the ways in which your childhood has affected your present day behaviors.

Craig (02:05):

That's a big, that's such a big point because, you know, in order to fix a problem, you need to know what it is.

Margaret (02:12):

You can't fix a problem you're unaware of.

Craig (02:14):

So that's, that's so critical. And that's why oftentimes when you guys come to the channel and you're hearing us talk about these things, they're like, Oh my gosh, I've been doing this thing for this entire relationship or my entire life.

Margaret (02:26):

And it's never easy because you're admitting that you'll have a flaw, but you feel so much better when you do, you know, when it doesn't become the end of the world. It's okay. We all have our problems. We all have our blind spots.

Craig (02:39):

Except for Margaret.

Margaret (02:39):

Well, except for me, I just sit around describing them to others.

Victoria (02:46):

All right. So the next one is adopting new beliefs and reinforcing them every chance you get, and this is not easy to do. No, not at all. This is the next step after awareness and awareness is only as helpful as much as it emboldens you to take a risk and to try something new. And I think Craig, that you've touched on this before and talking about how anxiety can seem like the resting state, if that's what we're familiar with after so long. Now the one with this point is that taking a risk in trying something healthy that can seem as something outside of the ordinary and can seem different and uncomfortable.

Craig (03:24):

That's the first thing that came to mind, right? Cause you're like, I don't, this is awkward. I don't, I'm not used to this. So trying that can be like, you know, if you're like a baseball player and you're trying something new with your swing, it feels uncomfortable at first. You don't, it doesn't feel like the same, but if you want to improve, you have to do those things.

Victoria (03:43):

Right. And also with this one, if you work every day, doing something towards your goal, that's going to help you in the long run. Yep. And new beliefs can sound like I don't need to beg for love or I'm at worthy of love.

Margaret (03:56):

That's a big one. I'm worthy of love.

Victoria (04:00):

Or I can become more comfortable with receiving love as well. Yep. You can reinforce these ideas with affirmations, with positive self-talk with doing something that makes you feel good every day. Just having a routine of self care will really help you.

Margaret (04:17):

I wanted to make one comment. It's hard to imagine that people sometimes don't know what to do when someone loves them. But if you grew up in a family that didn't know how to tell you, or didn't know how to show you that your loved, it can be an absolutely foreign experience. And you don't know if it's safe to take it. Yeah. It feels uncomfortable. Right.

Victoria (04:38):

Okay. That leads perfectly into my next point of, accept that discomfort will be part of the process. So we did touch on this a little bit just now. But it can be uncomfortable to move away from the patterns that were literally developed by your brain and body to protect you at one point. Yeah.

Craig (04:57):

And that felt natural because you just kind of did it as it happened. And now you're trying to undo that. So that's really, it just awkward. Right.

Victoria (05:06):

And an example of this can be hyper-vigilance. If you were feeling super sensitive to your partner, abandoning you and you're, you're keeping your eyes open for any sort of threat that may lead to your abandonment self-soothing is going to take a while before your body becomes used to that and becomes receptive to that.

Craig (05:27):

Yeah. Your natural state might be to constantly obsess about what your partner is doing and if they're abandoning you and getting used to that, okay, they need space. I need to allow for that. That's uncomfortable.

Victoria (05:43):

Right? So knowing and accepting this discomfort as part of the process is also going to help you be aware of your changing process because change is never easy and it's never comfortable. No, it's not.

Craig (05:58):

And oftentimes you're going to slip back into old routines. So you're going to find that you're making mistakes and you've got to be aware of all. I did it again. I'll be, I'll catch it next time.

Victoria (06:10):

The next one I have is surrounding yourself in an environment conductive to your change. So this emphasizes the importance of community in your transformation process of surrounding yourself with role models and mentors that can show you this can be done and you can do it too. And it's possible.

Craig (06:29):

Absolutely. It's possible

Margaret (06:31):

Role models and mentors are very important. This person looks like they have it together. Let me figure out how they do it.

Victoria (06:38):

And also having supportive family and friends being around you. An example of this could be with addiction if you're addicted to a substance and you're around others who are addicted to that substance substance, it's going to be harder for you to change and change for the longterm.

Craig (06:53):

Yeah. Cause you're gonna be tempted and they're going to tempt you. Oh yes. Because they don't want to be alone in their addiction. They want you with them. Right, right. Misery loves company.

Margaret (07:05):

Misery really loves company. And besides you might leave, if you get healthy. Yep.

Victoria (07:10):

And it's going to be more difficult for you to change and break those old patterns if you're around those people that perpetuate those old patterns and bring that out of you.

Craig (07:18):

Yeah. Absolutely. Good, good, very good points.

Victoria (07:22):

Another to go further with this point also in what you surround yourself, as far as media, as far as what you're doing on your phone, as far as your hobbies, these are also inputs into your environment as well. So also be aware of, of the messages that you're receiving from the outside as well.

Craig (07:40):

That's going to impact you and you know, whether you were consciously aware of it or not, it's going to impact you. Sure. Yeah.

Victoria (07:49):

All right. My next point is not giving up. And you mentioned this earlier, but you may experience some fallback and don't let this stop you or hinder you from where you're trying to be. This is also part of the process. And you can learn from this progression is not just a linear, straight path. It's jagged with unexpected circumstances that happen and your resilience and ability to step back up and get back into the game and focus on what you're trying to do is really going to impact your lasting change.

Margaret (08:20):

Everybody makes mistakes. You can't be perfect while changing. And sometimes you need a rest, go back to your old ways for a bit and then go forward again.

Craig (08:30):

And sometimes you have to make a mistake to be aware of, Oh, I fell back into that pattern again, you know, so yeah. Not giving up and just focusing on who you want to become a year from now, who do you want to be a year from today from watching this? You can determine the speed that you grow and you know, how much effort you put in and no one, can you back if that's what you're focused on doing no matter what your issues are. Right,

Victoria (09:02):

And also as you progress, you might find yourself regressing a little bit as well. I think Margaret, you may have mentioned this to me before?

Margaret (09:12):

I know what Vicky's referring to. I had a wonderful supervisor once and I was very discouraged with one of my clients. And she said, oftentimes there is a progression before a leap forward. And it was exactly what was happening. We sort of dropped back, pick up all our old defenses, add up the new ones and then go ahead. But it's hard for a therapist when you've done a whole lot of work and you're ready for a breakthrough and then you seem to fall back, but she was right. And it was a profound point. Yeah.

Craig (09:42):

So expect it. Anything else?

Victoria (09:45):

Yes, I'm on my last one is on a positive note and that's to enjoy the fruits of your labor and celebrate the progress that you've made. Also, as far as you get, sometimes you need to take a look back to see how far you've come and how far you've grown. Yeah. So I just wanted to note that out that also notice the positive changes you're making on the day to day on the moment to moment and celebrate every success that you have because you deserve it.

Craig (10:12):

Yeah. And there's a good chance many of you have made a lot of progress from when you started watching the channel initially, and you've already had a lot of insights and a lot of growth and just continue it and you'll feel so much better. Right? Good stuff. All right. That was a really good research there. And I hope that you found this helpful.

How To Get Your Ex Back- The Right Way!

Craig (00:00):

Today we're going to be talking about, get your ex back the right way. You know, Margaret, I have realized that we get a lot of newcomers coming to the channel all the time. People that are recently getting into a breakup and they start to search things like, how do I get my ex back? How do I get my ex back in the right way? What's the right way to get my ex back. So I thought it would be helpful to do a video for people that are, might be new to our channel. So if you're new to our channel, you know, this is some of the basic stuff that we help you guys understand about our breakup. Margaret and I have been in the field for many, many years.

Margaret (01:27):

We should add up the number of years sometime between us

Craig (01:30):

Margaret, how long have you been a social worker? 

Margaret (01:35):

40 years, right. 40 years. Yeah.

Craig (01:37):

And I have been a therapist for about 20 years. Yeah.

Margaret (01:40):

So we can edit up to 60. Yeah, yeah. We should, we should know something.

Craig (01:45):

I do know a couple of things. And so, you know, we talk about that because many of you don't know what our background is. I'm a mental health counselor. She is a licensed social worker and we've known each other for probably about 20 years

Margaret (01:59):

I think so.

Craig (02:02):

We worked together in agencies locally together, and then we started this together. I told her she was behind the scenes of when I started the channel all those years ago. And now we have coach Victoria on board. Who's been learning with us and she will eventually do coaching. She will. And she'll be wonderful.

Craig (02:20):

So we want to talk about getting your ex back the right way, because there's a lot of bad information on the internet and we know when you're going through a breakup, you can get very desperate. Yup. Okay. People will do things like love spells.

Margaret (02:41):

Right. We have heard that. Right.

Craig (02:44):

You know, they get so desperate that they will buy a love, spell thinking that's going to help get your ex back.

Margaret (02:51):

When you're desperate though, you'll try anything. It's understandable. It's tunnel vision, right? Yeah. It's tunnel vision. When you're, when you're desperate and feel up against it, your, your view of the world narrows down to just one thing. It's tunnel vision, right?

Craig (03:05):

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, I think very tied to a depression that you get in that state. And so you may find yourself, you know, looking for magic beans to get your ex back essentially, but that's really not the way you want to go about this. So we're going to talk about some of these major points today. And the first one is don't try to manipulate your ex and stop trying to force your own agenda.

Margaret (03:34):

And that happens very often, very soon. Very quickly. Yeah.

Craig (03:39):

Yes. A lot of the other information out there about breakups is centered around manipulating your ex with some BS magical text that gets your ex back or a handwritten letter or grand gesture. And in my experience, it very, very rarely works. Right. I mean, if, if something like that happens to work, I think it was only because your ex was really reconsidering it anyway. Right. Right.

Margaret (04:11):

There is no magic formula. And I think sometimes when people call us, they hope we have one, but we don't, it's not magic.

Craig (04:19):

Yeah. I mean, a lot of the stuff that we're teaching you and the psychology and the understanding of mental health that's directly related to attachment and relationships working is absolutely the real stuff of how to make a relationship work and how to really repair things with your ex so you can have a real shot at repairing it and having a healthy relationship again. But you know, there's a lot of stuff out there about manipulation and using guilt pressuring your ex is a big one trying to get other family members involved or friends involved. I was guilty of that. Right. You try always backfire. It makes it worse. Yeah.

Margaret (05:07):

Always backfires. And there's always somebody who's willing to get in the middle and give everybody advice.

Craig (05:14):

I can tell you what I did. It, it backfired for me. It often just pisses your ex off. Yes. Right. It makes him really angry at you begging whether you may realize it or not is just a form of manipulation.

Margaret (05:27):

Yes. It is. It's a different form. How pathetic do I have to look, right?

Craig (05:31):

Or that you think that if you beg for that extra chance, I mean, I've heard very, very few cases over the years of begging actually working. It often turns your partner off. So these are all manipulation strategies that you want to get away from. Guilt pressure, getting other people involved trying to beg and just simply ignoring needs of your partner and what they're trying to tell you. Right. Right. That's huge. So you gotta be careful of doing those things. Of course. Some of that is to be expected in the beginning, especially the begging and trying to talk person out of it

Margaret (06:11):

Well you're shocked. Right? Yeah.

Craig (06:14):

Yeah. That's absolutely it right there is when you're shocked. So it's okay to do some of that in the beginning, but you, and don't beat yourself up if he did, because most people do those things. I was guilty of some of those things you know, I tried to grand gesture

Margaret (06:30):

And lots of people who call us say, I already tried all the things you guys said not to do. Did they work? No.

Craig (06:40):

So you know, what you really want to do is give that person space and freedom to make their own decision, which is very, very difficult, which comes along with the second major point. I want to say here is let them reach out to you, right? The way that I have explained no contact and the way that I teach it is simply not to reach out to your ex. Some people have some convoluted strategies or situations where you should ignore them. If they reach out to you or play games with them. I don't believe in that. I don't think you're going to have something healthy again, if you're playing those kinds of games.

Margaret (07:19):

Games are not healthy games or manipulations.

Craig (07:22):

So, you know, your ex made the decision to get in the relationship with you. And if they decide that they want to get out, you want to respect that decision as painful as it may be, but you want them to have that space and time to feel your absence.

Margaret (07:41):

And you're being respectful by giving them what they asked for.

Craig (07:45):

But believe it or not, you want to give your ex the space to miss you. Right. you know, a lot of times people will continually reach out to their ex or maybe they'll try 30 days at a time. Right, I'll leave him alone for 30 days and reach out well, they ignored it. So I'll try in another 30 days or you know, using the good reminder text. That's another form of manipulation.

Margaret (08:13):

Good reminder texts reminding us what a good time we had at the beach that day. Yeah.

Craig (08:17):

I just drove by the beach that we went. Do you remember when the bird pooped on your head, you know, some silly reminder of what happened and it sounds like a nice idea. I understand when you're going through a breakup, it's like, that sounds like a good idea, that does some provoking, and then you should hear all the people that are like, I tried it. What happened? Usually the response didn't work. Nothing. They didn't respond.

Margaret (08:44):

Let me just say another word about manipulation. One of the reasons why manipulation is a wrong thing is that by definition, manipulation means you're trying to get somebody to something without directly asking them to do what you want or to even tell them what you want. Okay. It's dishonest. That's the problem. Yeah.

Craig (09:05):

And many of you probably grew up in a home where your mother used a lot of guilt or your dad. Yeah. But I could say I grew up in a home where my mom used guilt, you know, the Italian guilt.

Craig (09:21):

They're famous for that. Yup. And so you may unconsciously be doing the same thing that's been done to you your entire life and you don't even realize why it's such a turnoff.

Margaret (09:31):

Again, just let me come at one more time. You lived with the Italian guilt. I lived with the Irish martyrdom. God knows I'll be okay. Don't worry about me. Yeah.

Craig (09:42):

And so when you're reaching out, trying these strategies, like a good reminder text or a handwritten letter, it just allows your ex to know that you're still wanting them. And it doesn't really get them to grieve the loss of you. Right. Because how can they grieve your loss if they don't feel the loss?

Margaret (10:03):

That's right. And if they're talking to three of your relatives and two of your friends, they can find out how you're doing anytime. Not helpful.

Craig (10:11):

So when you're reaching out, it also takes away the curiosity of what you've been doing, or if you've moved on, which people really want to know.

Margaret (10:21):

No, that's the first thing people want to know. It's been two weeks. Do you think he or she has moved on?

Craig (10:27):

And so if your ex sees that you're continually reaching out, they're not going to wonder if you've moved on. Right, right. It takes away that mystery for them. Yes. Okay. Another big issue, another big way to make sure that you're going to get your ex back the right way is to fix your own issues. Right? We all have our own issues. We all have things in our childhood that were traumatizing or difficult. And we have these blind spots within us that we don't see things about ourselves. And many of you, when you come to the channel, you see that what we're all about is healthy relationships, learning skills, being the best version of yourself. So you either have an opportunity to blow your ex away, or you're doing great in your new relationships. And that way it's a win-win and you're not so focused on, you know, just your ex. Then I get success stories almost every day about, well, maybe I didn't get my ex back, but I found this new person and they made me really happy. And thank you for all the growth and all this, you know,

Margaret (11:35):

Those are, those are wonderful to hear. Yeah.

Craig (11:37):

They're just as good as getting your ex back. I know it doesn't feel like that now. Not at the beginning. And I totally understand because I've been there, but believe me, if you find somebody new, that's amazing for you and you look at your ex, like, why was I tolerating things? Or, you know, that relationship was toxic or maybe it was even abusive. You're going to be so happy with the people that you come across that are healthier for you. Yes. So working through your own issues, you know, we have hundreds of videos on understanding, attachment styles, mental health, the workbooks are all centered around it. The course is centered around it. We're all about bettering your life after a breakup. Right? Right. Another big area and the, the last one we wanted to touch on today is that you have to realize that there are areas that you can improve. And oftentimes you're, so shell shocked that your ex left you, that you can't even realize that you can't think about what did I do wrong? Like, or what's, what did I do in this relationship that may have ultimately led to, you know, the connection being hurt or trust being hurt or the other issues that have come up. But now you have an opportunity to reprioritize yourself. And I think that when you're going through a breakup, it really gets you to reevaluate. What's important to you and prioritze.

Margaret (13:09):

Absolutely. And that's a healthy thing to do.

Craig (13:12):

I mean, you, you talked to somebody today that I did a coaching with a few weeks ago that realized they were addicted to video games. Yes

Margaret (13:19):

He did. And to his credit, he's working about as hard as anybody could. Absolutely. Yeah.

Craig (13:25):

Yeah. But when you're in that mode, you don't realize he, I mean, he was addicted to video games for years. Yes.

Margaret (13:31):

And when it looks like everything is okay, and your partner is still there, you don't think about it.

Craig (13:36):

Yeah. But when you have some time to realize, Oh my gosh, the last three girlfriends I've had have said, I don't listen. What's going on with me. I haven't been listening to my partner. And then you realize I've got to fix this. How are you going to do it? What are you going to do differently? You've got to really reflect on that and improve in those areas. You know? Maybe you could look at ways you could be more social in your life. Maybe you've only spent your time with that one person and neglected your friends or family or other areas of your life.

Margaret (14:14):

Absolutely. Maybe it's the other way around, continue with your friends and kind of neglected your partner. All possibilities can happen.

Craig (14:21):

Another big thing that you could look at is what am I doing that I'm satisfied with my life, take an inventory. Where am I satisfied in my life? Where am I not satisfied in my life?

Margaret (14:34):

Well, and don't just beat yourself up, look for what's going right and what your strengths are. And then you can decide what changes you may like to make. That's a good point to reevaluate what you want and your values and so forth and so on.

Craig (14:48):

Yeah. You might want to use this as a time to take some risks and use those opportunities to grow and learn new things that may be you haven't been willing to do before. You know, a lot of times people take a look at things in a, like, you know, I've thought about going back to school for years. Right. I wasn't motivated enough to do it. Now. I'm getting in school, I'm focused on a career or a business or something like that. But you know, it's understandable that you probably aren't going to feel very motivated, especially in the beads,

Margaret (15:21):

Not in the beginning, because it's going to take all your energy to try and deal with this shock to your system. Yep. Yep.

Craig (15:26):

But even if you can do something small, it could be meaningful.

Margaret (15:30):

Absolutely. And it can encourage you to move further

Craig (15:33):

A new hobby or just trying something new. I remember that when the Applebee's girl broke up with me, I wanted to learn a couple of dishes and learning how to cook a few different meals. And so I had my mom teach me to cook some meals that I didn't know how to do. And that made me feel good. I mean, it was not a huge thing, but I still remember what those two meals were off the top of my head, the two main ones that I asked her to help me with. Different routines can be helpful. Maybe you realize, you know, you stay up too late on the phone and you don't have a good, healthy sleep routine or exercise or eating routine. All of those are little things that can make you feel better and focus on becoming a healthier version of yourself. So when your ex either comes back or you start dating other people, you're going to look a lot more attractive.

Margaret (16:27):

Absolutely. Right. And don't forget to be nice to yourself. We're so well, programmed to beat ourselves up and people tell us, they go over every phrase, every word they ever said, wondering, which was the one that put their partner off. And it's probably not just one phrase at all, but find your strengths too.

Craig (16:47):

Yep. Absolutely. Because when you start doing these things, people are going to notice. Your friends are going to notice, your family is going to notice. They're going to be happy with seeing you do something positive because I really think there's nothing more motivating than a breakup. Right. And I know it's been, you know, the times in my life where I was absolutely laser-focused on the personal growth and bettering myself and so use this as an opportunity because I promise you very few of your exes will do as much work as the dumpee is. Right. Right. The dumper is very rarely motivated like the dumpee is right.

Margaret (17:31):

As they've been in control and the dumpee hasn't been, and the dumpee is going to say, I don't want this to ever happen to me or anybody else again. Yeah.

Craig (17:38):

Yeah. So use that to your advantage, knowing that whatever's going on in your ex's life, the motivation that you do, if you're really consistently making an effort, even if it's just a little bit every day, it's probably going to be far more than they do a couple months down the road, three months down the road, six months down the road, whatever it is, you know? Absolutely. Because exes do come back all the time and you know, sometimes even after years. Absolutely.

Margaret (18:09):

And I'll hear, I haven't heard from them for three weeks. I know it's over. Oh, it could be three months, three years. Absolutely.

Craig (18:16):

In fact, I heard from somebody recently that I hadn't heard from him in about two and a half years. So, and it was interesting Margaret and I talked about it and you know, there was probably more to it than what was on the surface, but it shows you that people come back all the time, just stay focused on yourself and being the best version of yourself and it's a, win-win either way. And those are some strategies to make sure you're going to get your ex back the right way. And of course, we're here for coaching. And if you want to get our help, personally, all you have to do is go to my website, AskCraig.net, sign up for the option that you prefer.

My Ex Said I'll Always Love You

Craig (00:00):

Today we're going to be talking about I'll always love you. You know, Margaret, that is actually something that comes up quite often in breakups, where somebody will say to their partner, I'll always love you, I want the best for you, but they can't do the relationship anymore. Okay. Now, in many cases, it's because there was a situation that kept going on over and over again, and they got frustrated and fed up and they didn't want to deal with it anymore, but there are always very unique situations and breakups. And I say that all the time, every situation is different. Every breakup is different. And I thought this was a really interesting email coaching that I had today that I think you guys will like. This is from a woman in her mid forties, single mother, and a guy in his late thirties. Now he doesn't have any kids. She says we had a passionate, loving relationship for nine months. He was affectionate, always telling me how much he loved me. He's from a wealthy family. I won't say what his dad's career is, but it was a let's say a successful career who had a father who was egotistical and impossible to please. Eric would do anything to try and impress him. His mother left Eric when he was a small child, let's say around kindergarten age, he still won't speak to her. He stayed living with his dad and he had a privileged life, but not one full of love and warmth. It was materially privileged. Yeah. His ex-wife was a trust fund child and had no need to work. At first, he worked at a job. Let's say an average job. I'm not going to say the career. Um but his wife gave him an ultimatum of giving up work and traveling the world with her or she would divorce him.

Margaret (02:53):

I wish somebody give me that one.

Craig (02:58):

Sounds pretty terrible. Doesn't it? Yeah. Give up working and travel the world with me. I won't do it. I won't do it. I will do it. I will do it. Not during coronavirus though. No, I won't do it then. He gave up his job and traveled for years living off her family's fortune. He told me she was not a nice person and extremely controlling. After over 10 years of marriage, one day she disappeared.

Margaret (03:30):

Oh Lord, just like his mother.

Craig (03:33):

Then he got divorce papers delivered stating he would not receive any of the family's money. He was depressed for several years, not working or seeing anyone else until he met me. He got a job in sales and seemed happy and confident in his work and we had a great time in our relationship. COVID hit. Then he was placed on furlough. This is when things started going downhill for us. He has a sibling that had been running their father's business, but had gotten into a dispute with the dad over their pay and left suddenly. Eric stepped in as he currently wasn't working and ran the place far better than his sibling. His father was planning on retiring, but told Eric that if he wanted to continue, he could hire other people for the business by opening more businesses under their names like expanding , but dad would retire. Meanwhile, his sales job opened back up and offered him a position, a higher manager managerial position, which he turned down in favor of working for his father. Can you see the disaster coming? In the final month of our relationship, he was less affectionate and seemed off. Though he would say everything was great. When I asked about work, one night, we had an argument, nothing too serious. He apologized the next day. But then when silent for several days after that. You could already see working for the dad was going to be a nightmare. Right. Because of the way dad treats him. Something he would, would always do after disagreement, but would make up for it after a few days, meaning disappear.

Margaret (06:02):

Withdraw after a disagreement,

Craig (06:04):

When I hadn't heard from him for five days, I texted and asked him to meet me and talk. We met. I never seen him. So agitated. He admitted to me that things were terrible at work. His father was horrible to work for. Of course. Yeah. Which is why the sibling got out. Right. And he was turning into an alcoholic, the father. And I wonder if it was turning into or already was. Yeah. His sibling was now refusing to talk to either of them. And that his dad was now saying that he was just going to sell the business, leaving Eric high and dry again. But you could see the stress going on here.

Margaret (06:56):

What's he going to do with the money from the business?

Craig (06:58):

He doesn't say probably just take it and retire. But then it sounds like the sibling was wise to be autonomous.

Margaret (07:05):

Very smart sibling. Good boy.

Craig (07:07):

I think the sibling had had enough. He told me his life was a mess and that I was the only stable thing in it. He said he loved me several times and cried, ending things by saying he just can't be in a relationship with me right now. He needed to get his life together. It couldn't bear being judged, feeling like a failure.

Margaret (07:37):

So that is the least healthy thing he could have done. So first he goes back to dad, which was not a healthy idea. And now he's going to push away his only support.

Craig (07:48):

Yeah. It's very sad. Very. Let me go on. I told him that I would help him, but he said, I couldn't. After we parted that night, he sent a text, ,I attached below then said, no, that I love you always. That was six weeks ago. And that was the last I heard from him. Having found the no contact advice in time. I texted him three times since, or she said she didn't find no contact in time. I texted him three times since about two to three weeks apart, the first two times just saying that I was thinking of him just one sentence. And the third time, just three days ago saying I was going to respect his decision not to have me in his life anymore. He hasn't responded to any of them. Will he ever reach out to me again? He's ADHD and likely a fearful avoidant. Wow. This was such a sad situation.

Margaret (08:54):

It is a sad situation

Craig (08:56):

Because he didn't want to break up with her. At least from what I'm reading here, he did it because I think he was still trying to end that cycle of making his father feel disappointed with him.

Margaret (09:12):

Yeah, I think so too. But again, it's a failure of individuation. He wasn't able to say to "dad, you go take a walk down, whatever money street there. Isn't a city state street bank street". Unfortunately I agree with you. I don't think he wanted to break up either. And we see this sometimes that people think they have to break up due to circumstances and instead put themselves in a situation where they go through the circumstances without the supportive partner and it's painful to see.

Craig (09:43):

Yeah. And I think he's probably thinking about her all the time. And I think he's probably feeling like he doesn't want to give it another chance but he doesn't want to feel like a failure with her too. I think he's so overwhelmed with feeling like a failure to his father that he can't think about disappointing another person or not being there for another person while he's overwhelmed with this business situation. And stress

Margaret (10:09):

Must have quite the hold on him.

Craig (10:11):

I think so, too. And so it's particularly sad because I don't think he wanted this relationship to end. Yeah. And the, the hard part for her is where would we be a year from now or six months from now, if he hadn't gone to work for dad, would they still be together? Now? Maybe it would have led to a breakup because of other issues, but feeling like he was taken away because of dad is even more painful.

Margaret (10:38):

Right. I feel very bad for her. Yeah. I feel bad for both of them. He needs to do something.

Craig (10:45):

So she wants to know, will he ever reach out? And I think it's not a matter of does he want to reach out? I think he wants to reach out. I think it's a matter of how does he resolve things with his dad? Does he let dad continue to run his life and manipulate him?

Margaret (11:01):

And you could only hope that in a few months he will think about that when he has a chance to miss her.

Craig (11:09):

Yeah. Hopefully. Yeah. Hopefully he'll realize that what they had was nice and good and that, you know, there was a lot of potential there and you know, that he is able to muster up enough strength and anger towards dad to say, "you know what I love you. And if you let me run the business, my way I'll do that. But I can't do it like this and I'm not going to do it like this. So it's either, let me run it or you sell a business and I'll go find something to do."

Margaret (11:38):

That's right. That's right. But he had to make another shot. He had to take another shot at pleasing dad, which it sounds like to me is totally impossible to do anyway.

Craig (11:50):

Yeah. Oh, of course. I think dad will never be happy no matter what he does or any of his children. And I think the sibling finally figured that out and said, I'm outta here. If the sibling is able to individually, hopefully Eric will be able to do that.

Margaret (12:03):

So I wonder if the sibling is older or younger,

Craig (12:07):

You know, and that I don't remember. But I'm just thinking he might have gotten more of mom. Yeah. That's a good question. I don't remember if he said that. Sorry, but you know, he probably thought that the sibling wasn't doing a good job, dad was probably painting the picture of the sibling, not doing a good job when the sibling was probably working their butt off to try and please dad, and you know, dad, wasn't happy. So Eric is thinking, Hey, my sibling can't do this. They can't, they're doing a terrible job. I could do a better job. And maybe they, he did, maybe Eric did. But I think that dad has him kind of brainwashed that the sibling was probably doing their best to try and please that he played them off against each other, all their lives. Yeah. So this is a particularly sad situation. I think if he can, individually, you will definitely hear from him again. It's just a matter of, can he stand up to dad or how it resolved with that and not regarding, it's not regarding how we felt about you, at least from what I'm reading don't know.

Margaret (13:16):

And she's probably thinking she did this wrong or she did that. Right. I don't think she did it all. Yeah. I think this was circumstance. So let's see what happens with time alone and let him do his process and feel his feelings.

Craig (13:29):

That's right. Tough situation, sad situation. Of course, if you want to get our help personally, just go to my website askcraig.net, sign up for the coaching option that works best for you.

What NOT To Do When Meeting Your Ex (4 HUGE Mistakes)

In this video, I'm going to be talking to about what not to do around your ex. You know, after somebody's broken up with us and we're just overwhelmed by emotions, we start acting irrationally. We start doing a lot of things that maybe we're embarrassed of or ashamed of later, and we kind of lose our emotional balance. And so we become so focused and obsessed on trying to get them back that we don't think clearly, we get like tunnel vision. And it's important to understand that how you behave is going to make a major impact on whether or not your ex will revisit the idea of getting back with you. A lot of times, we get so overwhelmed with emotions. When we get in front of our ex that we lose our balance again, we go back into our old mindset of the breakup, and it's important that you have to try and start fresh. You don't want to try and be in that dynamic of that person has all the power and you feel powerless, but that's often how we feel is we feel stuck in where we were when they made the decision, because in a lot of cases, time has passed the balance. Isn't as shifted as you thought it was, especially if they're agreeing to meet with you or they're wanting to meet with you in person, it's not as unbalanced where they were cutting you out of their life totally. Or they were so set in their decision. At least it's less likely to be that way because they're agreeing to meet up with you. So I've got four really important tips for you guys on how to act around your ex, because it's really, really important. You don't make these mistakes. The first thing you want to make sure you don't do is come on too strong.

Craig (02:38):

Okay? A lot of times you're trying to desperately get an answer from them on what they want and why they're meeting up with you. And if they're gonna give you another shot, right? You're so obsessed with, are they going to give us another shot? Are they gonna give me another chance that you will come on strong? Obviously your ex is meeting up with you so they have some kind of agenda. There's a reason they're meeting up with you, right. Something inside of them is making them say, okay, I want to see you. I want to get together whether or not it's they want to get you back or they want to talk about, about things or maybe they want to get with you just for closure. Sometimes an ex will miss you for a certain amount of time. And they'll think about you and they'll think about getting back with you, but they're like, you know, I don't think it's going to work and they'll actually kind of in their own mind, meet up with you for closure. And so if they're in that mindset of I'm going there, just to make sure I'm done with this and I'm over it, and you start to behave in an attractive way, that idea of closure can be thrown out the window. And there'll be like, wow, I really had a good time. And they really did make all these changes. I didn't think I would want to, but I actually am open to another shot at this. And that actually happens a lot. So even if you think that they're there for closure, stay calm. If you behave in a way where you do, they might change their mind. Okay. This next one I really like too don't make a big deal about the breakup.

Craig (04:20):

And there's a really funny story that I like. I love from Larry, David, I don't know if you know who Larry David is. He's one of my favorite comedian slash writers. He wrote the Seinfeld show and curb your enthusiasm. And I find him absolutely hysterical. And there's a great story about him that he shares where when he was working on Saturday night, live as a writer many, many years ago in the seventies, way before he was famous he helped on the show trying to get sketches on the air. Well, one night he didn't stay for the read through and the boss kind of saw him. The producer was like, where are you going? And he's like, well, I'm going home. I wrote a couple sketches. I wrote a couple of ideas, gotta get outta here. Like we always stay all night for the readthrough. And he's like, well, why, why would you do that? That's stupid. We've had weeks to work on this. Why would you stay an extra eight to 10 hours? I want to go home. So he goes home. Well, after that point, he rounds up not getting any of his sketches or ideas on the air. They probably are upset at him for what happened. So he had written a bunch of great sketches that he really liked. And he said they were working and it looked like they were good on the air, but they all got canceled. And so finally he has it and he gets so annoyed. He screams at the producer, that's it, I'm done. This show stinks. I've had it. And he's just start yelling at the guy. He just blows up and he goes, I quit. You're never going to see me again.

Craig (05:59):

So he starts walking home and he's all upset and he's angry. And then he thinks to himself, wait you know, this is going to cost me a lot of money. I had enough money from this job to pay for my bills for the next two years. What am I doing? I don't know what's going on. I don't know if I should have done this. So he goes home and his neighbor's like, what are you doing here? You're here early. And his neighbor was actually Kenny Kramer, the guy that the Kramer character was based on. So he tells him what happened and how he had quit his job. And he blew up and screamed at him and everything else. And his buddy Kramer looks at him and goes, well, why don't you just go back there on Monday and pretend that it never happened. So that's what he did a Monday.

Craig (06:50):

He goes in, he's in front of everybody. He sits at the table meeting. Everybody's looking at him like, what are you doing here? You blew up, you quit. And he's just acting like it never happened. And the producer looks at him and asked him what his sketch ideas are. And he tells him, and he didn't wind up getting fired, even though he technically quit. But my point of this story is, is that when you're in front of your ex, try not to make a big deal of it. Like, you know, he did, he like, it didn't really happen. So you kind of want to act like the breakup didn't really happen. One of my mistakes with the Applebee's girls was I kept talking about my feelings, how much she had hurt me, how badly I missed her daughter. And I kept kind of emphasizing it instead of focusing on, Hey, just having a great time with them again.

Craig (07:40):

So try not to make a big deal about the breakup. Can't act like it didn't happen altogether, but if it comes up, you talk about it. Right? Okay. Third one. Don't assume you have to get them back in that first meeting. Okay. This is a big mistake. It's not now or never. It feels like it's now or never. Like if I don't nail this down, if I don't talk about it, if I don't know where they're at or what we're doing here in that initial meetup, it feels like you're going to be scared and anxious and confused, and you're going to lose them. That's not the case. Okay. I had that fearful mindset back in the day, but you don't need to be that afraid that if you don't get them back after that meetup, that it won't happen. Your goal, your focus is leaving a great impression and showing them how different you are and the dynamic is not the, they have all the power and they broke up with you that you had just when the breakup happened. Okay. One more. And I want to share this as another one that I saw that was really unfortunate. I've seen quite a few times, getting too comfortable too soon. Okay. So I have had several clients that actually got back with their ex, but they went back to their old ways really quickly and it blew their shot. Okay. So you're going to find that if you're not vigilant with yourself, you're going to go back to your insecure ways. As soon as you get comfortable again, okay. You got to look at it like you're on probation. Tell yourself that if I get my ex, I'm going to continue to work as hard as you are right now for nine months, say nine months. Because if you do, and you really stick to that, you will make really long lasting changes. Okay? But if you give up right, when you get them back, I just hear it all the time. A month, two months after you get them back, you're going to go back to those old ways. I had one guy who had been in no contact for like a year, and this guy did tremendous amounts of work. He'd done a lot of work. He'd done the workbooks he'd been working really hard, totally changed himself. Well, first couple of times, he went out with her. Things were great. They had even hooked up. He was really happy. Third date. He made a big mistake that was one of her major complaints in the relationship.

Craig (10:25):

He did it on the third date and that was it. She was done. And she wound up never coming back and giving them another shot after that. She was so fed up and it was crazy because honestly the mistake wasn't that big, but in his situation, because it was something that had to upset her about their dynamic, she was like, you see, it is the same way that it's going to be. And then she started dating somebody else. Actually. Now that I think about it after that third date, so you don't want to get comfortable too soon and go back to your old ways. Otherwise you're going to be in for another breakup. Okay. So hopefully you found these tips helpful. And if they, if you did make sure you put a like on the video for me to support the channel.

3 Things you MUST Do in No Contact

Today we're going to be talking about three things that you must do in no contact. You know, when you're in a situation that you're not reaching out to your ex and you're really struggling, it can be very difficult and you are kind of all over the place. So we got three things here that I think are really big things that you have to do that you want to stick to while you're in a situation where if you're leaving somebody alone and you're trying to, you know, obviously if you want to work it out with them, you want to let them come to you. Right? But that time is so hard because every second feels like an eternity. But I got three things here that are really important. Okay. The first one is that you want to focus on understanding why the relationship didn't work out.

Craig (01:41):

That's a big one. Don't you think?

Margaret (01:43):

I don't know. She, she just got cold on me. I don't know what happened. Yeah. Okay. How do you do that? Yeah. How do you think about it? How do you go about thinking about it?

Craig (01:55):

Well, I would say, you want to think about where you guys had fights or arguments, disagreements.

Margaret (02:02):

What did you use to have fights about? What did you fight about? What did you disagree about? Right.

Craig (02:07):

Another big thing. I would say you want to look for is, was there something that this person kept saying they needed from you or asking from you repeatedly and you weren't doing it? Because that's telling you that they have this unmet need and they're trying to express it to you repeatedly. And you weren't meeting that, whatever it is, right. You were on your cell phone too much, or we didn't do vacations together. Or we spend too much time with your family and not enough with mine, whatever it might be. But you have to really think about what went wrong. Because if you don't know what went wrong, how are you going to fix it? Right.

Margaret (02:48):

You can't do it. And you know, it's nice if your partner can cooperate in that. Yeah.

Craig (02:55):

But a lot of times your ex doesn't really tell you the reason,

Margaret (02:58):

You know what I hear the most often? They said they needed space and that they had to focus on themselves.

Craig (03:04):

That's a big one. But usually those are the, like the generic reasons. There's no authentic reason there. Because a lot of times they feel like if they're telling you the real reason, then you're just going to try and say, "I'll fix that. I'll change that now. Well, if you just give me the chance, I'll do it." Right. But at that point, they're frustrated, it's too late. And you're trying to talk them into something when they don't want it.

Margaret (03:29):

But if you take a long, hard, honest look about, like you say, the things that somebody might have asked from you that you didn't do. And probably one of them is, you know, they weren't present enough. They worked too much. And when they were here, they were just on their phone. Yup. Those are big ones. Those are big.

Craig (03:47):

You have to know what happened. And obviously Margaret and I go into a lot of deep issues, looking at factors like individuation, mental health attachment styles, all the different areas that we explore that help you really look at your own situation and kind of put things together for what happened. Right. You know, you have to be willing to look at it. Yeah. You know, if you keep looking at this cliche stuff, that's out there, you're not really going to get to the meat of the problem. Right. You know, which is what you gotta do here. You know, you also want to think about how long they may have been unhappy. Right. You know, you might have a situation where your ex has been unhappy for months and they didn't tell you. Right. I had a situation today where the woman didn't tell him that she was unhappy and I think it was because she was afraid he would freak out. So she kind of was quickly navigating how to get out of the situation without telling him.

Margaret (04:51):

What was she afraid he'd do?

Craig (04:55):

I think she was afraid. Honestly, I think she had a lot of her own issues. And I think that she had a lot of trauma growing up. And so she's kind of maybe afraid of men's reactions,

Margaret (05:05):

Any risk rhat somebody might get out of control and really angry, scared, whatever.

Craig (05:10):

Yeah. So I think sometimes your ex or your, your partner doesn't want to tell you what's going on because they're not good with confrontation or they're not good with handling negotiation

Margaret (05:23):

And many people are not good at it.

Craig (05:25):

Yeah. but it's really important to understand where did this go wrong? What, what happened? What did you do that may have turned them off? What did they do that may have caused issues in the relationship? Cause both of you were responsible, you know, it's definitely not all on you, even though it feels like it. So you want to think about the reasons they gave you. Sometimes there's real authentic stuff there. Sometimes it's just the same BS where they just don't want to deal with something. Right. Right. But, you know, I think that's a big step in figuring out how to fix the situation. Yeah,

Margaret (06:00):

Absolutely. Well, you can't treat without a diagnosis. How's that?

Craig (06:05):

Okay. The next thing you want to do is after you've kind of spent time really looking at what happened, your mistakes, where it went wrong, when you had issues, all those things, you want to come up with a plan, right? Like what are you going to do to make it better? Why is it going to be better next time? How are you going to make sure that when you're in this situation next time, where that thing that you argued about 25 times doesn't become an argument again? Right, I mean, that's a tough thing to do is actually come up with a strategy and stick to it.

Margaret (06:38):

It's not easy. Yeah.

Craig (06:41):

But you know, you want to kind of imagine what it would be like when you get back together, like what are the scenarios where we did struggle?

New Speaker (06:50):

What kinds of things do you need to look out for? Yeah. What kinds of things do you need to do that you didn't do? Like talk to each other, which is the biggest one.

Craig (07:00):

I was always the kind of person to over prepare for things like I would, my anxiety would cause me to prepare an over-prepare. Right. Like, especially when I was doing standup comedy a lot and I would, you know, do a lot of shows and professional shows. I would be the one comic that would go over material again and again.

Margaret (07:21):

At least it's a constructive symptom. Yeah. It helped you work harder and better.

Craig (07:26):

Yeah. And that was one of the things that I would make sure that I was on point a lot of times, because I wouldn't know my material inside and out and I would practice it and I recite it. And you know, before a show or a big show, a lot of times I'd be outside pacing around going over my notes over and over and over again. But it kept me on point when the time came. And so I would over-prepare and that's what I want you guys to do because you know, you don't want to under prepare and then regret it. Right. It's better to over-prepare and be over. Yeah.

Margaret (08:06):

Yeah. And you feel more confident when you're doing that too. It'll keep you sharp.

Craig (08:10):

Yup. Right. Yeah. Cause then you'll imagine, Oh, I already felt like, yeah, I'm ready. And then you stay calm and you feel more confident, relaxed about it. Right. And here's the third biggest pointer and this is really important. Okay. You thought about what went wrong. You come up with a plan, maybe you've done a coaching with us and you've, or you've done the workbooks and you were working on all the skills. Yeah. Have to stick to that plan when you're in front of your ex.

Margaret (08:42):

Right. If you get the ex back, don't stop doing what you were doing. Right? Yeah.

Craig (08:48):

Stay motivated, stay watching the channel, stay committed to the personal growth. Don't go back to your old ways. You should see how many people I've seen that will, you know, do all the right things. And then they get so overridden by anxiety or emotions that their ex says or does anything to trigger them that they make a million mistakes go back to the same behavior.

Margaret (09:18):

So it's like, "well, I got, I accomplished my goal. I got him or her back. So now I can just relax again." Yeah. Oh, don't do that to yourself.

Craig (09:28):

I can guarantee that when the time comes, that when you get in front of your ex, your body is going to be overwhelmed with anxiety and you are going to want to start a five hour text conversation or stay on the phone with them for three hours and talk about everything. And all of the plans that I tell you. Like, if your ex reaches out, you want to set a date, you want to do this in person. I had somebody email me recently that they said, "Oh, my ex finally reached out and we've been texting for the last six hours."

Margaret (10:08):

There are some things you really need to do in person

Craig (10:14):

Six hours?! Why didn't you set a date with them? And it wasn't somebody that coaching with me, but I was just so like, Oh gosh, I know this is going to be gone before you even realize it, because they're going to know everything about you. That excitement of not having talked to you in months is going to be gone by the time you get together.

Margaret (10:34):

I had somebody say to me, very hesitantly, "maybe there are some things you shouldn't do over text." Yes. There were lots of things you shouldn't do over texts. Yeah. It's not as personal as being in the room with someone

Craig (10:49):

You're not trying to text your ex back. You're trying to get with them in person so they can remember what it's like to actually be in your presence and feel that energy and that connection that you had even from when you initially started dating, it's not going to help you to throw all that out. And that's what I'm saying is like, you didn't stick to the plan, right? The minute they reached out to you, you panicked, you came on too strong. You said he spent two hours or three hours on the phone. You spend all this time texting. When what you needed to do is get in front of them and show off all of these changes that you'd been working on for probably months. Yeah.

Craig (11:32):

Very disheartening for me to see to happen to you guys. You got to stick to the plan, right? Figure out what went wrong. Margaret and I are here to do that. If you don't do a coaching with us, you know, there's tons of information we have. Like, I don't even remember how many hundreds of videos at this point. Was it 700, 800 videos I don't ever, I don't even remember off the top of my head. We had the workbooks, You could do a call with us, but really assess what happened, what went wrong, figure out a plan for yourself or do one with us and stick to it when that time comes.

Margaret (12:07):

And personal growth feels good. Otherwise who would bother to do it? It really does. Yeah. It's exhilarating. You can get really excited. Yeah.

Craig (12:16):

Yeah. So so important that you stick to those strategies and then stay committed to the personal growth.

Craig (12:24):

Even after you get him back, I say, put yourself on probation for like nine months to a year. That's good. Because you know, I did a call with somebody today that got their ex back, gave up on the personal growth and six months later they're broken up again. Yeah, it is because he had done so much work. So near and yet, so far. Yeah. So very important. You stick to these kinds of strategies.

Let Them Go To Get Them Back

Today we're going to be talking about, let them go to get them back. Does that make sense to you, Margaret?

Margaret (00:49):

In a weird kind of way. It really does in a weird kind of way.

Craig (00:54):

You know, Margaret, before you share what you have today, I wanted to say, people always ask us about the law of attraction and does the law of attraction work for dating. And for me, I don't know how you feel about this, but for me, it's almost the opposite of what people say the law of attraction is when it comes to re-attracting an ex. For me, it's almost like you don't manifest them by thinking about them. You kind of manifest them back by saying, that's it I'm done. I'm moving on with my life. And then they kind of sense it. I don't know how, I don't know why, you know,

Margaret (01:30):

So the law of attraction would say where your focus is, that's what you're going to get put out to the universities, what you're going to get. But I don't think it works here. I've never been a great believer, I must confess, in the laws of attraction. Now I do believe there is an unconscious mind and we can draw things or not draw things to ourselves without knowing it. But I don't know about the law of attraction. There are many people who are more familiar with it than I, yeah, but for me, in my experience with breakups, it's almost just seems like that letting go is when they start to somehow sense it or feel it.

Craig (02:09):

Absolutely. But you can't inauthentically do it. You can't fake it. You really have to process and deal and heal and grow. And when you really genuinely mean it, that's when they tend to come back, I call it a disturbance in the force. Yet the disturbance, a disturbance in the ether is something other people will say, and I've always called it the airwaves. Yeah. That's just my take on it. You guys can disagree if you want. That's totally understandable. But in my case, and just seeing breakups all the time, I just see it so often. It's just, it just blows me away. And even in my own life where I've got to places with certain people where I was okay with not being with them, it's when they wanted me. Of course.

Craig (03:00):

So, we're going to talk about how letting go can actually get someone back.

Margaret (03:06):

We're going to talk mostly about letting go because so many people struggle terribly with it. And I have two sets of thoughts on it today. Now this one is almost a guided imagery. It's a little out there for me, a little wifi. So I hope you'll bear with me, but the reason it caught my attention is because, believe it or not, it agrees with Freud. Now for its concept of attachment and grief, he saw grief as you know, the process of letting go of attachment. And he saw it in terms of energy as does this particular author. And when, if you look at it, it's the classic denial, anger

Craig (03:51):

Bargaining

Margaret (03:55):

Grief, and then finally acceptance. So when you get to acceptance, you have withdrawn your energy from the object, whether it's a loss of a partner or someone has passed, whatever. So he sees it as a slow process of taking your energy back. And this lady talks in terms of energy too. So let me tell you what she has to say.

Margaret (04:19):

How possibly do you let let go of someone who you really love? And she goes back to the beginning of the relationship and says that when you let someone into your heart, you create an energetic bond with them. In other words, there's an exchange of energy between the two of you. As your heart opens their energy mingles with yours until you are one big swirling ball of love energy. That's the fun part, right? You make your friends sick with all of the love. You're spewing. It's fun. It's awesome. You get closer still. And now your partner's energy is setting up residence in your heart. It's like you gave them a drawer in your dresser. I love that. Okay. It's like you gave the majority of dresser or space in your closet for their things. You're attached. Okay? What's actually happening, energetically is that you're building a cord of energy between the two of you.

Margaret (05:22):

You have cords of energy between you and all the people you let into your life. Friends, relatives, coworkers, etcetera. But the strongest cord is usually between you and your partner. It's built on love, experiences, shared dreams and future plans. Okay? So what happens when you break up energetically, the cord can rip and tear, a disruption occurs the love energy that used to flow back and forth between you is now poison, angry, upset, etcetera. And that cord continues to pump energy into you. Where once it was good, now, it doesn't feel good at all. When you're ready to let go of your ex energetically, there are ways you can do it and do it so you don't hurt so badly.

Craig (06:20):

Everybody's like, please help tell me how to do it.

Margaret (06:24):

Yeah. First you've got to gently lift the cord up and out of your energetic body and let it fall gently to the floor in peace, in love for your own good. And for the highest good to do this, repeat this mantra, or use it as an example and create your own.

Craig (06:44):

Okay? So she wants you to kind of visualize a mantra.

Margaret (06:48):

Visualize it while you say this mantra to yourself, I release your energy from mine. I send you peace, love and compassion. I appreciate the love we shared, but now it's time to let you go. I wish you well, then literally imagine yourself lifting the cord up out of your heart and let it walk to gently to the ground. This will release you from their energy. So it doesn't continue to negatively affect you. If your ex wants to keep pumping hatred or blame or anger through the court, it will no longer be anchored in you. And that's his or her choice to keep doing that if desire, but you've literally unplugged

Craig (07:34):

From that person. Okay. That's an interesting visualization. I just kind of imagined like a, like a power cord going into your heart. And you're just like, and then you're like thoughts down on the ground, you know? And just like, you know, and so if there's anger and hatred, it spews out, but you walk, you left the court and you walked away. Yeah.

Margaret (07:58):

There's no longer that conduit, that cord that connection. So I thought it was useful. You need, you may need to do this several times until you really feel released from your ex's energy.

Craig (08:09):

Yeah, for sure. I definitely think you'd have to do that several times.

Margaret (08:12):

Yeah. I'm sure you would. Most people try to rip the cord from their body, leaving pieces behind like angry shrapnel that continues to poison you over the years. It's far better to take the arrow out and clean the area without leaving any of the barbs behind. When you released the energetic could between you, you may feel like there's a gaping hole in your heart to close the wound, use this mantra. I am whole and complete within myself. I am worthy of being loved for who I truly am. I am always connected to the universe. I feel love around me. And remember that I am never truly alone. When you were saying this mantra, imagine a beautiful, pure white light coming into your body and filling you with love. And I like the image again, of a hole in your heart. I've had so many people literally say that to me. You know, since my partner is gone, I feel like I have a hole in my heart. That is how you feel. Yeah.

Craig (09:19):

Yeah. For me, I felt like a giant gaping hole in my chest. Yeah. But yeah, heart too. But too, it's like, yeah. In your chest, it really felt like it. Yeah. It's just unreal.

Margaret (09:34):

Anyway, I'm not particularly into guided imageries either. But I liked this one and I thought the theory was sound behind it. Yeah.

Craig (09:44):

Because you know, you've talked to me about Freud many times over the year and how he believed in energy. Okay.

Margaret (09:51):

Energy. his whole theory. The steam engine was a fairly new thing when Freud was coming up with his theory and much of it is based on energy and energy flow. Hmm. Yeah. There's a little tidbit of useless information for you, but I, I saw the parallel here. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig (10:10):

And I really do think that somehow letting someone go a sense, it, they actually feel it and you've seen it in your work. I've seen it in mine. It's just, yeah.

Margaret (10:23):

Yeah. And then, and only then might you have a chance of reconnecting in a different way. You have sort of cleaned out the bad stuff.

Craig (10:33):

Yeah. And if you're processing and dealing with it, then you really get to a good place where you can try and start something good again. Sometimes I think there are just things that we don't have explanations.

Margaret (10:45):

Absolutely. There are. And I think there are kinds of communication that we can't explain yet. Yeah. This lady's name, if you're interested, is Erin Pavlina, if you want to look her up on the computer,

Craig (11:02):

It was called how to energetically let of an ex.

Margaret (11:09):

Okay. That's my story.

Why Is My Ex Silent?

Today we're going to be talking about: why is my ex silent?

Margaret (00:49):

The first question we hear, isn't it,

Craig (00:50):

You know, it's brutal. It's absolutely brutal to go from having somebody in your life on a daily basis at any given time, you can reach out and know that they're there for you, to not being able to talk to them at all. And not only that, they don't want to talk to you. That's the worst part. They don't want to talk to you. And it's shocking. And it's like, how is this happening? Right. I can't even believe this is happening. So we're going to talk about this today at a quick email, from somebody that gave us the idea to do the topic. They said, Hey coach Craig and Margaret, I hope you are safe and doing well. I have been struggling with being isolated during COVID-19 and just wanted to tell you the workbooks are keeping me sane.

Craig (01:39):

I love them. Good. Thank you so much for saying that. I was hoping you could do a video on why we don't hear from our ex right away. I am constantly checking his phone to see if he messages me. Isn't he even tempted to reach out? I would think he would at least miss talking to me. Yeah. This is a big question that we have of why aren't they reaching out? Don't they even miss me? Don't they even think about me. Yeah. That's why it feels like they don't think about us because their behaviors just such a drastic change where they've gone from, you know, connecting with you and talking with you and having a good time with you. I mean, sometimes even the week of saying, I love you. And next thing you know, they're like, nah, I can't do this anymore.

Craig (02:32):

I can't do this anymore. But that doesn't mean I don't love you, which is true. Yeah. And you're like, but wait, what can we talk about this? And the more you try and talk them into trying to repair it the more they're like, no, I just can't. And you're you spiral. And I know, cause I've done that, but you really just have to let them go. Yeah. Yeah. Because any attempts at repairing it, now aren't going to work, which affects us on such a deep level that we literally feel like we're going to die without them. Right. That connection is what makes us feel safe. And so to say to somebody, you know, okay. But I'll let them go. It's like, what? Now? I feel like I'm going to die without this person. Like literally

Margaret (03:16):

Feels like a physical wound. Like something was removed, like your heart maybe. Yeah.

Craig (03:21):

Yeah. And so just letting them go is one of the hardest things I think you ever have to do because everything inside you, everything your brain tells you to do is to repair it.

Margaret (03:34):

You even get extra hormones for that. We found out that your brain says, your primitive brain says, get them back. Here's a little more energy to do it, get them back now.

Craig (03:45):

And I think that what causes your brain to have the obsessive thoughts, right. You know where these obsessive, intrusive thoughts keep coming again and again and again, where you just can't get off of this carousel of obsessing about them, where they're at, what they're doing, who they're with.

Margaret (04:03):

It's noon. Have they thought about me yet today?

Craig (04:06):

I know what it's like. It's horrible. It's the worst feeling in the world. And you know, like as your day goes, "I'm used to talking to this person at this point in the day", you know, like I would call the Applebee's girl, as soon as I was done with part of my day, I at a certain time every day. And then it was like, aren't they thinking about me at this time? How could they not be thinking about me at this time? This is the time where we connect every day.

Margaret (04:33):

Really saying I'm used to talking to them at this time and I might miss it a little, but I'm kind of glad I don't have to do it. Cause they're still in the relief stage.

Craig (04:41):

Right? Exactly. Which we talked about in another video with the stages of what your ex goes through in no contact, check that video out. It's a good one. But yeah, I remember what the Applebee's girl, I asked her, I'm like, don't you miss talking to me at this time? Every day it was like three ish, three 30 or something like that. And she's like, no, I didn't even notice. And it was like, ah, how, how?

Margaret (05:04):

I don't even know if I believe it. If you're used to talking to somebody at a certain time of day, it's pretty hard to,

Craig (05:10):

I, I don't, I don't know if I necessarily believe her either. She doesn't want to let the wall down

Margaret (05:15):

And that's another reason why they stay so silent. They don't want to lift the wall.

Craig (05:20):

Yeah. And we're going to talk about, yeah, we're going to talk about that, but it's so overwhelming to go from talking to this person all day, every day, to them not wanting to talk to you for whatever reason, it's just the worst. You know, you're staring at that phone and you're watching their social media. It was so hard for me not to look at social media and Facebook all the time. Even, you know, people will get so obsessed with trying to connect with them that they'll watch when people are online and offline, different apps like Facebook, if you see that they logged in, it's now like, Oh, okay. I know that they're okay. Or if they're online with like WhatsApp or Instagram. Sometimes it'll show you they're still online. And you're like, Oh, I feel closer to them. We're online at the same time. We're connected.

Margaret (06:14):

Oh yeah, it's horrible.

Craig (06:17):

It is. And then we look at their social media for any updates and where they're at, what they're doing. And we, we tell you guys not to look, right.

Margaret (06:25):

And some people will say, I know I shouldn't. Yeah.

Craig (06:27):

Yeah. But it's, it's not going to help. Especially if you're watching this like a story. If they know that you're watching their stories on Instagram or Facebook, I wouldn't do that. And be very, very careful. If you look at their profile, you should hear how many people will tell me. I accidentally liked the picture and now they know, and then they tried to unlike it, but I know that they saw it. So you gotta be so careful about that. 

Margaret (06:58):

And that's not a message you want to give them exactly. It's not a message you want to give them.

Craig (07:03):

That's fine. Yeah. You don't want them to think that you're sitting there obsessing about them and wondering about them. You want them to wonder too, like you're experiencing because that's going to be more of an impact on them, right? So you're in this emotional state where your body is in primal panic. Your brain is obsessed with where they're at, what they're doing. And every second away from them feels like an eternity and you just want to repair it and reconnect. It's so hard. And we, we completely lose ourselves in a breakup because all it becomes about is them, where are they at? What are they doing? Right. That we neglect our own needs. We don't sleep. We don't eat. You may have stomach issues.

Margaret (07:50):

People complain about indigestion of some sort. You can't focus. You can't concentrate.

Craig (07:55):

Yeah. Your body's releasing chemicals in it. It's good to be, to get active if you can, to help with the chemicals. Right? Yeah. But you know, your ex is silent for a bunch of different reasons and we have some really good ones today that you're gonna like, because it's going to help you get their perspective more. As you may have heard in our other video where we're talking about the stages of no contact or what your ex goes through and no contact there initially feeling relief.

Margaret (08:27):

Yeah. They're feeling relieved because they're worried about this for weeks and months. Right. And so they're relieved

Craig (08:34):

That it's done. The breakup is over. They've made their decision and now they're in a state of, okay, I'm sitting with this. They may not be happy about it. The initial stages that they're just so relieved that they finally, you, what was bothering them, that they made that they were able to do it. You know? So one major reason that they're not going to reach out to you, they're not going to contact you is because they're afraid that if they do, you're gonna take it as them trying to get back together and repair it. Right. You know?

Margaret (09:15):

And there may be one part of them that wants to, and they don't want to go through this again, you know? Yeah.

Craig (09:21):

Right now they're okay with their decision. Right. Okay. Now we talk about feelings changing and it's absolutely true. But in the beginning, you're, if they reach out, you're just going to try and change your mind. You're going to do more of the manipulation, more the begging, more grand gestures, more handwritten letters. And it's only going to make them feel more and more frustrated.

Margaret (09:40):

It worked for us financially. Look at the money you saved. And I was paying half the rent.

Craig (09:44):

Yeah. If you're trying to tell him that. But, and what about visitation with the cat? Yeah. Yeah. Anything you're going to come up with to try and talk them into it. Right. But that's just going to put pressure on them and they're going to put their walls up even higher when you're putting pressure on them to try and get what you want. And eventually they're going to get annoyed, right? Yeah, of course. Sure. But in this relief stage, they're initially just trying to separate from you. Right. And the other big thing is that they're not going to know what to say to you. That's right.

Margaret (10:20):

I think a big one. What are they going to say? Are you okay? I was worried about you when I heard about the virus or the hurricane or the terrible windstorm. Yeah.

Craig (10:29):

It's an awkward state because here we have one person trying to repair it and, and talk them into fixing things. And the other person is like, no, no, no.

Margaret (10:40):

And yet I can't even think about a reunion.

Craig (10:43):

So they don't know what to say to you. And even if they reached out to you often, even if you heard from them once a week, right. No matter what you got, it's still not going to be enough for you. Right. As the dumpee, no matter how often they reach out to you, you're still going to want more. If, if they reached out once a week, you're going to want twice a week. If they reach out once a month, they're going to want twice a month. It doesn't matter. You're wanting to reconnect with them. So no matter what it is, you're going to want more. And nothing is going to feel like enough to you, unless they're actually saying let's fix this. So don't get too caught up in. They're not reaching out that often.

Margaret (11:29):

I understand that it would be unusual for them to reach out at this stage of the breakup.

Craig (11:36):

Absolutely. Another thing is that if they left you to date somebody else, they don't want you to know what they're doing.

Margaret (11:46):

And they don't want to hear from you about how you feel about it either.

Craig (11:49):

Because at that point they don't care. Right. That's how they're going to feel that that's at least how they're going portray it.

Margaret (11:55):

And that's pretty often the case. Yeah. Yeah. Is there people, you know, did have their eye on someone maybe, or, or after the, the sense of loss of leaving you, they got right on a dating site, which of course makes the, dumpee feel like they're lost forever already. And we'll go off into the sunset with whoever this is.

Craig (12:14):

So a lot of times they don't want you to know what they're doing. And a lot of times they're trying to hide what they are doing because in a way, to use the expression, "They don't want you, but they don't want you to find somebody else." Right. And that's true because they don't want to completely let you go. Because if you find somebody else now, they're going to feel like, Oh my gosh, now I've lost them. Right. So it's, it's an interesting balance of, I don't want to tell you what to do, but I can't stop you from doing what you want. You can date other people. And then if you do, then they're going to experience the loss and they're going to be scared again. Yeah. So they don't want you to know what they're doing. They don't want to explain to you what they're doing. Many of us would probably be pushing well, are you going out? Are you seeing anybody else? Are you dating anybody else? They're going to lie in a lot of cases. Yes. They do. Boldly, blatantly

Margaret (13:17):

A lot of cases. Yeah. Nor is it any of your business at that point? And that's true. It really isn't. That's true. It's so hard to hear that this person has ended it with you. So I don't want you to be part of my life anymore. And why would they tell you anything

Craig (13:31):

Now? Sometimes it's because they don't want to hurt you. Right. That's a big one. Yeah.

Margaret (13:35):

Yes. And I think it is genuinely a big one.

Craig (13:38):

Yeah. I mean, they don't want to hurt you. I mean, even though they're moving,

Margaret (13:41):

You're not, it doesn't mean they didn't like you and have love you and have feelings for you. Yeah.

Craig (13:44):

I mean, sometimes they're angry at you for if you mistreated them or something and then they do want to hurt you. But generally it's not that they want to hurt you. And you know, they don't want to ruin things if they change their mind and want you back. So maybe they're keeping it a secret that they're dating somebody new because they think, well, if they find out, then they're not gonna want me back. Right. So there can be some selfishness, some guilt.

Margaret (14:13):

I don't think anybody wants to hurt their ex partner. It's hard enough to do it. It took them weeks or months to work up the courage to do it. And they, they said, they're sad. And they feel guilty because even if they've been with you for a length of time or a year or more say than they feel like they're still treating on you, although they'll do it, they still feel a little bit.

Craig (14:37):

I like that. Yeah. And, you know, energetically, you know, pulling out of the relationship and it's exhausting. Right? You want to talk about that?

Margaret (14:49):

Yes. and I will talk a little bit about my friend, dr. Freud and the way he thought about grief, whether it's a death or a breakup or whatever, is that you have invested a whole lot of energy in your partner and the process of grief, which takes time, is the time when you slowly withdraw that energy from that person and it's time consuming. And of course, if you do it effectively over time, you will become less obsessed and so forth and so on. But you've expended an enormous amount of energy through the breakup. And you don't have much left when you're in that, you know, relief stage.

Craig (15:32):

So they're not going to have the energy to contact, you know, and to see how you're doing or to see what's going on before all those reasons

Margaret (15:42):

They're still recovering themselves. And we forget that. I think everything's just hunky Dory with them. Probably not. Yep.

Craig (15:50):

If it took all the energy to pull out of the relationship and disconnect from you and then what would happen if they reconnected with you, you would be desperately trying to get that repair with them, which would be an exhausting thing. Couldn't do it. They, yeah. They don't have the energy. They don't, they're not in the right place for it. This is why it often takes time to retract the next and have another chance with them.

Margaret (16:16):

And it's very hard to tell people that it's going to take time. I mean, they, the first question is how long is this going to take? And now I have people who very politely preface it with, I know you hate this question, but how long is it going to take? You know, it just depends. It depends different variables, the length and the quality of the relationship, what your family history is, what your history of attachment is, what your style is, hundreds of things go into it, you know?

Craig (16:46):

And, what about the grief process, Margaret, you know, that's exhausting,

Margaret (16:52):

Utterly exhausting, and it's really no different from grieving. Someone who has passed away. Part of the grief process is slowly withdrawing your energy. Part of the grief process is reviewing the relationship. And that's very important. You think about when you met and when you had your honeymoon period and some of the wonderful times you had some of the highlights of the things you did together. You're also gonna remember the not so good times when you fought and things were difficult and you felt unloved, or like, you know, your partner was ignoring you. So part of the process is also to review the experience and the relationship. Okay. And all of that takes time. Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, we're an instant gratification society now. And I think, although it's wonderful that we can find information as fast as we can. Some including human emotion require process. And I think we've kind of lost our sense of process, but you have to trust that process, the grief process, if you're reasonably healthy will take place and it will take place in its own time. Yeah. And you got it.

Craig (18:06):

And to give them that time to do it right. And in the meantime, you've got to work through it yourself and you've got to heal and you got to become a more confident version of yourself that you can show them that you've changed. And that if you get in front of them again, they're going to notice those changes. And they're going to feel that connection with you again, because you're not trying to manipulate them. Right. Like you were.

Margaret (18:37):

But when you're in that desperate state, it's very hard not to,

Craig (18:40):

It's so hard not to, we understand.

Margaret (18:42):

Right. But even if you've grown a little, it will be very important at your next contact. Cause your partner will see it. Feel, it sense it.

Craig (18:50):

It's totally normal for your partner, your ex, to be silent in a breakup. I would expect it.

Margaret (18:58):

It's no reflection on you. You weren't so awful that they had to totally block you out. It's not because you were awful. It's because it's part of what happens.

Craig (19:08):

And it's not necessarily reflective in if they will change their mind or

Margaret (19:14):

No. No, it doesn't mean a thing on that count

Craig (19:16):

Because we would expect most breakups, almost all breakups for an ex to need time and to be silent before they did an indirect, direct approach with you or reached out.

Margaret (19:29):

Yeah. Again, on the topic of grief. If you just look at religious practices, it tells you something the Jewish folks have an unveiling a year after the Catholics have an anniversary mass. And I'm sure there are many other practices that I don't know. So it's kind of like the world is saying, and the religions are saying, think in terms of process and think in terms of a year.

Craig (19:54):

Yep. Now we're not saying that it's going to take a year before y'all hear from your ex.

Margaret (19:59):

No, not at all, but it, it does tell us something about historical wisdom about the process.

Craig (20:05):

Exactly. Which is what we're trying to teach you is that breakups are a process and your job is to work on your personal growth as much as you possibly can and this time it's either going to show them and you'll get another opportunity with them again. Or you're going to be a much better, more confident version of yourself.

Margaret (20:29):

And of course, there's always a learning experience involved. Yeah. You know you may come out of it knowing more about yourself, more about the sort of person that you need to be with more about what your attachment needs and needs for closeness and distance. So critical. There are so many opportunities to grow, even though it's a miserable experience.

Craig (20:50):

Yeah, it is. Right. I do find that the anxiety keeps us driven though. So if there's one thing that I do love about our breakup, it's how motivated people are to change their lives. It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. And you know, if a breakup was easy, you probably wouldn't think twice about it and really wouldn't grow as a person. Right? So use the motivation. Nobody would have a partner for more than 20 minutes, use the motivation to grow and to change and to become the best version of yourself. We have hundreds of videos on it, and we're always looking for new ways to educate you guys. But the more you're focused on the personal growth stuff, the better off you're going to be. And the better off your chances are going to be to retract your ex.

Margaret (21:41):

But I'm just thinking again about the silence. Any silence gives an opportunity for anxiety to creep in there. You know, and more, more opportunities for you to beat yourself up. And then you think, well, I haven't heard from this person for three or four months, I must be a terrible person. No, it's not about that. Okay. And you didn't make this decision.

Craig (22:06):

Nope. And we're here. If you want to get our help personally, just go to my website, AskCraig.net, sign up for the coaching option that works best for you. I do email coaching and I do Skype. Margaret is available for Skype coaching. If you feel like I can be helpful, please sign up. Just click on Margaret on the top of the channel to do that. That's it for this video.