Hey guys!
I thought I would do something a little different with this episode of “The Ex Boyfriend Recovery Podcast.” Traditionally I have people call in and ask me questions. I then take those questions and answer them for about 20 minutes. But this last week was a little difficult since I was very busy.
In other words, I didn’t have the time to break down someone else’s situation and then record a podcast episode.
Instead, I figured I would give a lecture over a tactic that I have become synonymous with, the no contact rule.
I specifically wanted to talk about the situations where you are allowed to break the no contact rule (they exist.)
What I Talk About In This Episode
- What The No Contact Rule Is
- Psychological Reactance
- The Situations Where You Can Break It
- The No Contact Rule Book
- The “Seven”
- The Rule Of Four
- And Much More
Transcript
Emcee:
Welcome to the ex boyfriend recovery podcast. Where we help you get your ex back and have the fairy tale ending you deserve and now your host, he’s been dubbed as the ex whisperer, Chris Seiter.
Chris:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the ex boyfriend recovery podcast. Sorry I haven’t been really good with being consistent with these. There’s been a lot going on in my personal life and on the website that’s needed other attention but I”m back. So, you know it’s been interesting. Actually my wife and I, we just got a house. We literally bought our first house and we’re really excited to move. We’re moving from Pennsylvania to Florida.
So, the weather is going to be 10 times better and you know, our current living situation isn’t ideal because we live in this–almost kind of like this park area. There’s like a tennis court right outside our apartment. There’s–The Delaware River is outside our apartment. There’s also a pool that overlooks The Delaware River. We live kind of in a nice area. The only problem is the apartment that we live in was built in the ’70s and the ’60s and there’s been a lot of wear and tear on it and we actually have neighbors above us that are probably the neighbors from hell.
So, when we put our baby down, our child, Lily. When we put her down at night and even during the day for naps, they’ll walk around up stairs and they’re not very quiet about it. And since the floors are not probably as well made as some of the newer models out there, it’s almost like you can hear someone walking on the roof and it makes it difficult to work sometimes. It makes it difficult to have all of your energy putting into your child down to sleep and all of sudden they screw it up and wake her up and she’s crying. So, a lot of the things about the apartment have been aggravating us and we wanted to make a decision to move but probably one of the biggest added benefits in moving is I’m going to become more productive for you. I’m going to help more people because I’m going to have my own office.
Finally I get my own office. Our situation right now is we live in a 1200 square feet. No, not even that. Maybe just a thousand square foot apartment. It’s two bedrooms. My wife and I have a bedroom. Our daughter has a bedroom and then everything is out in the living room. So, we have a tv out there. We’ve got the desk where I work. We’ve got all of–probably the biggest part of our living room is our child’s toys and we have to put a gate up because she’s crawling and walking.
So, you know a lot of my energy personally lately has been focused on–it’s been focused on the website. I’ve been working a lot on the website, not just on the podcast but also on securing a home loan and everything that goes into that. It’s the first time I’ve ever made a purchase like this. I apologize for not being as consistent as I have been in the past but here I am.
I thought we’d do something really special today. So, instead of doing a question from the audience which I know a lot of you really crave. I think I wanted to lecture a little bit about myself. A talk about one of the most asked questions that I’ve been getting lately and it all revolves around the no contact rule. Specifically if and when you can break the no contact rule.
So, the no contact rule is without a doubt the most successful strategy for getting your ex back. Our independent research has proven that over 70% of our situations that are success stories, the people who come to our website who implement our advice and who actually succeed in getting their exes back, over 70% of them end up utilizing the no contact rule. So, that kind of trend is telling us that the no contact rule does work. It’s not hard to understand why. There are scientific–sorry, psychological basis for why the no contact rule can work. It utilizes a principle called Psychological reactance where it’s basically–Psychological reactance explains human beings have a set amount of freedom. We have the freedom to walk from point A to point B without being interrupted. We have the freedom to–well at a certain age. I guess not as a child but let’s say you’re 15 years old. You have the freedom to go down to your refrigerator and take it something to eat.
Well, psychological reactance basically states that when one of these freedoms, when one of these set freedoms that you believe that you have is taken away, you’re going to react to it. Usually in a way to try to get that freedom back. So, when you look at the no contact rule which is basically a rule stating that you’re supposed to ignore your ex for a certain amount of days. You’re depriving him of the freedom of talking to you.
He no longer has the ability to communicate with you and as a result of that freedom being taken away, he’s going to react in a way that makes him more likely to try to obtain that freedom. He’s going to contact you more. He’s going to miss you more and it’s going to raise your overall value in his eyes. So, I don’t think there’s any debate about the fact that the no contact rule is very successful but the no contact rule is also the one strategy on ex boyfriend recovery that people fail with the most. They’re constantly breaking it when they shouldn’t break it and they just fail. All it takes sometimes is their ex, just to reach out to them one time and all of a sudden they think they got him back and they respond to them. That’s not the way to approach things. So, I thought I just take the beast by the horns here and explain exactly when you are allowed to break the no contact rule.
Now, my stance on this has changed. When I first started ex boyfriend recovery. I didn’t really have a lot of experience in dealing with hands on situations. What I did was I just bought a bunch of books. I bought a bunch of products online. I researched and found what a lot of the experts out there were researching. And then slowly but surely as I gained more confidence with writing and my own writing style, I started slipping in my own opinions and then pretty soon, I stopped listening to what the research was saying and started putting more of my own opinions into the work and I also started looking at more of the situations where I was advising and seeing what would happen if I advised someone to do this thing and they did it. I would note, “Ok, well that worked. Well, that didn’t work.” And my stance on the no contact rule has changed.
Before if you were to pull up my very first article, I used to recommend that you cannot break the no contact rule no matter what. I think the only way I would allow someone to break the no contact rule is if they had to exchange items but my stance has on that has changed. I mean there’s things like children involved or if you work with the person or if you go to school with the person or obviously if you have to exchange things. Navigating these type of situations requires a bit of flexibility. You can’ t always ignore your ex completely. You have to have some type of alteration to the no contact rule to accommodate that.
So, the list of acceptable reasons to break the no contact rule are as follows:
If you have children, if you have a kid together. You obviously can’t stand the no contact rule forever. You have to communicate about that child. So, the best way of doing this is to enter into what I like to call, a limited contact period where you’re only communicating about the child and the communication doesn’t last for an entire day. It’s just a one small snippet.
The other acceptable reasons are if you have to exchange items :and they one alteration I made to this is you can’t use this as a way to see your ex. I noticed a lot of people try that. A lot of women come to the website and they want to see their ex so badly, they’re willing to, you know, try to exchange a toothbrush.
No, this has to be something sentimental or something that matters to you. Now, obviously if your ex asks for his things back from you, you have no choice but to break the no contact rule for this one interaction and then right after the interaction of giving your things back and having a tiny bit of small talk, you go right back into the no contact rule until you’re done.
The other reasons include, if you’re forced to work together and you have to communicate for work. just keep it about work It’s strictly business.
If you go to school and you run into each other. Don’t be kind of mean to him, just be a little stand off-ish but not mean about it, if that makes any sense.
And another reason includes, let’s see we did the kids, we did the exchange things, we did school, ah, living together. If you live together, it’s almost impossible to do the no contact rule because you’re going to be seeing that person every single day. So, enter into a limited contact rule and just don’t initiate any conversations with them but these are all reasons that I’ve covered on the podcast before. These are all reasons that I have talked about.
What happens hypothetically, if you’re in the middle of a no contact rule? Let’s say you’re doing a 30 day no contact rule on your ex boyfriend and he texts you and says, “Hey!” Well, I”m just going to assume your name is Jenny. “Hey Jenny, let’s get back together.”
What do you do? Do you break the no contact rule and get back together with him or you just stay in the no contact rule? Well, the whole reason why you would want to do the no contact rule, there’s two reasons why you want to do it. The first reason is, if you’ve wanted to get your ex back. So, in that case if you want to get your back, then you can absolutely break the no contact rule if he does those things.
The second reason is if you want to recover from the break up. If you want to get over him. In that case, probably not a good idea to break the no contact rule. But luckily for you, I’m guessing you want your ex boyfriend back. So, if that’s the case then what you need to do is break the no contact rule if he reaches out to you, wanting to get back together. But what if things are going well during the no contact rule?
What if you’re doing the no contact rule and he’s responded to you multiple times? And there’s a lot of other good things going on, are you allowed to break it? Well, let’s look at that. Let’s look at about that. Let’s look at that a little bit more in depth because my stance on this has changed as well. I used to think that you couldn’t ever break the no contact rule but that no longer holds true. I found that it doesn’t always work to stay stubborn with the no contact rule. Most people need to stay stubborn. It’s very rare that you’ll ever be able to break a no contact rule.
In fact, I’ve set up a certain system. I’ve set up 7 factors that you need to look at. 7 factors, if you have these 7 factors, you’re allowed to break the no contact rule. It’s pretty exciting right?
Well, let’s just go down the list.
The first thing you needed to determine is the length of the relationship. If you’re dating for a week, you probably don’t have a good chance of getting your ex back and you probably should give up. That’s my personal opinion but the length of the relationship is an important thing to measure when determining if you can break the no contact rule. Generally the speaking, the more serious the relationship, the better it is for you.
The next factor is how long you’ve been in no contact. You cannot break the no contact rule, three days in. Ok? It’s just not the case. But let’s say you’re 15 days in. Let’s say’s you’re going to do a 30 day no contact rule period, and then you’re on day 15 and all sorts of great things start happening, very positive things that would be indicative of an ex missing you and wanting to get back with you. Well, in that case, I might be able to say, “Hey, you know what Jenny, you can get your ex back.” You can break the no contact rule early.”
So, that’s the second factor. The first factor is the length of relationship. The longer you’ve been dating, the better. Meaning, probably the faster you can break the no contact rule. The shorter you’ve been dating, probably need to stay in the no contact rule a little bit longer. The second factor is how long you’ve been in the no contact rule. How long have you been using it on your ex?
The third factor is, was this your first break up? Off and on relationships, ironically have a good chance of getting back together but not necessarily a good chance of staying together. So, if this is your first relationship, what you want to determine is how long you’ve been in the no contact rule and you probably shouldn’t end it early. Ok? I’m sorry no. It’s the other way around.
If this is your first relationship, you might be able to end it early. If this is an on and off relationship, you probably should stay in it a little bit longer because it seems like you have a problem with fit flopping back and forth with your relationship.
The fourth factor is where are you in your personal recovery? One of the biggest mistakes that I see people making with the no contact rule is the fact that they only look at it in one way. They look at it as a way to make their ex miss them. To get their ex back but that’s not really what it’s meant for. It’s meant for personal recovery as well.
There is an interesting principle with that I have learned about by communicating with you and seeing a lot of your situations. There was a woman one of the very first podcast episodes that we ever did that–you know, she had a breakup. She went through the breakup and then she found that she started in improving her life.She got over her ex and she started kind of following her dream and she made a business and did all of this positive stuff and all of a sudden her ex comes back into the picture. I found that there is a positive correlation between getting over an ex and him finding you more attractive and I thought about why this happens. And here’s what I came up with: let’s say that you’re really distraught and hurt over the break up and you’re going through the breakup and you decide you want to get over him.
You start your road on personal recovery and you start to learn that the best way to do that is to feel good about yourself and implement this stuff that I talk about with the Holy Trinity: health, wealth, relationships. Really improving those aspects of your life and as you’re improving those aspects of your life, you gain confidence. And as you gain confidence, you feel more attractive about yourself and as you feel more attractive about yourself, you start displaying more attractive qualities to others and those others include your ex boyfriend. So, your ex boyfriend he’s watching you become more attractive to him in front of his own eyes through your own personal recovery and it just snowballs to the point where you become so confident in yourself and so, proud of yourself that it just oozes from you and he can see it and he takes this on and he finds you more attractive as a result.
So, personal recovery, when you’re doing the no contact rule, you want to start this process. You want to start actually getting over your ex. I know that sounds counter intuitive but I have found a positive correlation between getting over your ex and getting your ex back. It seems that women who do the best at getting their ex’s back are the ones who get over their ex’s first. I know it sounds weird but that’s the correlation I found based on the data points that I have. So, that was the 4th factor. Remember there is 7.
The 5th factor is what caused the breakup? The worst the reason, the less the chance you have of breaking the no contact rule. There is a reason for why the no contact rule works and why you should stay in it for a certain amount of time. Now, why? Why should you stay in it in certain amount of time? Well, let’s assume that you cheated on your ex boyfriend. If you were to break the no contact rule early, let’s say 5 days in you decide, “Oh, you know, I’ve got enough positive things happening here. This is working. I’m going to break it early and start the next stage at the process.”
Your ex boyfriend really hasn’t had a chance for his own personal recovery. That’s the painful part about the no contact rule. In the last point I talked about how your personal recovery makes you more attractive to other people but at the same time the no contact rule allows your ex to start getting over the breakup and as your ex starts to get over the breakup he’s going to start looking at things more rationally and when he can look at things more rationally, he can look at you and do the math in his head and say,”Wow, maybe I made a mistake breaking up with her.”
But when things like cheating are involved, things like cheating are involved, something really devastating caused the breakup, your ex may still –and you end the no contact rule early. Your ex may still be harboring resentment towards you. So, that’s the last thing you want. Believe me. It’s important to look at the reason for what caused the breakup because if it’s just a general breakup, it’s a mutual breakup, it’s probably easier for you to end the no contact rule more early. And then of course you need to look at the data point of who initiated the breakup.
Usually, you’re always in a better position if you’re the one who ends the breakup. I don’t know how to explain it. It just puts you in a better position. If he’s the one who ends the breakup, then he has a reason for doing so, I guess is what I’m saying and if he has a reason for doing so, that is a a head wind that you have to face and the more time that you have to repair for this process because remember the no contact rule is just a small little portion of the overall game plan that I teach, that more time that you have to prepare within the no contact rule for the other aspects better. So, that’s another data point that you have to look at.
And then finally, something I like to call, The Golden Factor.
So, so far there are 7 factors. I’ve covered 6. The 1st one is the length of the relationship, the 2nd one is how long you’ve been in the no contact rule, the 3rd one was: was this your first breakup, the 4th was where you are in your personal recovery, the 5th one was what caused the breakup, the 6th one was who initiated the breakup, and then we have what I like to call The Golden Factor.
The Golden Factor is how many times they’ve reached out to you in a positive way during the no contact rule. That’s important. In fact this is the most important aspect because them reaching out to you, your ex reaching out to you in a positive way, and remember that’s important. It has to be positive, it’s insight into their mindset. It’s insight into how they’re feeling. It’s insight into how they view you. Let’s say your ex reaches out to you in a negative way. Can you break the no contact rule? I mean he did reach out to you right? And that’s kind of what we’re hoping the no contact rule accomplishes. Absolutely not. They have to be positive. They have to be messages like, I miss you. They have to be messages like, “Hey, remember that one time we did this? And oh that was so great! hahahaha!” They need to be messages like that. That is what you’re shooting for. That is the most important factor. Ok?
Now, breaking the no contact rule, I am trying to make it as hard as possible for you to break the no contact rule by default. People often–I know what’s going to happen because I’ve dealt with this so long. People, especially when it comes to the no contact rule, will look for any type of excuse to break it and I am giving people a perfect excuse here because that’s literately what we’re talking about. So, just to explain the 7 factors to you. The 7 factors have to be present in order for you to break the no contact rule.
So, how do you break the no contact rule? When do you have my permission to do so? Well we’re going to talk about what I like to call, the rule of four. This is maybe, arguable the most important aspect to breaking the no contact rule. I know the golden factor is an important aspect of determining whether or not you can break the no contact rule but this is really what determines if you can break the no contact rule. So, I give you 7 factors.
These are the 7 most important factors that you need to look at if you’re going to consider breaking the no contact rule early. The length of relationship meaning, the longer you’ve been dating, probably the earlier you can break the no contact rule. There’s history there. There’s a lot of emotion involved. Someone putting time commitment into a relationship says a lot. That’s just what it says. The 2nd factor is how long you’ve been in the no contact rule. So, generally speaking you cannot break the no contact rule early if you’ve been in it for 5 days. But if you’re in it for 14 days for example, maybe you can start looking at that. The 3rd factor was, was this your first breakup? Remember of and on relationships have a great chance of getting back together but I don’t think they should break the no contact rule early.
In fact I think they should stay in the no contact rule for a full amount. Whether they do a 21 day period, whether they do the 30 day period or whether they do the 45 day period. The 4th factor was where you are in your personal recovery. If you feel you’re at a place personally where you’re confident or you feel better than you did when you first had the breakup, maybe you can start looking at breaking the no contact rule early. Then what caused the breakup? We already know we just covered this. If it was a really bad reason, you probably don’t want to break the no contact rule early. If it was a mutual reason or a pretty general reason, maybe start looking at it. And then you have, who initiated the breakup. It’s better if you initiated the breakup and then you have, how many times have they reached out to you in a positive way–The golden factor.
So, how does the rule of 4 fall into each of these things? Well, there are 7 data points. You need to have at least 4 of these data points to break the no contact rule early and the 1 data point out of those 4 that is non-negotiable, that has to be present is the golden factor. Meaning, you can have any other combination of the 7 but–I’m sorry. Maybe I should make this a little bit more specific.
You can have any other combination of this 7 to make up the 4 that you need to break the no contact rule but the 1 non-negotiable aspect of the 4 has to be the golden factor.
So, let me give you an example. Let’s say that you check off the length of the relationship. Let’s say you dated for like a year. Well, that’s a sufficient amount. Let’s say you also check off the first breakup. Let’s say this was your first breakup and you’ve never had an off and on relationship. Let’s also that you had a very mutual breakup. That’s good. And let’s also say that you had made significant strides in your personal recovery.
Let’s also say you’re shooting out to do a 30 day no contact rule. Can you break the no contact rule early? Let’s say around day 21 in this case? Well, that’s 4. Remember the length of relationship I just checked off, the breakup-being this was your first breakup, where you are in your personal recovery check and then what caused the breakup- a very mutual breakup. Are you allowed to break the no contact rule early? No. Remember the golden factor has to be present and your ex did not reach out to you with a positive communication. And this is not just a positive, it’s plural-positives. It has to happen multiple times. That’s another interesting factor about the golden factor. Your ex has to reach out to you multiple times for you to be able to break the no contact rule early.
So, let’s do another one. Let’s do another hypothetical situation so I really nail this down for you. Let’s say that you’ve been in the no contact rule for 21 days and you’re setting off to do a 45 day no contact rule. Let’s also say that this was your first breakup with the person and let’s say that you were the person who initiated the breakup and your ex has contacted you a total of 5 times and they were all positive. They were all positive ways of contacting you. Is that an acceptable reason to break the no contact rule early, let’s say at day 20? Yes. You can break the no contact rule early at day 20. You’ve been within the no contact rule long enough.
Let’s say this was your first breakup. Let’s also say you’re the one who initiated the breakup and your ex has reached out to you a total of 5 times. Well, you can break the no contact rule early in that case. The golden factor has to be present and you have to have an aspect of 4 of these things to be able to break the no contact rule early and I wasn’t always like this. I was very, very stern and stubborn about the fact hat you should never break the no contact rule. That’s because so many people take advantage of it and I feel like I just opened up Pandora’s box here by telling you the way I think about things now because I feel like a lot of people are going to try to take advantage of that and they’re going to harm their chances of getting their ex back and that makes me look bad but at the same time I’ve been watching very carefully –with regards to the no contact rule and with regards to people’s results, and I’ve found that often times, people do get their ex’s back when they break the no contact rule early.
So, when they break it early, it hurts your chances but it doesn’t hurt as much as I initially thought. So, there’s also circumstances, let’s say your ex calls you up one day, leaves a message because you’re in the no contact rule and you won’t pick up. Let’s say he leaves a message that he wants to get back together like immediately. Well, in that case you can break the no contact rule. I mean the whole reason that I”m teaching you the no contact rule is to improve your chances of appearing attractive to your ex and mission accomplish if he starts doing stuffs like that.
So, that’s today episode. We talked about the seven factors, the golden principle, the rule of 4, if you can break the no contact rule, when you can break the no contact rule, the acceptable reasons for breaking the no contact rule. This was an all no contact rule day and I know a lot of women out there like the format of the podcast where I answer questions and everything like that and I promise you that’s not going to go away. I’m still going to continue doing that. It’s just I wanted to do something special today for you and I feel like a lot of women are going to enjoy the format that I did here but the next podcast episode, we’re going to get back down to the way we’ve always done things, with taking questions from viewers and everything like that so, I’ll see you hopefully next week. Like I said, there’s a lot going on. So, I can’t guarantee I’ll be here next week but I’m going to do everything in my power. Probably the best way to get me to continue do this podcast episodes for the website and for itunes and for all the other venues out there is to talk to my wife. She is the one who is in charge of my schedule now. I found that whenever I am in charge of my own schedule, I don’t do any work. So, I put my wife in charge of my schedule to make sure I do work and a part of me really likes it because I’m more productive but a part of me hates it because she starts waking me up early and I don’t like getting woken up early. Anyways that’s it for today’s episode, I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll see you next time.
Emcee:
Thanks for listening to the ex boyfriend recovery podcast at www.exboyfriendrecovery.com