It’s the best day of the week!
Super Fantastical New Podcast Episode Day!
(Too much?)
Ok, I will tone it down for a second and get serious.
Today we are going to hear from a woman named Mary who asks a pretty basic question. So, why would I feature a basic question on the podcast? Well, it’s due to the sheer volume of times that I get asked this question.
The Question = Is It Too Late For The No Contact Rule To Work For Me
But first, lets do a recap of Mary’s situation,
Mary’s Situation
- She is 39 years old
- She was with him for 5 and a half years
- Living together for 4 and a half years
- They went to therapy (it didn’t work)
- He claims “he can’t fix himself”
- He moved out 2 months ago
- He appears to have had an emotional affair which turned sexual in nature
- Mary also broke a lot of the cardinal rules
- Wonders if she can do no contact
What We Talk About In This Episode
- My new book (The No Contact Rule Book) being released very soon!
- Why I think her ex strayed
- Dissonance Theory
- Why the no contact rule works
- When the perfect time to start the no contact rule is
Important Links Mentioned In The Episode
- REVIEW MY PODCAST… HERE
(I didn’t mean to yell I just figured I needed to make a statement! haha!)
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:
Hey! What’s up? And welcome to episode 42 of the ex-boyfriend recovery podcast. I’m really excited to have you here today. Just wanted to thank you for all of your support and how much you engage with the content that I write in ex-boyfriend recovery. I really appreciate it. Everyone in ex-boyfriend recovery team really appreciates it. We’re going to do our best to help you out. Alright, but before I get into today’s situation which ironically is about the no contact rule. I have a little bit of an announcement to make.
The announcement is, I just finally finished writing my book on the no contact rule. This thing is a monster. It’s huge. And to put into perspective how big it is, the first Harry Potter book—The Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was around 76,000 words. Well, this bad boy, The No Contact Rule book, the one I just finished writing. It is 70,000 words and it reads like a novel. It’s so in depth on the no contact rule. There’s nothing on the market place like this. This will be truly the first book of its kind because most books in the no contact rule focus on the aspect of healing from a break up. Well, this book focuses on the aspect of utilizing the no contact to get your ex back.
Now, I got to work on a few things to get this thing live but it should be going live really soon. I’ll talk about it on the podcast episodes to come. I’ll talk about it on the website. I’ll talk about it through email subscribers who have subscribed to my email. So, just stay tuned for that because very soon, this book is going to go live and I know you want an opportunity to get it. Now, that leads it perfectly to what we’re going to be talking about today. Today, we’re going to be talking about when you should use the no contact rule. So, let’s hear from our guest today. Our guest is named Mary.
Mary:
Hi Chris,
My name is Mary. I’m 39 years old. I’ve been with my boyfriend for 51/2 years, living together for 4 ½, really considering marriage. About 6 months ago, he told me he was unhappy and I found out he was having a long distance, kind of an emotional affair. I suggested we started going to therapy and we did. Now, he contended that was not the reason, he—you know, was having doubts about our relationship. That he was just an unhappy person and he was unable to fix himself in the context of our relationship. You know because I’m such a strong woman or something. Anyway, it didn’t get better in therapy and two months ago he moved out saying he needed more space. I tried to respect it and we continued to go to weekly therapy. He told that the emotional affair was over but about two weeks ago it became obvious to me that he was still not in a romantic relationship but a sort of sexual affair with this woman. So, we officially broke up. I had broken a million of cardinal rules because I have been wanting to work things out and even though I know it seems crazy, I do want him to come home. We had a life together and it’s been more than 5 years and I’m just wondering if I’ve already done too much damage? He seems very remorseful and tied to me still but is this the good start—like is this a good start for the no contact rule or has sort of—too much damage had been done?
Chris:
Well, thanks Mary for commenting. I know it takes a lot to pour your heart out in these messages or in these voicemails rather and it can be kind of tough to think about your situation or verbalize it. So, I just want to take a moment and thank you and I’m going to do everything in my power to possibly help you. So, I’m good. Alright, let’s get to it.
Quick recap of your situation. You say you’re 39 years old. You’ve been with your ex-boyfriend for 5 ½ years. You’ve lived together for 4 ½ of those years. He started some sort of emotional affair online with some girl. I don’t know if he broke up first. I can’t quite remember. So, you broke up. He had an emotional affair with a girl. You had tried to go to therapy, didn’t seem to work. He seems to claim that he can’t fix himself. Okay? He moved out two months ago and it seems that this emotional affair with this other woman has turned sexual in nature. And you’re wondering if you should use the no contact rule because you’ve broken a lot of the cardinal rules so far.
Alright, so your situation is actually relatively more normal than you’d think. I know it seems really tough in your own head or in your own situation but your situation’s a little bit more normal than you think. So, I don’t think you have a bad chance of getting your ex back. And, I’m not just saying that to blow smoke up your a-s-s. I’m saying that because I really believe it.
Alright, so, first things first. Let’s talk a little bit about why he strayed. Let’s try to understand what’s going on in his mind because from there we can kind of build out and structure a game plan around your situation. Alright, so he was with you for 5 ½ years and you lived together for 4 ½ of those years. Assuming he’s a little bit older, so, you said you’re 39. He’s probably around that age so, it’s possible he could be having sort of a midlife crisis type of a deal. I don’t know if he’s had other relationships or if he’s been married before. At that age, typically someone’s been married at least once. Maybe he’s divorced, maybe he has kids with the ex-wife. I don’t know the situation there. I would actually love to know that because that would be really telling for me to figure out, “Okay, this is probably what he could be thinking.”
To be honest, it sounds like he got bored. That’s really the best conclusion I’ve come up with so far. That he was with you, he’s kind of got bored with you maybe a little bit. He’s bored with the way things are. At the same time, I also don’t think he has a lot of self-value or self-worth, if he’s saying he can’t fix himself or whatever he’s you know—whatever he’s saying there. So, I think he could be a little bit of both. I mean often times when it comes to break ups and relationships, there’s no really one definitive reason for why a breakup occurs. Unless, there were some sort of cheating involved which here we go. This is—you know emotional affairs, even though they’re technically not physically cheating. They are emotional in nature. So, it could that he got kind of a taste of what attention from someone else other than you felt like. Not that you did anything wrong. This is just you know—men are scumbags. Sorry to break it you! [laughs] But, yeah he could have gotten a taste from someone else and had an emotional affair and attached some feelings to that and liked how it felt but often times these affairs they don’t last or stand the test of time. It’s rare in fact. I think there’s actually been studies done on that. So, yeah I think it can be any one of those reasons. Either he got bored of you and started stringing elsewhere. He doesn’t have a lot of self-value or he kind of got some attention from someone else and wanted to gravitate more towards that. It could be just a lot of—sort of a combination type of thing happening here.
Now, about the emotional affair, just, I’m not shocked that it’s turned sexual in nature now. Because often times that’s how a cheating and affair start. They start emotionally. Like you know—a guy talks to someone at work and he constantly talks to this person at work and the guy talks to this woman so much at work that he starts to rely on her advice for situations instead of his wife perhaps. And then, that just kind of grows and grows until finally it becomes sexual in nature. That’s often times how these emotional affairs turn to physical affairs. Which is why I say, even though emotional affairs aren’t technically a form of cheating, they almost always lead to cheating if they’re not nipped in the bud. So, they are dangerous. So, I think maybe that was one of the reasons why the breakup occurred. I don’t know exactly but let’s talk about the therapy.
I think it’s a little positive that he was willing to go to therapy. It seems like he is a little bit remorseful about the emotional affair or the cheating now or the sexual affair that he’s having. But it doesn’t seem like he’s willing to take the necessary steps for the therapy to work because often times, you can pull the weight of the relationship boulder yourself but really in order to move the boulder and keep it up, you need two people. It takes two. So, if he’s not willing to invest the time or do what it takes in the therapy to make it work—it’s really you can do everything right, there’s nothing you can do. It’s a two way street. That’s what I’m basically saying here.
Now, don’t let that get you down. I actually have something interesting to share with you Mary. It looks to me like he’s moved on to someone else but don’t let that get you down I think a lot of women freak out when they hear that. Really at this point, there’s nothing you can do. He’s with this other girl right now. Just give it some time. Actually what I did, is I took all the success stories that I have saved to my computer. I have actually two computers. One that was my old computer that I first started ex-boyfriend recovery on and one that’s a new computer that when the old computer got a little slow, I upgraded to this new computer. So, I had testimonials that sporadically I had saved to my computer from, god, all the way since 2013. So, there weren’t a million of the testimonials but there were enough to where it was interesting enough for me to create a report. To try to find some co-relations between some of the things that people who succeed in getting their exes back are doing and some of the things that people who are failing are doing.
So, I could figure out, “Okay. Here’s the tactics that work the best, here’s the tactics that really don’t work that well.” And, I did certainly find statistics like that but what was the most interesting part was the actual situation in which people recover their exes from. And the shocking part was some of the most difficult situations were the most prevalent. For example, cheating. Cheating, I had the second most success stories were in the cheating category which is shocking to me. And here is where it relates to you. They tied for the second most, with the exact same amount of successes with this cheating was, him moving on to someone new. So, it’s very, very possible to get someone back if he moves on to a new girl.
But your question specifically was about the no contact rule and if too much has happened for you to implement it. The point that I want to—I guess point to right here is the fact that you said that he moved out two months ago and you’ve kind of actively been trying to get him back or at least you’ve been displaying that. I actually think there’s no better time for you to do the no contact rule than right now because it’s actually really difficult to do a no contact rule which, I talked about in the no contact rule book that I mentioned earlier in this podcast episode. It’s actually really difficult to do the no contact rule if you live with someone. It’s kind of impossible because you’re going to see them more than you see probably anyone throughout the day. I mean you can certainly do things like limited contact and try your best to make it seem like you’re not going to talk to him but at some point you will have to communicate but since he moved out, there’s no better time for you to do the no contact rule.
Now, I talked about that sort of success story report I put together where I looked at all the testimonials that I had saved up and one of the things that I found that was most prevalent in the successes is that, 74% of the successes all use the no contact rule. So, it’s by far the most successful tactic for getting your ex back. Now, here’s kind of the cool part about the 74%. A lot of the people who I determined didn’t use the no contact rule, I didn’t have enough information to determine what they used. They simply responded to me with like, “Hey, thank you so much I got my ex back.” Or, “Got her back.” Or “Got him back.” Or something like that. There’s not enough information for me to determine what they actually did to get their exes back. So, that 74% number, you know the 74% of people who used the no contact rule, maybe something like 90% because the vast majority of situations who actually got back to me with details—I think actually all of them that got back to me, with enough details for me to determine like, okay what they did to get their exes back, all used the no contact rule.
So, if that doesn’t tell you how powerful the no contact rule is, I don’t know what else will. So, to answer your question, yes. Absolutely now is the time to do the no contact rule but here’s kind of where things get a little bit more interesting. You want your ex back and you mentioned that you put 5 years into this thing and you know, if you get him back, I’m assuming you want it to be more permanent in nature. You don’t want to go through in this cycle of an on and off relationship. So, no contact rule actually has scientific proof for helping that along. In other words, when you get your ex back using the no contact rule there’s scientific proof that it will help him stick around. Now, what’s the proof? Well, I actually talked about it in the no contact rule book. It’s something that’s called dissonance theory. Basically it states that the harder something is to get, or the harder something is to obtain, the more likely that person who obtained it or who have put the work in to obtain it, is going to cherish it once they have it.
So, here’s how it breaks down. You use the no contact rule in your ex. But let’s go into fantasyland here and pretend that you’re using the no contact rule on your ex and it works and you get him back. But here’s the part where dissonance theory comes into play. The no contact rule itself makes it more difficult for him to get you back, assuming he wants to get you back. So, the more difficult you make it for him to get you back, the more he’s going to treat you like the queen you are once he gets you back. So, the no contact rule actually has scientific basis for having that happen which is why it’s one of the most incredible strategies out there because it accomplishes so much at once.
Another really popular thing the no contact rule does is it actually works on getting him back on two fronts. Obviously, there’s the front that everyone talks about which is him missing you. You use the no contact rule enough, he’s bound to miss you right? Absence makes the heart grow fonder. At least that’s the idea.
The less talked about strategy of the no contact rule, the less talked about front of the no contact rule is actually the personal recovery front. Where you actually can move on without moving on. I don’t know if you’ve heard this before but stop me if you have. There’s a lot of people, a lot of women who experienced this phenomenon that when they want their exes back they can’t get him back. But when they finally move on, all of a suddenly he shows up again and he wants them back.
I’ve heard probably hundreds of women over the years describe this phenomenon to me. And it’s something I like to call was sort of –I guess the best way I can explain it is when he senses that you’ve moved on completely, you become more attractive to him. It’s sort of like that—I don’t know the best way I could describe it is maybe if you give a toddler a toy, well the toddler plays with the toy a bit and then throws the toy away. But if you show the toddler the toy and then take it away from the toddler, what does the toddler want? Well, he wants the toy back. Same principle here.
If you can prove that you’ve moved on with the no contact rule, if you can kind of move on, on purpose without really moving on internally. I don’t know how to describe it, other than it’s this interesting phenomenon that happens where he senses it and it makes you more attractive to him. So, the no contact rule—the reason it’s such an incredible strategy is it touches on so many things. It’s just one simple strategy but if you implement it correctly, it can do so many things for you and help you get your ex back.
Now, the thing Mary, I think you need to do is, if I’m going to recommend the no contact rule for you, I think you should do probably a 30 day no contact rule. Now, if you’re familiar with my website or any of the books that I’ve written, I talked about the three major no contact rule time periods. The 21 day rule, the 30 day rule and the 45 day rule. Now, some experts out there will talk about the 60 day rule or the 90 day rule but I don’t like recommending that because of something called the habit theory. Now, it takes 66 days on average to make or break a habit. So, let’s assume that your ex wanted to get over you and you’re using the no contact rule on him and let’s say you’re using the no contact rule for 90 days. Well, if he really wanted to get over you, it would only take him 66 days to get out of the habit of thinking about you and you don’t want that to happen. You want him to be constantly obsessed with you, constantly wondering why you’re not responding to his texts or constantly missing you but if you embark on one of this massive no contact rules—the 60 day rule or the 90 day rule, I think it’s getting a little too close and he could potentially move on from you. So, that’s why I recommend these three time periods for the no contact rules. But for you I think I’m going to recommend the 30 day no contact rule because there’s that aspect of the other girl and I think what needs to happen is he needs to kind of get a little bit of the grass is greener syndrome going on.
So, in that study I did where I talked about the testimonials that I looked at, trying to find co-relations between the successes and failures, the one thing without a doubt that I learned when it came to a man moving on to a new girl, is he almost always comes back to the original ex which is you in this case Mary, if he gets the grass is greener syndrome. So, it seems to me like you didn’t do anything wrong in the relationship. In fact it seems like you were actually pretty great in the relationship. It was his own internal kind of mess ups that caused the demise of the relationship. So, I think once he gets out there and experiences something new, he’s going to realize how good he had it with you and then potentially come back. So, that’s it. To answer your question, I definitely think you should do the no contact rule. I don’t think you’ve messed up enough to not use the no contact rule. So, definitely use that Mary and again the 30 day rule is I think ideal for you.
And that’s going to do it for this episode of the ex-boyfriend recovery podcast. If you’re interested in learning more, you can come by my website at www.exboyfriendrecovery.com and if you’re interested and like what you hear in this podcast please hop on over to Itunes and review it. All I care about is getting an honest review. If you hate the podcast, great. Go and review it and tell me how much I suck. All I care about is getting honest reviews. So, if you haven’t done that already, I urge you to please do that and also, I do want to mention that we have a YouTube channel now. So, if you want to see in depth videos on how to get your ex back or search strategies of getting an ex back, I recommend you hop on over to the Chris Seiter, S-E-I-T-E-R YouTube channel and that’s going to do it for today. I’ll see you guys next week. Bye.
Emcee:
Thanks for listening to the ex-boyfriend recovery podcast at www.exboyfriendrecovery.com