How to get another chance with your ex (2024)

Relationships can be tough.

Don’t trust anybody who says otherwise. If you are currently single and everybody around you seems to be in a happy blissful relationship, there are two things you need to know.

First thing is, relationships are never that perfect as they might seem. Social media nowadays is mostly about putting your best life out there for other people to see.

You won’t ever witness the struggles, the routine, the boredom or the fights every couple has to deal with.

So don’t get fooled by the cute selfies and the mutual Facebook profiles. Relationships are much more nuanced and chances are, you aren’t seeing the full picture.

Second thing is – relationships take a lot of work.

Sure, everything is super easy in the beginning- you meet, you fall in love and have a blissful couple of months, where you and your So are on cloud 9.

But sooner or later, the infatuation fades and you are left to deal with how to get along with your partner and not kill each other in the process.

I read somewhere:

If you feel you ruined a relationship with someone you are not ready to give up being with, know that more often than not, this is a good thing.

How so?

Because you have a chance to grow.

Life always tends to give us the lessons we need to learn at the time given.

Let’s say you have anger issues. Maybe you are a good and kind person, but your impatience often makes people feel you can be harsh sometimes. We are not here to assume your partner is a saint, because chances are they did something that triggered your frustration.

But it was your attitude that ruined the relationship in the end.

Why should you ask your ex for a second chance

Here is an unpopular opinion.

Though it’s super easy nowadays to get a date or even get into a relationship, to my mind you only fall in real love twice or maybe three times in a lifetime.

If you are lucky.

The problem with dating apps and dating life is they promote a culture of instant gratification. They make it seem like people are replaceable. You don’t even have to go out of the house anymore to meet real people.

All you need to do is swipe left and right, chat with somebody for an hour and if there is anything that isn’t pleasing you, you can just jump on to the next person.

Having sex on the first date has never been so easy.

And the problem with that is people get relaxed.

They get into relationships with the belief they don’t have to make much effort, because they can always fall back on someone else.

Sure, something better may always wait around the corner.

But you might also get unpleasantly surprised, because that’s not always how things unfold.

Truth is, If you had issues that seriously damaged the relationship, there is a high possibility that you’re gonna transfer them into your next relationship.

If you think about it this way – asking your ex for a second shot if you ruined a relationship is actually for you. Because by getting it, you will have a chance to fix a behaviour that is not serving you, evolve and get to experience healthier and more satisfying relationships.

Moreover, If the relationship would not work out regardless of your efforts in the future, you wouldn’t live with regrets and “what ifs”.

Some background breakup experience

I’ve been in some long term relationships that survived multiple breakups, so the advice I will give you is proven to work.

It has even worked on people who never went back to an ex before and were otherwise convinced that once a relationship has ended, there is no turning back.

So if you believe a second chance in love is what you want, proceed further.

How to get a second chance with your ex

The first thing you need to realise is, it matters why the relationship ended.

Here, we are talking about a situation where your ex loved you but for whatever reason they got so much disappointed in you, their feelings changed.

Thus they decided to get out of the relationship.

This plan might not work if your partner cheated on you or if trust has been majorly violated due to domestic violence or other harmful behaviour. If those things happened, my advice for you is to get the support you need and cease any contact with your ex-partner.

If you think you screwed a good relationship….

If your partner broke up with you because they had enough of your attitude, you must know that he/she feels majorly victimised right now.

They have probably been building a lot of negativity inside for sometime, without you being aware of it. Or perhaps they might have told you about it but you didn’t take it seriously.

Either way – the end result is the relationship ended and you are on the receiving end.

Your ex is so done, chances are they want nothing to do with you and stay as further from you as possible.

If you are convinced their feelings for you were strong and they still broke up with you , then something about you must have been bothering them very much for quite sometime.

Now that they ended it, all they feel is relief.

If your ex broke up with you, this means they want nothing to do with you anymore. Hence, communication with them is NOT on equal basis and you are not in a position to want anything at all.

You can’t negotiate anything out of the relationship, simply because there is no relationship.

The relationship ended and with that ended any obligation of your ex to be kind, understanding and even reasonable with you.

What’s more – If you annoyed them strong enough and they are not mature enough, they might even lash out and act mean and cold towards you right now.

They might be irresponsive to any attempt of you to contact them. Or they might be giving you one-word answers. Your ex seems like an alien, landed from a far away planet.

Here is how the post-breakup dynamics look:

Once your ex realises that you want to work towards getting into a relationship with them again, they will start to act annoyed and defensive.

In their mind, they are justified to feel this way.

After all, if you only now started acting how they wanted all along after they broke up with you, chances are you are trying to manipulate them to do what you want.

Given this, your ex might refuse to answer your calls and messages and completely ignore you.

They may even laugh at your promises and you professing your undying love for them. And this might seriously hurt your self-esteem.

Because your ex is barely recognisable, you might feel the situation is hopeless.

I’m here to tell you it is not.

Even if your ex acts in the most humiliating way possible towards you at the moment, in order to get through it you must forget yourself for a bit.

Forget your ego

You must forget everything you thought was “saving your dignity” and sayings like “if you love somebody set them free”.

Can you guess what happens if you don’t forget your ego?

If you gave up right now and went no contact, thinking your ex will come to their senses and come running for you, you are deadly wrong.

What I am about to tell you will hurt, but I am gonna do it anyway.

This won’t work to re-attract your ex, because right now your ex doesn’t love you anymore.

Even if they have feelings for you, those feelings are not strong enough to make them want to stay with you.

The only thing which will work if you really want to get your ex back, is to swallow your pride.

Apologise sincerely to your ex and ask is there anything you can do to make things right. Your ex won’t be in the mindset to negotiate anything with you and will most likely tell you to leave them alone.

This is exactly what you have to do, but not before you’ve tried really hard to convince them that you deserve another chance. If each and every one of your arguments why you should stay together comes to a dead end, apologise sincerely one last time and leave them on their own.

NB: by “really hard” I don’t mean in any way you should cry or act overly emotional and make a scene.

At any cost you should keep it cool even if you show persistency. The end goal is to express your honest motivation to make things right. Even if your ex says “no” to everything you say, don’t give up when they turn you down even before you’ve opened your mouth.

Here is why:

Your ex is going to say NO to everything right now anyway.

The more you keep going, the more they will keep saying NO, even out of stubbornness. But when you will leave your ex alone, they will have nothing but their thoughts.

If you gave up too soon, they are going to think: “After everything that happened, it’s the first time he/she realised my worth. And they gave up so easy! He/she was never really thinking to change because change requires effort. They are even lazy to make an effort to convince me! Nice try, I was so right to ditch him/her!”

But if you were persistent, do you know what happens? They might have rejected you right away, but later on, when you are gone and days go by, they will start to get a bit more unsure of their decision.

But we will discuss that later.

Give your ex a few days without you

By “a few days” I would say you leave your ex alone for no more than 5-7 days. Your ex needs time to think about everything that happened.

If you don’t give them that time and keet pestering them for another chance, you could seriously annoy them and kill any ounce of attraction they may have previously held towards you.

More than a week away and you let them slowly get used to living without you.

During those few days, your best shot is to go full no contact – no texting, calling, going to their place etc. It’s best to disappear from social networks as well. You have to do those things in order to give your ex some time to process the breakup.

Keep the communication channels open

While I firmly believe going full no contact is the only way to heal from the breakup, I don’t think establishing no contact will grant you even a medium chance to get together with an ex.

Especially in a situation where your ex left you, because they were so fed up with your attitude.

Sure, they will occasionally miss you when you don’t hear from each other, but truth is that as days go by, the connection between you weakens. One big reason why dumpers miss their dumpees, even though they ended the relationship, is habit.

You are used to being with your partner, doing things together and most importantly talking every day.

After the relationship ends, this routine also ends abruptly.

Initially, both of you experience some degree of stress (which is usually more for the dumpee than it is for the dumper), because you need to get used to living your new lives.

As time goes by, you get used to this new routine without your former partner. This is the reason getting back together becomes more unlikely, as time goes by and you drift apart.

After you gave your ex a week to cool down, your next task is to establish some form of communication.

I would generally recommend you reach via text because a call out of the blue might be perceived as too aggressive.

Whatever your message is, it has to be short, laid back, positive, nonchalant and somewhat neutral.

By no means should you write your ex lengthly paragraphs of text, professing your feelings, promising to change, analysing the breakup or overwhelming them in any other way.

Some examples would be: “How are you?”

“I saw this (…….) movie today, (preferably something your ex is interested in). it’s unbelievable with so many positive reviews it’s still mediocre”

“I’m finally making a breakthrough with my project”

an interesting article or something similar.

By doing this you achieve two things.

First, you show you want to connect with your ex. Whatever happened, we are biologically wired to be flattered when someone expresses interest in us, even in very tiny amounts.

Second, by not being pushy or dramatic, you are showing that you don’t want to get anything more from this person, rather than to talk with them.

Identify what needs to be changed and just do it

There is really no point in trying to get a second chance with your ex if you are not gonna fix the issues on your part that ruined the relationship.

You will lose both your time and you ex’s time.

So commit to working really hard on what you think needs to change to make this second chance worthy.

It could be anything from you being non-committal, lazy, over-depending, unambitious, inappreciative, rude, struggling with addictions etc.

As far as your ex is concerned, this ended the relationship. And you need to fix it for two reasons – first, because you obviously don’t want to lose your ex but most importantly- for yourself. If you have issues that are making love relationships hard, you need to fix them.

Opt for being friends while fixing your image in the meantime

Yeah I know, I know. This is something nobody wants to hear – to willingly put themselves in the dreaded “friend zone” with somebody they have feelings for.

But you need to understand one thing.

It’s impossible to get back in a relationship with your ex, as long as your ex holds negative feelings towards you. If they don’t think of you as someone of high quality, they won’t want you in their life.

Whenever you can, try to make their life easier by performing selfless acts of service. Keep the communication light and make sure every interaction is as pleasant as possible. Ditch your ego and try to let any biting remarks they might make slide away.

Just be there for them and use indirect ways to make it known that the issues your ex left you for, are no longer present.

Keep the balance between being there and giving your ex space

The end goal is to convince your ex without saying it directly that :

1. You changed for the better
2. You became a person of high value and your ex will be foolish to not have you in his/her life
3. You have genuine interest in your ex and their wellbeing
4. You will be okay even if you don’t get back together

If the last two points might seem a little contradictory, hear me out.

The moment somebody senses you’re too eager to be with them, they will run away. They will instantly become suspicious and put the barrier so high, it will be impossible to get under their skin. This is the law.

So in order to prevent this, you must let them breathe. By no chance should you call and text them every other day.

You need to put on a brave face and act like the breakup didn’t affect you at all.

You are not getting back together with your ex. You are starting a new relationship with them, because the last thing they need right now, is to be reminded in any way of a relationship that failed.

Do you know why you have a big chance to succeed?

Because people hate to lose.

They’ve put their time, money, energy and efforts in a person and a relationship that didn’t work. This means they failed. Nobody wants to admit a failure.

Failure means you need to start over and try to build a relationship with someone else from scratch. This means you need to put the equal time, money and energy into getting to know someone new and make things work.

What are the odds you won’t fail again but much worse?

This fear, combined with the fact that your ex already knows what to expect from you, works in your favour. Familiarity is comfortable.

If you instill the doubt in your ex's mind that maybe the relationship can change for the better, you are also offering them the opportunity to think that they didn’t fail and the time together wasn’t lost.

Spend time together without expectations, don’t force labels and don’t talk about the past

Start seeing your ex on a regular basis as friends.

Don’t try so hard to “show” them you changed, let your attitude speak volumes.

Let your ex become re-attracted to you once again. If you end up being intimate, don’t ask them “are we together now” and don’t force labels.

What will most likely happen should you play this right is, you and your ex will slowly become close again and get into a relationship in a natural way.

Of course there is always a chance things would not unfold that way.

Your ex is a person with free will and they could still decide they would want to start over somebody new or even start going out with other people while you sleep together.

And this is okay.

Because you not only did everything possible to rebuild your connection with your ex, but you also matured in the process and really learned a valuable lesson.

There is no bigger motivation to change than the breakup pain.

Be sure that the positive change you made post breakup, will guarantee that you won’t make the same mistakes in your next relationship.

And ironically what usually happens at this point (normally around 6 months into the breakup) is you finally give up trying to win your ex over.

You might be sad things didn’t work out in the end, but unlike immediately after the breakup, you are now at piece you did everything, which allows you to move on in piece.

And this is usually the time when your ex is so used to receiving such a great treatment that losing it all of a sudden strikes like a bolt. And they finally come back to you.

In conclusion

The advice I am giving you in this article might seem the opposite to everything you’ve read before.

But it’s based on real breakup experience.

The think about does not copy theoretical advice you see on every other website. It is based entirely on practice and experience.

I sincerely hope the article helped you get the breakup insight needed on how to get a second chance with someone you love.

Did you get back together with your ex? Drop a comment below.

TheThinkAbout is a website based on psychology in practice and experience. Like the articles? Subscribe to never miss anything. If you want to support this website, you can do ithere.