Watch the subtitled video above if you prefer to listen to my advice.
Outgrowing your ex girlfriend through personal growth — it’s the green kryptonite that weakens even the most disappointed, angry, stubborn ex girlfriend on the planet. Even if her resolve to resent you is as strong as the man of steel, your ex will be drawn to you like a magnet once you overcome your breakup suffering and rise like the phoenix from the ashes. Your ex can’t ignore you when you rebuild yourself after a breakup and become so attractive as a man that many women will thirst after you like they thirst for Henry Cavil. And all her doubts that she had about you will disappear because the mental model that she remembers in her head does not match what she is seeing in the real world.
And that’s when she will feel dumper’s regret. Female dumper’s remorse arrives like a last-minute plot twist in a movie. When you watch a thriller like TENET, where the last 5 minutes completely recontextualize the entire plot, it leaves the viewer in awe and with a little bit of confusion — and the only way to fully make sense of what had just happened is to re-engage and watch the movie one more time. Or in your case, when you stop being miserable, and instead become a beacon of masculine strength, your ex girlfriend has to get in touch with you again.
So, I got a message from a man who has been doing great after his breakup. and he went from the very common breakup desperation that makes a man think “What the fuck is wrong with my life?”, and instead he turned it around and now his ex girlfriend is the one who’s thinking “What the fuck just happened?” after she met him at a party. So, let’s get into it.
Becoming Insecure in the Relationship: Realign Yourself when you Become Needy with your Girlfriend
Hello coach, I need your advice on my next step with my ex-girlfriend. I made a lot of progress with her in the last two months and I want to make sure I don’t backtrack or make any mistakes. So here’s my story. I broke up with my ex about one year ago because of a lot of issues. I think frankly, there were mistakes on both parts. I had grown very insecure around that time because I wasn’t doing too well with my job and that was reflected in the relationship. I became very passive and kind of beta in my behaviors, to be honest. I then became too ‘aggro’ with her and felt threatened because I felt like I was no longer the man in the house. So that was my mistake.
Projecting insecurities on your girlfriend when you don’t have your ducks all in a row, and then indirectly blaming her for your problems is a very common mistake that a lot of guys make in relationships. A good woman is going to support you when you’re overwhelmed, but for that to happen, you need to communicate with her. That’s not an encouragement that you need or should cry to your girlfriend about your problems. State your problems stoically. She should be kept in the loop about which battles you are fighting. A woman will trust a strong & tenacious man like a sailor trusts his experienced captain to safely get to the next destination.
A woman wants to be with a man who provides. Financially & emotionally. She desires stability from her man. There’s nothing worse than bottling up all your problems, not resolving them, and then becoming unstable as a result. Not providing stability for a woman always leads to breakups. But not acting as her fundament is only part of the problem. Of course, when you let out your problems on her, not only does the fundament of the relationship slowly crumble — no, you’re also smashing the ground beneath her.
Whether or not you tell your girlfriend about your problems and let her in on your process of how you plan on resolving them, you always need a valve to release your stress. Have something going outside of the relationship that helps you release the tension so that you don’t release it on your girlfriend. Find something that keeps you high energy even if you don’t feel at your best
- Never stop doing sports — Hit the gym, do weight lifting, go fur runs, do HIT workout, or high impact sports like boxing
- Buy some supplements if you can afford them — some may be out of your price range, but many supplements like Vitamin D or Vitamin B1 are simple & cheap ways to lighten your mood and increase your energy & mentality
- Do something that fulfills you unrelated to your social status, such as community-building, organizing events, or volunteer — simple activities that give you purpose aside from your career
Life will never be perfect. There will be moments when a curveball comes out of left field and knocks you off your game. If you are in a relationship with a woman, always prepare yourself for resiliency. Sometimes there’s no other way than fight through your problems alone and manage your girlfriend’s needs simultaneously. And at other times, you got to turn to your girlfriend to fight through them together. No matter what you do though, don’t choose to let your frustrations out on your girlfriend. When in doubt, remind yourself that your girlfriend has to be your support system — she’s the one who should believe in you to find a solution to your problems. It’s unnecessary to be a beta male about your challenges. For example, if your career makes you unhappy, you can let your girlfriend in on the fact that you want to make a change with your career and tell her about your plans.
- “Babe, I’m not too happy with work lately. I feel like it pays too little for the stress I’m having”
- “I’ve been thinking of doing a coding BootCamp on the side during the weekends to see if I can shift career”
- “I want to work less, not more, and I think this will help both of us.”
- “I might not be able to make time for us during the weekends but this will be worth it. Trust me.”
Simple, positive messages to your girlfriend. No whining. No bitching. No weak mindset. You identify the problem, you tell her how you want to solve it, and you show her that you’re going to pursue your aspirations with positivity rather than negativity.
You should always maintain your sexual market value (SMV) even if you’re already in a relationship. Being at your best should never stop. Otherwise, if you become depressed, weak, insecure, low-energy, defeatist, angry, aggressive, and so on, then your girlfriend will feel like she is climbing the social ladder, whereas you are falling down the ladder. Even the best woman on the planet will not stay with her man forever — so always work with your girlfriend instead of working against her.
Female Dumper Remorse: Does the Dumper Ever Regret their Decision? Is your Ex Sorry?
On her side though, I think she also made mistakes. She basically got hit on by some guy and while I don’t think she cheated, she certainly didn’t dislike the attention she got from that guy because of my behavior. In the end that turned into a big fight, and it led to the breakup, and the breakup was mostly driven by me. I saw red when I saw some other dude hitting on her and I was furious back then.
But that was also the problem. I was too emotional back then and didn’t first talk with her about it. So I regretted dumping her because I didn’t tell her first how I felt about the whole situation. And of course, I did the stupidest thing on the planet. I begged her to get back together with me, but the relationship was done. I didn’t beg very long because I knew it was a shitty situation that I couldn’t have changed, and she was very cold after I broke up.
It’s classic behavior of a girlfriend starting to appreciate the attention from other men when the boyfriend doesn’t make her happy. Most women have an invisible barrier around them when they are in love and happy with a man — no matter how many men try to make a move, she’ll never let anyone else in. She let her guard down. You shouldn’t ignore that. She probably wasn’t “cheating”, but this could have been close to emotional cheating. I understand that you are the one who dumped her out of anger, but to an extent one could say that her accepting the attention from another man — even if it was harmless — was a subconscious decision to slowly fade out of the relationship. We don’t know where this would have gone if you hadn’t dumped her back then. Would she have attracted more attention from other men? Or would this have been the sign for her to initiate the breakup with you? Either way, it is her who wasn’t happy with you and she decided to take the first step that lead to the end of the relationship.
If she comes back to you, you should make sure that she feels remorse about how things ended and that she is sorry for being neglectful towards you. You don’t have to accuse her of cheating. I actually wouldn’t really call it cheating yet, just the typical death spiral of relationships. But she should not be happy about how the relationship ended.
The way it should have gone down is that she would have broken up with you eventually. Now, of course, it didn’t happen because you broke up prematurely, so you messed up on that side. But, just to play out the scenario, when you as a man like the attention from another woman because you’re not happy with your girlfriend, then you’d either break up or you’d recognize that there’s something massively wrong in your relationship and you’d address it with your girlfriend. Or you would simply try to reconnect with your girlfriend in an attempt to get back to a baseline of relationship happiness.
So in the end, there was no open, honest conversation about the problems in the relationship. Certainly not from her side. She was the one who was less happy with you — at least that’s my assumption. You both made your own mistakes but it’s your ex girlfriend who walked away for good in the end, so she needs to be sorry and deeply regret the breakup.
Otherwise, if your ex girlfriend does not regret the breakup, it’s a big red flag. And yes, just because an ex-girlfriend reaches out to you and wants to see you does not automatically mean that she regrets the breakup — what she regrets is that she no longer has your attention. But she also needs to regret losing you because she loves & values you. Dumper’s remorse should be triggered by love — not purely by desperation or loneliness.
Who Broke Up with Whom: I Dumped her and Regret It a LOT — Now I Want Her Back
And the bottom line is that you may have dumped her, but it is she who no longer wanted you back. She effectively rejected you when you changed your mind about the breakup. This makes her the unofficial dumper. The reality is that most likely, she would have broken up with you eventually anyways, since you were already losing your edge, and she was starting to feel unhappy with you — as indicated by being more open to gaining attention from other men. And your behavior also reflected that she’s the “real” dumper:
- You were the one who chased her and begged
- You were the one who had massive breakup regret after a short while
- You were the one who apologized or expressed that breakup regret to her
So although you dumped her and that may have been painful for her at first, she turned into the dumper when you started chasing. You already had insecurities or neediness during the relationship. That was reason #1 for her to walk away from you. Then you begged and pleaded. That was reason #2 for her to walk away from you. What really turned your ex girlfriend off in both situations is that you weren’t in your masculine frame. This is why it all started falling apart. You lost your edge and became weak and then doubled down on your weakness. But we’ll see, that you fixed the error of your ways.
Learn from your Breakup: Don’t Blame Yourself for Everything and Use No Contact to Improve
At first, I blamed myself heavily for my mistakes, but after some reflecting, I recognized that even though I don’t think she cheated, she did not handle this well either. And so I decided to go no contact back then for myself because as much as I loved her, I wanted to focus first on myself because I had the realization back then that I think neither of us wanted to be like that. We both were flawed people. We both weren’t happy and we made mistakes and at least for me, this was an eye opening experience because this is the longest relationship I’ve had. Everything before was just short max. 6 months relationships. I came to the conclusion that something was broken. Not just in the relationship, but with us as individuals.
It’s great that you recognized that something was broken in the relationship. Some men & women blame the other person on what went wrong and don’t take full accountability, but in almost every relationship both partners contributed to the breakdown of the relationship — it takes two to tango after all. Even with a fairly toxic woman, there’d probably be some aspect of how you played your part in why the relationship sucked, even if it’s just about the fact that you choose to date toxic women in the first place.
Recognize your flaws in the relationship, however, never go to extremes after a breakup. Don’t blame your ex too much, nor should you blame yourself too much. Personal growth after a breakup can be a double-edged sword. On one side, it can massively help you grow. On the other hand, when done wrong because you blame yourself too much and believe that you desperately need to change your flaws, then there’s also a risk that you will have the wrong motivation and follow an unhealthy version of personal growth where you become obsessed with growing.
The best thing you can remind yourself of after a breakup is that all the lessons you will be learning from now on will be semi-temporary. You can read a book about how to better understand your girlfriend’s needs with a book like “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” and you will internalize these lessons for some time, but then they will fade back into the archives of your mind, and you’ll probably only recall that knowledge when it’s needed again — sometimes when it’s already almost too late. Making mistakes and reacting emotionally charged to relationship problems is human. You’ll make more mistakes in the future. So the best thing after a breakup is not to try to be perfect but instead try to be better. Congrats on working hard on yourself and addressing your own shortcomings. Going no contact to find time for yourself to heal, understand yourself better, and to see the entire situation in a new light is always the best approach to re-attract an ex, or even just for moving forward in life.
Your ex hopefully will have done the same kind of work. Just as it always takes two to tango, an ex girlfriend almost always has her own flaws. In your case, she probably needed to learn that becoming neglectful and starting to pay attention to other guys is not the right thing to do in a relationship. If you get back together or if she shows a lot of interest in getting back together, she hopefully addressed this issue, or at the very least, she will be open to addressing it when you both consider getting back together. Not every woman has the aptitude to change after a breakup — such as narcissistic women. I don’t think your ex is highly narcissistic but keep it in mind.
No self-reflection and growth in the world will improve the situation with your ex if she’s not willing to take ownership of her own mistakes. The reason why I mention this is because some guys go too far down the route of repeatedly looking for flaws in their character. You can massively mess up and still let it go at some point. Just as erring is human, so is forgiving yourself for your flaws and moving on, and trying to do better in the future. Always maintain the ability to draw a line in the sand and that defines how much you’d like to improve yourself and everything beyond that is only nice to have for the next woman that you’ll date if your ex doesn’t get back with you. Never forget to be proud of your achievements and the changes you’ve made after a breakup.
I Saw my Ex at a Party: Confidently Talking to your Ex Girlfriend after No Contact & Surprising her
I guess hindsight is 20/20, but yeah, I learned a lot about myself from this whole experience. The breakup was earth-shattering and made me re-evaluate a lot of things about myself and gave me many new perspectives in life. I used that momentum to change for the better and so ever since we broke up, while I did no contact in the hopes that we could have a second chance, I didn’t try to win her back. I tried to find something more meaningful in my life and get to a better place and that has worked great for me.
Now, that’s where I am at right now. Two weeks ago, guess who I ran into? My ex when going out for drinks. We were at a karaoke bar, just chilling with friends, and she happened to sit on the other table and we actually had a brief conversation when I was buying some food and drinks. She waved at me and basically asked me to sit down with her. We talked for like 30 minutes, but then I told her that I had to go back to my friends. When I got to my table, my friends were all teasing me lol.
I am certain that everything about you felt different to your ex when she ran into you. You went from being unhappy with your job, lacking confidence, and chasing her, and now you were out for drinks and enjoying your life with your friends. When a man is happy with the results he’s getting in life, his entire aura changes, and women are unable to ignore him — this includes exes. You did no contact the right way by prioritizing your growth, rather than using it as a strategy to re-attract your ex. This is why you are in a powerful position. You hold the key to your happiness instead of handing that key over to your ex-girlfriend.
However, for any guy who is working on himself and prioritizing building his empire and becoming attractive, don’t feel bad if you still felt nervous when you ran into your ex girlfriend. Studies suggest that everyone dreads running into an ex girlfriend. Post-breakup, thinking about an ex-girlfriend, hypothetical scenarios of running into her, and constantly overthinking what to say or do is commonplace. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling, but you handled the situation perfectly! The vibe you gave off was one of overflowing confidence, happiness, and fun. The entire evening was focused on having a good time. Even when you ran into her, you kept your cool and confidently talked to her without overcomplicating anything. There’s no doubt your mentality itself left a lasting impression on your ex girlfriend. The dumper’s regret must be boiling up after she saw you being so confident.
You did not mention explicitly which things you’ve been focusing on, but for anyone in a similar position, I highly suggest hitting the gym. Looking more attractive through a little bit of workout is the easiest way to raise your perceived value in the sexual marketplace. Building status, becoming a shaper and maker in your industry, and building a successful business or career are things that take a lot of time. Workouts on the other hand will show fast results no matter where you are in life. Whether you lose a few kilos, become leaner, or become a bulked-up Gigachad, prioritizing your physical health is a fast way to become more attractive after a breakup. You might even still feel a little nervous in front of an ex-girlfriend but looking attractive is something that nobody can take away from you.
It feels great when the progress you’ve been making after the breakup is impossible to deny. It feels even better when you outpaced your ex-girlfriend. Even if you want her back, knowing that you are in a more powerful position than her and that you are no longer the one who needs to do the chasing is an amazing feeling. When an ex bumps into you and you’re transformed into a brand-new, improved version of yourself, even an ex who thought she was set in her ways will be unable to recognize that you’ve changed and like a light switch that’s been turned on, her attraction for you will increase. I don’t know if you also look more attractive than before, but I am sure you do. Even if you didn’t massively work out, I assume you look healthy & happy. Even just the facial expressions, the energy your eyes give off, and the way you present yourself in public will have a big effect on an ex-girlfriend.
What Happens when you Don’t Chase your Ex Girlfriend: When the Dumper Misses the Dumpee
And you could see it on her face. She didn’t expect that I’d go back to my friends and she kept on looking over. I could tell. I tried to play it cool haha, but yeah, I could notice that she was kind of curious and observing me. I just smiled and had a good time with my friends. I didn’t totally ignore her. I still smiled back at her and we kept a bit of eye contact from afar, and then guess who messaged me?
Three days later she messaged me. We started chatting and I still don’t chase her. We were talking about our lives and I can tell that she’s very, very interested to find out more about what I’ve been up to. She’s never had such a high interest level in me ever since the breakup. I think she can tell that I’m a different person now. I guess the question is whether I ask her out. Do I message her and use the momentum I have? Or do I wait? What’s the next step? That’s all I wanted to know. I hope you’ll help me out with a response. Thanks!
She’s testing the waters. Of course, it was your ex getting in touch with you. Your ex could not resist talking to you after she saw you so confident right in front of her — confident enough to walk away from her. Female dumpers regret months later once their exes have been laser-focused on becoming the best version of themselves. Your confidence is proof of that. You didn’t make it awkward or walked away in a weird way. Quite the opposite: You left her when the conversation was likely at its peak. She is now remembering how great it was talking to you and I guarantee you she doesn’t even understand consciously why she is so attracted to you even though you essentially prioritized your friends over her. You turned your breakup situation on its head and utilized something called the Zeigarnik Effect — your ex now wants to continue the great conversation that she had that she expected to not end so soon.
This is the female dumper experience in a nutshell if you do No Contact properly. When she broke up with you, she expected to walk away from you because she lost respect for you. And she thought the situation would be the same if she’d ever bump into you. But instead of begging for her attention, it is now she who craves your attention. In the best scenario, you would have asked her out right away when she got in touch with you.
Now, that chance has passed, but you should not message her to ask her out. If you’re still connected through social media, she will latch onto any opportunity to get in touch with you one more time if she sees something like an interesting post or a story that is a great way to start a conversation. When that happens, have another short conversation but lead the conversation towards meeting up with her.
Think of an activity that will be fun and can lead to making out or at the very least being alone and intimate with her. Whether that is cuddling, holding hands, or making out. The goal is for her to open up to you. As soon as she goes out with you and is willing to go to a place where she can be intimate with you, it’s a clear sign that she wants you to make a move on her. So-pre-plan an activity right now. Don’t choose anything complicated for a first date with your ex. It has to be something that is readily available on any given date. That means:
- No gigs at a bar on a specific date. This goes for any other activity that you used to enjoy
- Nothing like art exhibitions, specific restaurants, or special food and tourist places that only are open on certain days like on a weekend or at a specific time of the day
- Nothing with unpredictable entry requirements. A fancy dinner is great. A fancy dinner at a restaurant that’s always fully booked? Not so great!
- No activities like a unique or class that has sporadic scheduling
Generally, your best bet would be to prepare a few great restaurants to go to that you know can be scheduled on the same day that you’d like to go to, with preferably as little wait time as possible. Make sure the date with your ex girlfriend is as easy as possible to set up! And make sure to check with the restaurant if you’re uncertain and don’t make assumptions. Some restaurants have 1 hour wait times. Other restaurants can only be reserved weeks in advance. So choose wisely.
- Go to a nice park or scenic place nearby, then have some drinks, good food and take her home to your place if possible
- Explore a local night market that’s open every night, or at least open three or four days per week
- Try out a new restaurant that’s not yet famous but has good reviews or as already mentioned, go to a well-established restaurant that is known for its quality but doesn’t have ridiculous wait times
- Invite her out to watch a movie at your place and tell her that you’d like to cook to be spontaneous. You can suggest to try cooking something new for fun. This may not work with every ex, so use this one at your own discretion based on how much she’s into you.
The point is that anything you pre-plan should be easy to do. If your ex-girlfriend really wants to see you, she will agree to any date idea that is simple. And if she has high attraction for you, as she probably has for you, she will be OK with dinner or even seeing you at your place. Once you have her over for a nice dinner or are at a nice restaurant, you grab a bottle of wine, you loosen up, and eventually, you will seduce your ex in no time. And once she had sex with you and as long as you maintain the strong masculine frame that you have right now, then your ex will never think about leaving you — rather she will think it was crazy to ever break up.
And as I said before, be sure to evaluate whether she also has learned her lessons from the mistakes in the relationship. Don’t take your ex girlfriend back blindly. Get a feeling for how she reflected on the breakup. A few years ago, a woman that I used to date had gained a bit of weight. For a long time, I was the one who wanted her back, but when she was starting to be interested in me, I was no longer interested because I was at my peak and many women wanted to be with me. And on top of that, that ex of mine didn’t have a particularly great character, especially in terms of being apologetic and regretful about her flaws in the relationship. So always remain rational when you are going out with your ex. I assume that your ex is sorry, has big regret about the end of the relationship and that’s why she wants to be with you again. But it’s up to you to decide that. Go out with her but also don’t become emotional. Remember that right now you have many options because you have stepped up your game and your sexual market value has skyrocketed.
