Whether you want your ex back, just want some space, or are determined to move on, No Contact is still the best way to make your ex miss you.
If done correctly, it’s going to make your ex desperate to talk to you, causing them to crave contact with you and so they’ll reach out again and again
But there’s a problem here: what if your ex decides to go No Contact at the same time?
Well this is more common than you think and it could be the reason that your ex isn’t reacting the way you want them to.
So let’s talk about how this scenario typically plays out, based on my 15 years of experience helping people out of this situation.
I’ll give you a couple of strategies that you can try including one that I guarantee you haven’t heard anywhere else. Let’s get into it.
So first, I need to answer the most common question: If my ex goes No Contact at the same time as me, will it still work? Will it win them back?
And the answer is yes, it is still going to make your ex miss you, to make them think about you, and to make them regret the breakup and here’s why:
They may not be reaching out to you but they still expect you to reach out to them during this time.
So whether or not that’s their main intended outcome, they’re still looking for that ego boost that comes with you trying to get their attention.
Breakups can be really demoralizing and hurt our self esteem and so they’re looking to you to build them back up with messages, compliments and attempts to get them back.
When you don’t comply then they’re still going to miss you just as much as they would if they never went No Contact.
So in their mind, if you don’t reach out, this whole No Contact idea has backfired.
It turns out that you aren’t obsessed with them the way they thought you would be. They think “are they moving on? Maybe they’ve found someone new.” And these thoughts will eat them alive.
And another helpful thing here is that one of the things that can really screw up No Contact is an ex who keeps reaching out to you.
Now it can be a good sign when they’re persistent like this but it’s not always a sign of romantic attachment for them to keep messaging you when you go silent.
It can also just be out of concern for your wellbeing, guilt, or an attempt to manipulate you.
So if you reply—which you’ll be tempted to do—it can easily just lead nowhere and just ruin all the progress that you’ve made.
And if you stay silent despite their continued messages, it can lead to miscommunications and hurt feelings on the part of your ex.
So if your ex just goes silent, this is really one of the best case scenarios because it will limit this temptation and simplify the process.
And this is one of the features of what I call a Mutual No Contact Scenario.
Mutual No Contact
So this shared silence is one of the main things that you get with mutual No Contact that you can’t get by continuing a dialogue with your ex. And this leads to a couple of inevitable outcomes:
First, it creates confusion and miscommunication between the two of you. So just because you two aren’t talking, it doesn’t mean you’re not communicating.
I’m not talking about telepathy or anything like that. I just mean that your silence says something to your ex just as yours does to them.
But exactly what it says is up to your interpretation and because you never get clarity on that, you two can both get the wrong idea of what it means.
Now I’ll talk about the true meaning of your ex’s silence in a minute but just know that this is where the confusion between the two of you can come from…it’s communication breakdown.
But in reality, this actually feeds into one of the powerful benefits of Mutual No Contact that is going to help you reconnect when the time comes.
And that is that this silence between the two of you allows you both ample time and space to think and wonder about the other person.
And wondering, curiosity, questioning—whatever you call it—this is what makes desire grow out of control and take over your imagination. So because you and your ex aren’t talking, you have no choice but to pine for one another. It’s a feature, not a bug.
So so should you still maintain No Contact if your ex is also going No Contact?
Yes, you should.
It’s still the best path forward because it still affects their feelings and makes them miss you, regardless of what they’re doing.
Now it’s important to look at why your ex went No Contact.
Often the answer I get to this question is “I don’t know.” So if you and your ex were perfectly amicable, there was no big drama, no huge fight, and if things had been pretty chill since the breakup, then why would they go No Contact?
Well in this situation it typically indicates that your ex went No Contact because they’re scared.
They know that if they keep talking to you, even here and there, they’re going to get more invested and the two of you will get back together, which they don’t want.
So this is a great sign because—even though they’re trying to step away—it means that your ex is still emotionally invested in the relationship.
They only feel the need to distance themselves from you because they still feel so close to you.
But that’s not the only possible situation here. Obviously if you and your ex had a massive fight, you made some kind of mistake, or if you have been particularly nasty to them post breakup, then the reason they went No Contact was to punish you.
They see their attention and their interest as a reward that you’re no longer worthy of.
Now don’t worry, this is not necessarily a permanent situation. They may have an end point in mind or they may just be waiting to cool off a bit before they talk to you again.
And finally, if you have been needy and pathetic, always hitting them up, asking to talk and trying to put demands on their time and attention—and if you’ve repeatedly ignored them when they told you to back off—then it’s most likely that they went No Contact to get some space from you.
And I hate to say it but this is the WORST possible reason for your ex to go No Contact because you’ve created a really toxic dynamic between the two of you.
So now when you reach out to them, they just feel a sense of panic. So where they used to see that they got a text from you and were excited by what you might say, now they think “what is it now? Are they going to try to manipulate me?
Are they going to dump their feelings onto me?” and when that’s how your ex sees you, you’re in a very BAD place.
Now I’m going to hit you with a question you might not have considered: and that is How do you KNOW they went No Contact?
Because I see two answers to this question: either you’ve reached out to them and they didn’t reply, in which case, I hate to see it, but you’re NOT doing No Contact right. Remember, No Contact means no contact.
You can’t reach out to them here and there, when you feel like it, just to check in.
If you’re going to do that, you might as well not do No Contact at all because you’re only confusing your ex and yourself by being weird and inconsistent.
And the only other way you know your ex has gone No Contact–or think you know—is that they’re just not reaching out to you.
And in that case, you can’t really know for sure if they’ve officially instituted a full period of No Contact on you after the breakup.
It’s pretty common for your ex to go silent after a breakup because they want a little space. Or they might just be focused on other things, not know what to say, or be waiting for you to reach out. You just don’t know.
So really, when we think about it like this, there are really no situations where you can be 100% sure that you and your ex have both gone No Contact. Even if a lot of time has passed.
Just something to think about as we talk about how to handle the situation.
How To Get Your Ex Back When You’ve Both Gone No Contact
So if you want your ex to return to you and you’re both in No Contact, you’ll need to handle it in a particular way.
Many people avoid breaking the ice because they don’t want to be the “loser” in this scenario.
And there’s definitely something to that. If your ex is in No Contact, they may want you to reach out first but it’s also going to cause them to lose some respect and interest in you.
So my advice is this: stick to No Contact for at least 40 days. You need to go above and beyond if you want your absence to really be felt by your ex.
You want them to think “wow, they’re really not coming back.” that is when they’re going to get scared and reach out to you, to make sure you’re not gone forever.
But that is the best case scenario. Remember, you don’t always know exactly what’s going on for your ex during this time.
Their No Contact journey may have truly taken them away from you in a significant way.
But what you do know is this: the no contact period has had benefits for your relationship with them. Their emotions around you and the breakup will be less volatile.
Their feelings for you will have shifted in a positive direction because that’s just how human psychology works: in the absence of new information, we start to forget the negative and remember the positive about the other person.
So you’re going to have an advantage. And that’s even the case if you need to be the one to reach out to them. Because for many of you, that’s going to be the next step, unfortunately.
RELATED: What REALLY Happens to Your Ex During No Contact
As I said, it’s not ideal to be the one to break the ice but it’s not the end of the world. Often your ex wants to talk to you just as much as you want to talk to them. They’re just stubborn and afraid so they’re sticking to the plan.
And let me tell you what I see often happens in this specific scenario.
Couples who end up in Mutual No Contact, they tend to get back together hard and fast. Because the separation is so hard, once they start talking again, they never want to stop.
And this is where I typically see the fairytale reunions we dream of like in a romcom.
It’s not 100% but it happens pretty regularly…more than I would have imagined when I started doing breakup coaching.
This happens because there’s no opportunity for drama or anything like that and because–as we talked about earlier—the distance makes desire explode so once you see each other again, it’s electric and you totally forget you were ever apart. It’s a true fresh start.
Now I would still advise you to take things slow, feel it out and not overextend yourself.
Remember, you want them back permanently. As fun as it may be to be planning your wedding a week after getting back together, this kind of connection may be unsustainable so be cautious and make the connection last.
