Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Winning Back an Ex Starts With Accepting the Break Up

By Samantha Fulcher

Break-up victims rarely enjoy getting dumped. What many of them fail to realize however is that breaking up is rarely a permanent decision. While painful for the victim, break ups are often a way for the instigating partner (the "ex") to test the victim's loyalty to the relationship. This means that winning back an ex is more about statistics and psychology than about the skill of the victim in winning the ex back.

Winning back an ex involves some action on the victim's part, but before getting into this, victims should first understand some of the emotional stages of a break-up. The two discussed here are denial and anger. With denial, the victim may have a numb feeling or may not fully understand the situation -- it may feel unreal. Depending on the victim's personality, though, denial can last several months or even as little as a couple of minutes.

The next logical stage is anger. This can encompass feelings of hatred, resentment and jealousy. Despite being unpleasant, these feelings are normal. In many break-ups, the victim might destroy property accumulated during the relationship or burn personal memorabilia like letters and photos. Again, this is normal, but depending on the severity of the reaction it may cause irreparable damage to the relationship and could affect the chances of successfully winning back an ex.

No matter what was said or done following the initial break-up, all the victim needs to do in order to start the process of winning back an ex is accept the break-up, at least verbally. This means telling the ex that the break-up makes sense and that having freedom presents some clear benefits. The earlier acceptance takes place, the easier it to deliver the message with sincerity. For example, accepting the breakup after burning an emotionally rich photograph will involve back-tracking and apologizing for the behavior, whereas acceptance at the very beginning may involve a sentence or two like, "I'm glad you said that, I actually feel the same way."

In theory, accepting the break-up as early into the break-up as possible is ideal. While the break-up is often just a test by the ex, acceptance becomes a test by the victim. While it may sound like acceptance is a mind-game or un-calculated risk, it is not. Firstly, acceptance sets in motion the process of winning back an ex because it presents doubt the ex's mind. Secondly, the victim needs to test the permanence of the break-up and acceptance is the way to do that. After all, if the break-up is permanent, would it not make better sense to realize this early on so that one can move on and deal with it? Of course it would.

The first signs of successfully winning back an ex will usually start with the ex's surprise when the victim accepts the break-up. Like a trial lawyer questioning a witness, the ex who is still in love will with the victim only takes the break-up route if the he or she knows that the victim will take him or her back. By accepting the break-up, the ex will realize real fast that "coming back" is not an unconditional option with no time-limit. In other words, if the ex wants the victim back, he/she will need to come back soon, before the victim gets too comfortable with his/her freedom. - 15784

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