How To Get Your Ex Back
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Sam was devastated when his girlfriend broke up with him. He knew she was often unhappy with their relationship but he didn’t know how to fix it. When she left him, he sought help. He was miserable, depressed, and lonely.
Sam had no idea that his attitude and negativity drove his girlfriend away. Like many people who are alone, the reason he wanted a girlfriend was to make him feel better. She tried, but the barriers to his happiness were just too big. And ultimately, his problems were not hers to fix.
Once Sam was in coaching, he found his enthusiasm for life. He was feeling better than he ever had. He was excited about his sculpting and ironwork classes he was taking and he enjoyed his new friends. He worked out three times a week, walked to work to stay fit, and started dating. Life was good, but he often said—he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend.
Then… he met someone. From the beginning, he told me how bright and interesting she was. She was also emotionally needy and definitely wanted a relationship with him. I asked him, “Are you crazy in love with her?”
“Well… no.”
“Do you love her as much as the old girlfriend?”
“Definitely not. But we enjoy each other and I think I’d like to hang out with her for a while.”
“Do you think you’d like to marry her someday?”
“Oh no – I don’t feel that way about her. I’ve only felt that way about one person – my ex-girlfriend.”
“Then I want you to be cautious and wise here. You have had a lifetime of living with someone you didn’t love—like your ex-wife. You could fall into another convenience trap.”
Sam was in danger of getting intimately involved with a woman he didn’t love. He was lonely, tired of dating different people, and tired of looking for love. He had a history of “settling” and he was vulnerable to having a relationship of shared activities, but not shared love. Each time he brought up the subject of getting involved with her, I warned him against it. He was an honorable man, incapable of using a woman and then discarding her. He was about to step back into an old trap. Getting caught by someone he didn’t really want and then not being able to get out of it because of his conscience, guilt, and loneliness had caused him big problems in the past.
Last week in Part I, we talked about how Sam drove his ex-girlfriend away by looking to her to supply all the energy in the relationship. “Mr. Needy and Negative” began to solve his attitude problem by finding fun in the mud (sculpting.) He also started socializing. Once he had something to get excited about, his attractiveness level rose. He kept dating different people and decided not to get in a mini-marriage with the woman he didn’t love.
Once Sam felt stronger, he was able to look back and figure out what went wrong in the past. What else did Sam do that caused the love of his life to leave him? She could not handle his BAGGAGE and lack of BOUNDARIES.
• BAGGAGE
Baggage is so powerful it can pulverize marble statues. Sam was laden with baggage, which is, unresolved relationships from the past. When Sam was with his girlfriend, he had not cut the emotional ties to his former marriage. He still lived in the house he had shared with his wife, with the same furniture and wedding and family pictures on the wall. The ex-wife would call everyday. Many times, Sam would break his date with his girlfriend to do something his ex-wife said he had to do. His girlfriend was not his first priority. Obviously, this was a source of hurt and anger for her. His children treated her like the outsider she was and resented her being in their childhood home. She left.
• BOUNDARIES
Sam had spent his life as a “pleaser.” He didn’t know how to say “No,” to people. He desperately needed to understand boundaries. He and his girlfriend should have been orchestrating their own lives. He was so used to the ex-wife’s demands, he didn’t notice that she called the shots for everyone.
Since Sam’s children were out of college, there was no need for this interference. They were capable of relating their plans to their father. Sam told his ex-wife she didn’t need to call him any longer. Very quickly, he began to clear up any other lingering connections, like shared holidays, vacations, and even bank accounts. In a very civil and kind manner, and sticking to his new boundary— Sam was finally free.
As Sam continued to understand what he had done to cause his girlfriend to leave, he often wondered about her. What was she doing? Was she seeing anyone? Would she even talk to him? He decided to give her one last call.
Check out Part III of III: The Conversation
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