There's nothing more heart wrenching, more gut wrenching, than hearing from you when you’ve lost him, when he’s gone. There's nothing that speaks more to my heart and to the heart of every other woman who’s been there before. It all comes back.
The longing.
The trying.
The hoping.
The planning.
The desperate attempts to get him back.
But what if we could attempt it without being desperate? What if we could draw strength from who we are, from everything we know we could be if only our anxiousness and desperation didn’t get in the way?
What if we could pick ourselves up, dust ourselves up, take that deep breath and resolve to do it differently this time around?
The way you act when you’re with him, when all your buttons are being pushed, when all your deepest programming and baggage is being triggered and brought to the surface, that's not you. Not the real you.
It's the desperate you.
It's the you that tries so hard to prove yourself to him and demonstrate enough for the both of you that your love, that your essence, is going to somehow be enough to soften him, to change him. Hoping, desperately, to show him that there’s every reason in the world for him to come back to you!
Just like all those movies, those books and everything else we’ve been programmed to believe, tell us how to melt the stone cold heart of a confused, wounded soul who simply needs the love of a good woman, we try our best to bring about this fairtytale ending for ourselves.
This is why when it ends, when you’ve tried everything and it still ends, the way you’re feeling now, the devastating loss you're suffering with the heart wrenching broken heart you’re experiencing, is the very worst time for you to try to get him back.
But it’s exactly the time you most want to.
It’s when you’re feeling the most desperate that you reach out, that you make deals with God and the devil and who ever else will show you how.
You’re serious when you say you don’t know if you can live without him. You really don’t know.
And so it’s you who’ve brought me here, with your requests to please tell you how to get this man back. How to get back this guy who was so much a part of you. Any thoughts of working on yourself are futile, your goal is simple.
I want him back.
So let’s talk about this. How do you get someone back?
Because I can tell you how. But what it requires of you is something that you may not be ready for.
It requires you to confront within yourself whether you can actually be with him when you do get him back. It requires you to go deep enough within yourself to see if you have it in you to accept him just the way he is, to be willing to give him the space and the time he’s going to need to give you a second chance.
The first thing you’ve got to do is give him space.
Don’t call him. Don’t text him. Don’t make up excuses to see him.
Let him feel comfortable in this new space. This is what he wanted. Freedom. And if he’s going to miss you, we need him to have some space to miss you in.
The next part of this is to move on with your life, no matter how much you don’t want to, no matter how much you don’t think you ever can.
This is so important!
It’s the last thing you’re going to want to do, but it’s the most important thing you need to do. No matter what this looks like to you, even if it’s just picking up one foot in front of the other and getting out the door, even if it’s even just getting out of bed in the morning, you meet yourself right where you are.
And now here’s the part that’s the hardest for us to do: To have patience.
Honestly, Beautiful, if this is someone you want, no time or space is going to be able to keep the two of you apart. But it’s because it’s going to be him wanting this as much as you. It’s going to be about him wanting to do the work, to be a part of a real relationship as much as you.
Your role is to lay the groundwork for this to happen, to see if there really was love there in the first place. His role is to show you, in action, that he’s ready to make that happen.
How long will it take? As long as it takes. But are you willing to give up the idea of what it’s “supposed” to look like in your master plan? Because if that’s the only way you can see it, chances are he’s going to feel manipulated and a guy who’s feeling manipulated isn’t going to be running back to you anytime soon.
The irony, is that when you give up the idea that you absolutely have to have this person back and no one else will do, you allow the person who will be everything you actually need to show up for you.
Whether it’s him or someone else, you’ll know you’ve done everything you can to make that happen.
So I’ve got a question for you to ask yourself: Why do you want him back? This is so important. Sometimes we’re so lost in the idea of what he had or what we think we will have if only he’ll come back, we forget the reality of what life was actually like with him.
Let’s break through any fantasies and get to the reality factor. For those of you who have been, or are currently in this situation, tell us in the comments below: Why do you want him back?
We were friends to start with, having only met through being put in the same accommodation at university. Both of us hve insomnia, so when we discovered out film and music tastes were similar we started spending our evenings in each others rooms talking and having company rather than spending lonely evenings alone. We started doing things together during the day, I didnt think anything of it having never had a relationship before but after awhile he said to me that he didnt want me to seen anyone else (after a night out where someone had been flirting with me).
So we got together, I knew he had been in a relationship only a month or so before we started doing things together but didnt think much of it as he had said they had given it one last go after having been broken up before and he had broken it off saying that he felt our relationship was so different to his last one. We broke up then started talking more than we ever had, having more fun and contacting each other regularly. He knew i was going to ba alone over my birthday and since he lived closer to where i was then family we decided i would join him for a day out and food with his friends, we did and he appologised siad he'd made a mistake and ofcourse it would be different thats why he broke up with her, so we got back together. The relationship seemed to be going well until he withdrew from uni due to depression and i slipped a disc, so both of us hit an all time low and were going through alot. We carried on together and had regular arguments over topics we would get riled up on and drive each other nuts, but kept saying we can work it out and remaining together, at this point we had moved in with each other. Just last week he decided to move out saying that he cant relax around me and needs space, that my anxiousness and hypothetical negative situations are too hard to keep defending himself against. I know i as well as he have our own problems.
I love talking to him and we both love exploring and driving around, same food and films and music but i think i ruined our relationship by putting to much pressure on him when he was also having a hard time, i wish i could have dealt with my issues in a way that hadnt impacted us as he always tried to do for me. I think we are over though as despite saying he would like to be friends once its not so awkward, i think he has been back in contact with his ex and it has only been afew days since we broke up. Just not sure how to handle it all, I dont want to lose my best friend, he really is one of my favourite people.
because our lifestyle and taste are the same right down to desert.
I am having an unexpected experience. After wanting a man back for 37 years and after having him die in 2008 in a VA hospital from cancer caused by complications of smoking, alcoholism and drug addiction, I finally got to the point where I don't want him back. That is after thinking of him at least one time almost daily since we met when we were 17 years old. The change has come only within the last year.
His life is over. My life isn't. I still have choices.
Part of the not wanting the first man back was that a man came into my life last spring and seemed to want a relationship with me. I wasn't looking for a relationship but felt my heart opening to him. Then I realized that I no longer wanted the first man back. I was ready to let a new man into my heart. The problem early on was that it seemed that the new man was interested in me until I responded to his interest. That was the point that I found your website, Jane. I am so grateful for what I have learned here about men who are unable to commit to a relationship with anyone after initiating contact.
As a result, although I am sad that he was unable to hold up his end of the relationship for whatever reason, I can see clearly now that he wasn't the man for me. I don't want him back. That is a miracle! It is a gift that he stopped calling me. There was so much that I enjoyed about spending time with him but many red flags, too. I am grateful that his interest in me made me realize that I still can enjoy the company of a man, and I am deeply grateful that I have finally let go of the first man and that I can let go when something isn't right, instead of thinking that I am a failure at relationships and yearning for the past.
As an experiment, I have put up a profile on a dating site -- going way outside of my comfort zone. I have not posted a photo (that doesn't feel safe to me) but a dozen men have expressed interest anyway. I can't afford to subscribe to the dating site, but there is an option for sending messages for free. In the last week, I have been communicating with a kind-looking man who is the same age I am (67). He liked my profile and sent me a message asking for a photo. I told him I wasn't ready to post a photo. We are still communicating.
I am learning so much about myself, my fears, my strengths. I am learning that I have the power to choose. I am learning that I can ask questions and find out about a man before meeting him in person. I can move forward at a speed that is comfortable for me.
I'm here today to say that it is possible to stop wanting a man back, even though I wanted a man back for 37 years. I wonder what my life would have been like if, at age 21, I had learned what I am learning now at this website.
It's never too late to find true love.
I'll say it again,
"Love waits forever, for one and for all." (Bob Dylan)
Thank you for inspiring us all with your story, Ella. "I wonder what my life would have been like if, at age 21, I had learned what I am learning now at this website." - Oh Ella, you're so not alone on this one - I think almost all of us do!
Thank you for inspiring us all with your story, Ella. "I wonder what my life would have been like if, at age 21, I had learned what I am learning now at this website." - I think most of us do.
My jealousy and insecurity drove my fiance away. We'd been together almost 3 years. Two days after Christmas, he packed a bag and told me he needed space. We have shared banking and lived together. It's only been a little more than two weeks, I understand that. I have made positive changes within myself...giving him his space and allowing him to make all contact. I am going to start therapy on the 25th to deal with all of my unresolved issues from my past. How do I know when to walk away? He says he still doesn't know if he wants to continue our relationship, but texts me "good morning beautiful" or "sunshine" every single morning, still tells me he loves me and we text pretty much all day long. I feel like he wants me to be the bad guy here and doesn't want to pull the plug himself, or is he possibly really considering working things out? I'm so confused.
Go with what you intuitively sense here, Tiffany. There's something to that. I think you'll find you've known all along and that your jealousy and insecurity have been trying to tell you something.
He was - is - the love of my life. I don't care to listen to sanctimonious platitudes saying
Oh it's going to get better. Give it some time
I know it won't. You see I've already been in this dreadful place. 28 years ago I watched the man I loved with an infatuation bordering on obsession as he was decapitated in front of me and I scrambled in the rock and dirt desperately trying to put the pieces of his skill back together
And it's the same as now. No matter how hard you try, you could never find all the pieces and you simply can't put something back together that's been damage that bad so you watch the blood cool and creep through the dry dirt
And your mind is screaming but nothing is coming out of your mouth
I'm so sorry, Wild. I can see why this goes deeper than mere words. I hope you find your way.
There's not a single moment that passes every day that he doesn't light on the wreckage of my memory, soft as gossamer, cruel as January.
I dread waking , subject to another aching salvo ripping gaping wounds in my psyche
I have done everything I can to destroy what was between us, manufacturing insecurities and toxic emotional backwash, frenzied and unregulated, so he said "get fu****** lost" and discarded me, instantly and without a backward glance
I'll always be right here, he said. And he is. Stoic, smiling cruelly ast the havoc his presence left in my mind, "I'll call you right back...promise" nov 13 623pm 2016 and we. Oth knew is was another of his beautiful lies slipping like honey from his gilded lips, sweet with broken promises, venemous in its insincerity
I love you I whispered. It's ok
But I don't love myself
That's not ok
So I vent my pain on a site on Facebook called Theriac: Poetry by Soul Patch, and I dread every waking morning because I know I'm sentenced to decades of this and I know that because I've already done it
I'd live this nightmare so I know when I'm going live at again time is nothing more than a jailer marking Endless days and interminable minutes I keep step with the agony
And I write him poetry he will never see nor feel
Just like the love he never had for me
Bye bye baby
to the man without a soul
(winter)
11.17.16
I feel the poetry just roll through winter, turbid debris plugging up the sink, through vacant spaces haunted where my soul, tormented by the grief,
resides
a thief, exchanges furtive, glimpses, asking me "isn't this what you wanted all along? Now, honestly..."
We live in stretches of interminable emptiness,
space,
stitched back together, blessed, with moments that we can't forget, erase.
You made it look so easy, were so bold, release
Your languid lassitude with no regret, uncaring, distant, watching me curl up against the cold
You were my jailer, and you let me go- I know it's over
waning moon below
But you don't get to come back in here now, to lift the skin off wounds have start to heal, to close
We sow the seeds then reap then feed ( I wonder if the very thing we need , the warmth and decency , the don't do this to me, the hurt we do to others takes it's toll)
Impunity
You know,
that I was worth the time you never had for me;
You'll see.
Parole
- then memory
You were a moonbeam and I was a star gleaming with pale Corinthian gold and I just never could get close enough to touch you
I was a chance you wouldn't take, a mistake you'd never make
- or hold
Lover
I'm so sorry for what you've been through, Wild. I hope you see the gift in the expression of your feelings through your poetry. I hope you're a writer. I hope you see the gift in you. You're one of those beautiful souls who deserve so much more than you've been settling for. It doesn't have to be a life sentence. You get to choose the ending. And I hope you'll choose you over him - over anyone. There is no one more precious than you.
Dear Jane, your message resonates with me on a very personal level. I (29year F) broke up with my baby-daddy (31year M) about a year ago. We were living together but things took a turn for the worst. There was no affection from him and it felt like i didn't know this man. He cheated on me too but denied it, discussions would turn into arguments. However, he was a great provider. I asked him back a few weeks ago because i am still very much in love with him and he is the father of our 2 year old son. He then told confessed that he screwed up and was thinking of working out things.
However, a week ago he told me he needs time and space to figure out what to do because he is enjoying his life away from me.
So i decided am gonna move on. Would it be healthy for me to start dating now?
I'm glad it resonates with you, Louis. Focus on you during this time. Put your energy into you and your sweet little boy. Opportunities will find themselves naturally, but right now, use this time to figure out what you want. You've seen what you don't want; now it's time to find out what you do!
I know what's it's like to be heartbroken and want an ex back in your life, I'm getting over being heartbroken after my ex disappeared on me a couple of months ago. I went through all the emotions of a break up. Denial, sadness, anger and wanting him back in my life. Whenever I think about him and wanting him back in my life, I then think about how unhappy I was during the relationship. I ask myself: do you really want to be treated like that again? Do I always want to be the one putting in more effort and taking crumbs from this man? Do I want a man that gives me mixed messages and is afraid of commitment? Getting back with this man is taking two steps backwards in my life's journey. Deep down inside I know that getting back together with this man will cause me more heartbreak.
I am at the end of week 2 of your course. It has helped me tremendously. I'm finally realizing my self worth. And you like you say Jane, "if you are truly meant to be together, you would still be together". I think what makes people want to get back with their ex, is they think about the good memories and glorify them. But they also need to look at the bad memories as well and really figure out if this is something they want deep down. Change is scary, I know first hand. It's scary knowing I have to start from square one again. I know in my heart, the right guy is out there for me. I need to choose right next time. Jane, thank you so much for your advice and most of all your online course. You have taught me so many valuable tools that I desperately needed. I'm looking forward to finishing the next two weeks, I just wish I would have taken this course years ago! It's better than any self help book I've ever read or expensive therapy sessions I completed. Thanks again Jane!
Love these questions, Nett. Thank you for sharing - and for your beautiful words. I'm so glad you've found your way here and are getting so much out of my program. Can't wait to meet you on our one-on-one coaching session at the end! 🙂
Jane, I want to thank you for today's email! Finally some advice I wholeheartedly agree with! I met him in June of 2015. I had just moved back home in March. I was loving life, dating and having fun! A relationship was not even on my list. I was pursuing my dreams as a single woman. We had a few dates, he was recently out of a relationship, since I wasn't looking for anything serious it didn't matter when at other times in my life I would have stopped dating him. We began to fall in love. I felt the signs I also saw he wasn't over his ex, he didn't do the hard work to heal, learn, grow and change to have better relationships. When he announced "we are here, this is a relationship" I rejected him. I rejected his offers 2 more times because they were not good enough. I know what I want. Neither of us was ready. I realized after purposely pushing him away the third time that I was terrified! I cried at just how scared I was about my feelings for him. That was 12-2016. I wanted him back so bad but I knew I made the right decisions for us both. My heart still longs for him (that has never happened in my entire life) and my intuition tells me he is returning soon. I have not contacted him and will not. I am at a great place in my life, pursuing my dreams, getting established and loving life. I know the great love I seek will find me. I will never settle for less than what I know will work for me. What many women fail to realize, in my opinion, is accept the feelings, feel them, dig deep, discover the depths of yourself and get ready for great love be it an ex or not. I needed this last year to face my fears, grow and change into who I want to be in a relationship. I wouldn't change it for the world. I've been in the love Olympics training! Thanks again for all your help!
oh Lorena, I'm so glad this is resonating with you! You're so right about our need to accept our feelings and allow ourselves to be open to the journey that brings. Love that you've allowed this to happen to you and are seeing just what can happen for you! Not to you, but for you. Beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing!
I can relate to this as a problem for me back in 2013 n I remember being sad on NYE coz he deleted me n that he didn't have time to talk to me n said he was busy. I 1x saw him play a gig at hillarys boat harbour on the boardwalk n he didn't talk much n I offered to help but he was ok.
From there I would msg him when it's his birthday or Xmas on FB n let things settle down.
Last year on his birthday after I gave him a msg he didn't reply n I wasn't fussed if I didn't get a reply. I just said "happy new year to him ?" on a msg so I showed care.
The reason why I want him back as a friend is get to know him more n catch up with him as a friend. From seeing his FB pictures he still does gigs.
1 time I went to his profile to see if I could add him back as a friend but things have changed, I can't add him but I can give him messages. It's like looking at a FB without a friend request button.
This year I'll make new friends if my friend from 2013 doesn't talk back or doesn't reply. I make sure I have a social group n something to keep me occupied n play harder to get on him.
Make new friends anyway this year, Courtney, regardless of what your friend from 2013 does or doesn't do. You never know who else is out there waiting to meet you!
In hindsight we don't see it but, sometimes things end for a good reason which we don't as good since we are caught up emotionally. I think the part of people hanging on is because they miss the memories,the experience.. sometimes not really missing the actual person. The ex is giving you a chance for someone new to meet you possibly a better match in the future.
So true, Diane. It's the idea of someone we hold onto long after the reality of them has disappeared.
I love him because he is smart, artistic, a nice person and a good lover. However, his bible is a book titled "The supreme male". The author believes Men wanted more than one women and there are ample supply of young and older women. He already dumped me but he said he will always love me. We are literally seeing each other once a month plus. I need to let him go but he is always on my mind. Not sure how to coupe it
By asking yourself if this works for you, Joanne. If being with a man whose bible is a book titled "The supreme male" work for you. Can you live with someone like this no matter what his other qualities are? More importantly, can you live with someone whose subscribes to this philosophy? That's how you let go. Because only if that works for you, does he - and this relationship - work for you. See? You hold the key. Letting go becomes a lot easier when you choose it, instead of feeling like you have to. What does it take for you to see you have a choice?
I know this so very well as I have been there many times. I understand now that obsessing over wanting him back is an excuse for me not to take responsibility for my own life. Getting up every morning and creating the life I want for myself.
Wow, Judith. Do you how huge this is? Recognizing our own patterns - especially in creating excuses - is such a vulnerable place to go. That you've gone here speaks so much to you, to the kinds of beautiful changes in our lives that happen when we're willing to go that deep. Be so proud of yourself. "Getting up every morning and creating the life I want for myself" might just be the single most important thing each of us can go. Thank you for sharing. I'm honored you found your way here!
I've been out of my relationship for a year, I left due to being with me 5 years and no commitment. He is now dating someone steady and it's eating me alive. I'm sane enough to know I have to let this go, but the pain is extruciating. I don't want this jealousy and envy in my life. How do I let go?
By not forcing yourself to, Lee. That's the part most of us miss. When we allow ourselves to feel everything, to embrace even the fact that we can't yet let go, we find ways to see what we need to see that release us in our time and way. So instead of looking at what she has that you don't, or at how great their relationship must be, look instead at how it makes you feel. What is "eating you alive"? Is it rejection? Is it anger? Is it hurt? Is it sad? Is it jealousy because you assume (wrongly in most cases), that she's going to get everything with him that you didn't? Then look at's what underneath those feelings. Where do they come? How did they get there? And what's the story behind them? Because there's something about focusing on your own feelings and your own beliefs that underlie those feelings that allows you to let go in a real, authentic, lasting way that comes from you, not from anyone else. Something about that starts to give us our power back, little by little, one step at a time, each time we choose how to see him - and your relationship with him - instead of feeling like we have no choice, no power and feel so out of control. Let us know if this helps you! You're not alone. Most of us can identify all too well with that "eating me alive" sentiment!