Does Giving an Ex Space Work?

Giving an ex space works only if she fits into one of the following 3 categories:

She is still in love with you.
She won’t be able to handle the pain of a break up.
She won’t be able to find a new guy to replace you.

If a woman doesn’t have feelings for a guy, she will usually be happy that he’s not contacting her and will simply move on without him while he waits around giving her space.

If she was completely turned off by him near the end of the relationship and went through a messy break up with him where he tried hard to save the relationship, giving her space may leave her thinking, “What a relief! I am now free to move on with my life without having to deal with him trying to get me back.”

She will then start to make plans to hook up with friends, go out and meet new guys.

This is why I only recommend that a guy give a woman 3 to 7 days of space before contacting her to initiate the actual ex back process.

If you leave it too long, you run the risk of her moving on without you, or having enough time to get over the pain of the break up to not want to go through all that again.

What Most Guys Don’t Know About Getting an Ex Woman Back

Most guys don’t know much space to give an ex, so they just give her lots of space and hope that it eventually makes her come running back.

For example: A guy might think, “She said that she needs space, so I’ll leave her alone for a few weeks or a month. She will then realize that I’m the one for her and she will come back. People say that absence makes the heart grow fonder and that if it’s meant to be, she’ll come back. So, I guess that the longer I stay away from her, the better. It will give her more time to miss me.”

He will then spend weeks or even months avoiding his ex, in the hopes that this will be enough time apart to make her miss him and want to come back.

Yet, that’s not how it works for most ex back cases.

If a woman has stopped feeling respect and attraction for a guy (e.g. because he’d become an insecure, controlling or emotionally abusive boyfriend or husband), then not hearing from him for a long time isn’t going to bother her much at all.

Think about it like this…

When a woman breaks up with a guy, it’s usually because she’s stopped feeling the way that she wants to feel when she’s in a relationship.

She was likely feeling hurt, angry, disappointed and a whole bunch of other negative emotions that make it difficult to keep a relationship together.

So, when she stops hearing from him, it’s unlikely that she will be thinking, “Oh no! Why isn’t he calling me? Why is he ignoring me? What if he leaves me alone and I never see him again? I don’t know what I’d do if he never spoke to me again. I can’t live without him… I’d better go running back to him before it’s too late!”

Instead, it’s more likely that she will be thinking, “Yayy! He’s out of my life forever. Now I can get on with doing all the things that a single woman can do. I can have fun, meet new guys, and enjoy myself for a change.”

This is why giving your ex more than 3 to 7 days of space is actually a waste of time.

The Space to Move on

Even if a woman still has some feelings for her ex, if she doesn’t hear from him for a long time, she may assume that he’s no longer interested in trying to work things out.

She might conclude, “Oh well, I guess my ex doesn’t want to work things out between us after all. I’m not going to waste any more time waiting around for him, I’m moving on. I’m going to hook up with that guy at work who has been flirting with me lately.”

Then, when she hooks up with that guy or another new guy and feels the excitement of new love and new sex, she begins to lose interest in seeing her ex again or even trying to work things out.

Regardless of whether the new guy is a perfect match for her or not, she will likely be seeing him in a more favorable light compared to her (absent) ex.

For example: If a woman felt that her ex boyfriend (fiancé or husband) was taking her for granted (e.g. by not paying too much attention to her anymore, putting her second to his job/friends/hobbies all the time) and the new guy is attentive, flattering and makes her feel feminine and girly in his presence, she’s going to think he’s better than her ex.

Alternatively, if a woman’s ex was insecure and clingy in the relationship (qualities that are instinctively unattractive to a woman) and the new guy is a bit more confident and self-assured, she will assume that he is more emotionally strong than her ex (especially when her ex is not around to show her that he’s not the insecure guy she used to know anymore).

In the meantime, she may begin to think, “I’m so glad that my ex has disappeared. If he didn’t stay out of my life, I would’ve never met this great new guy. What a blessing!”

Then, if her ex calls her up out of the blue, after giving her weeks or months of space, she’s likely going to be saying, “Sorry, you’re too late. I’ve moved on and I’m happy with my new guy now.”

So, even if the new guy isn’t perfect, and even if she eventually breaks up with him (e.g. because he’s just a rebound), right now he’s the only one who is there actively triggering her feelings of attraction in ways that feel good to her.

The way to prevent that horrible outcome from happening to you is to be active about getting your ex back, rather than passive.

Don’t sit around hoping your ex girlfriend (fiancé or wife) will suddenly wake up one day and realize that she’s made a big mistake by breaking up with you.

If you’ve been out of her life for so long that she hardly remembers what you look like, it’s less likely that she’s going to assume you’ve changed and come running back to you.

To get her back quickly, you have to be interacting with her (to reactivate her feelings of respect, attraction and love) every chance that you get.

Whether you’re texting her something funny to make her smile, calling her up on the phone so that she can experience your emotional strength, or meeting up with her in person and re-sparking her feelings of respect and attraction, you simply can’t do that by giving her space.

Giving a woman more than a week of space when she doesn’t have feelings for you anymore is usually a recipe for disaster.

It can make some women eventually come back to a guy, but after helping 100s of men get women back, I’ve found that the highest success rate for getting an ex back happens when a guy actively makes the woman have feelings for him again.

So, rather than wasting weeks waiting for your ex to realize that she misses you, just focus on making her feel attracted to you right now by getting her to laugh, smile and feel good whenever you interact with her (e.g. via text, social media, on a phone call, and in person).

Make Her Smile and Feel Happy to Be Interacting With You Again

A common mistake that some guys make is to wait for their ex to give them a 100% clear sign that she’s ready to be contacted again.

However, the longer he waits to hear from her, the more time she has to get over him.

So, by all means, give your ex a few days space if she asks for it, but after that time is up, get on with the important business of actively re-sparking her feelings of respect and attraction for you.

Get her on a phone call and start making her smile and laugh again, so that hearing from you is actually something she enjoys now.

On a phone call, you’ve got to shake her out of her current (negative) state of mind and make her feel curious enough about the changes she’s noticing in you, that she actually wants to meet up in person.

You want her to be thinking, “It’s actually nice talking to him again. He makes me laugh and I feel good. I suppose meeting up with him for some coffee wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.”

When you make a woman smile and laugh on a phone call or in person, she can’t stop herself from enjoying talking to you again.

From there, all of her angry, negative feelings begin to get pushed into the background and are replaced by more positive emotions such as respect and attraction, which is what you want.

Then, when you meet up with her, you just need to continue saying and doing the types of things that are going to keep turning her feelings on for you and make her feel attracted to you again, rather than saying and doing the types of things that were turning her off in the past, or that have been turning her off since the break up.

For example: If a guy was insecure, needy and clingy in the relationship, when he meets up with his ex after giving her space, he needs to show her via the way he talks, the way he interacts with her, and the way he reacts to her, that he is now an emotionally strong man that she can look up to and respect.

So, if she says something like, “Look, I don’t think it’s going to work out between us. I just don’t have feelings for you anymore,” he can respond differently than he would have in the past.

He can react in a confident, emotionally secure way that she’s not expecting.

For instance, in the past he might have responded by…

Begging and pleading with her to reconsider her decision.
Promising her that he will change if she just gives him one more chance.
Telling her how much he still loves her and that he’s completely lost without her in his life.
Asking her to tell him what he needs to change about himself to make her happy.
Offering to do whatever she wants him to do.
Apologizing over and over again.

So, rather than reacting in any of those ways, which would make her lose even more respect and attraction for him, he instead responds with confidence.

He turns her negative expectations of him into something that not only makes her smile and laugh, but also shows her that he’s moved past the level he was at when she broke up with him.

Here’s an example …

When his ex says, “Look, I don’t think it’s going to work out between us. I just don’t have feelings for you anymore,” he can smile, laugh and say in a joking way, “Damn! That’s a shame. I won the lottery last week, so now I’m going to have to keep your share of the winnings since you don’t want to be my girl anymore. For a moment there, I thought you were going to be a millionaire too.”

She might respond by saying, “What? You won the lottery?” and he can then laugh and say, “No, I’m only kidding…but, I am doing better at work these days and I think I’m going to get promoted soon, which is cool. It was funny to see your reaction though – I had you there for a second” and then laugh.

She will most likely laugh and smile in that moment, and possibly even be thinking, “Wow, that was unexpected. I thought this was going to be an awkward and unpleasant coffee. He seems a lot cooler now. I wonder…what else has changed about him?”

Of course, saying something funny and making her smile in that moment doesn’t mean she’s going to throw herself in your arms right away and you can then both live happily ever after.

That is only the beginning.

Saying something like that to her to get her laughing and smiling makes her drop her guard and open herself up to her old feelings of respect, attraction and love for you again.

As the Man, You Need to Lead the Way

In a modern relationship, it is still the man’s responsibility to lead the way and maintain and grow the love, respect and attraction between him and his woman.

Even though women are now more independent and can make their own decisions about how to live life, when in a romantic relationship, a woman wants a man to lead the way.

If he fails to do that and behaves in ways that cause her to lose respect for him as a man (e.g. he lets her wear the pants in the relationship), she just isn’t going to be very excited about staying with him for life.

So, if you want to get your ex back, you need to be the one to make it happen, rather than waiting around by giving her space and hoping she will suddenly realize that your relationship is worth fighting for.

You’ve got to focus on changing how she feels, rather than hoping that her feelings change without your intervention.

When you interact with her (e.g. via text, on social media, over the phone and in person) and actively trigger her feelings for you again, her guard will come down and she will naturally begin to reconnect with the love she once felt for you.

Remember: Giving an ex space works in most cases, as long as it’s not longer than 3 to 7 days, and as long as when you do contact her, you focus on saying and doing the types of things that will renew her feelings of respect and attraction for you.

On the other hand, if you stay out of touch with her for too long, it can make her feel that you don’t care and she may just move on and try to forget all about you.