Today, we’re going to talk about the chances of getting an ex back after the no contact rule.

Now, in the past, we’ve done articles and YouTube episodes and podcast episodes on your overall chances of getting an ex back.

But one thing that we really haven’t hyper-focused on that we’re going to do today is what kind of impact that completing a no contact rule actually has on your overall chances of success.

We’re going to do our best to come to a definitive answer, but, as I think you’re going to learn, there’s no such thing as a definitive answer when it comes to breakups.

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Let’s Define What The No Contact Rule Is

So, I thought probably the smartest thing to do first is to define what we consider to be a successful no contact rule.

So, we’ve all heard about the no contact rule, this magical period of time where you purposely ignore your ex, usually, no matter what the circumstances are, for anywhere between 21 to 45 days, and hopefully at some point, they’ll miss you.

Now, the no contact rule in and of itself is actually a lot more complicated than this average, generic definition would have you believe.

For example, we’ve learned that, really, what you do with your time during the no contact rule is one of the biggest indicators on if you’re going to have a successful reach-out or meet-up with your ex after a breakup.

To give you an example, imagine there’s two people, Person A and Person B. Person A does a no contact rule with the pure intent of trying to make their ex miss them. Person B does the no contact rule, not necessarily to get over the breakup, but at some point throughout the no contact rule, they decide, “I’m going to focus more of my time on me instead of on my ex.”

Now, when you compare the two experiences of Person A and Person B, Person B ends up having a lot more depth when they actually do get back in touch with their ex. Why?

Well, I think it ultimately has to do with the rate of change.

While Person A and Person B are both doing essentially the same things, Person A is still obsessing about their ex and oftentimes has anxious tendencies that still have a tendency, pun intended, to come out when they actually do get back in touch with their ex, whereas person B may start out with anxious tendencies, but through this time away, through the internal growth that occurs because they’re actively trying to improve their own lives during the no contact rule, they shed some of those anxious tendencies and then get back in touch with their ex, and their ex looks at them like they’re this whole new person.

What Are The Overall Chances Of Success With An Ex?

Now, the other element that we have to consider when we’re looking at the overall chances of getting an ex back after a no contact rule is what our research has found to be the average chance of success of getting an ex back without our help.

So, a few years ago, I did this study where I was trying to find real-life data on what the average chance of someone who wants to get their ex back actually has when they’re just sort of going through a breakup.

What’s interesting is there’s not a lot of research that has been done on how often couples reunite after a breakup, and the research that is done is either not done by a reputable source or is so specific to conditions that you always have to take it with a grain of salt, essentially.

For example, some of those conditions would be something like, you know, we’re only looking at people in college, we’re not looking at the holistic experience of individuals across all age ranges. Things like that, you need to keep an eye out for.

But nevertheless, I ended up finding some reputable resources that had done research on how often people would reunite after getting an ex back.

And it turns out that, on average, there’s a 48.25% chance that you can get your ex back without our help, roughly 50/50, which doesn’t really tell you much more than you probably already know.

Now, it’s important to keep in mind that this chance of success here actually happened where the no contact rule really wasn’t implemented, and if it was implemented, it was implemented just based on what that particular individual felt was right for their situation.

So, oftentimes, no contact in these types of circumstances is indefinite, meaning they have no intent of ever talking or trying to get their exes back, which I realize is not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it helps us for answering the overall question that you’re here to learn about, which is, “What are the chances of getting my ex back if I use a no contact rule?”

One other factor that I think is important to keep in mind is we’ve had a lot of success or have been blessed with a lot of success stories, people who have gotten their exes back throughout their time on Ex Boyfriend Recovery and our brother site Ex Girlfriend Recovery.

But what’s interesting is we need to take a look at how we define success, because I want to be transparent with you. So, for me, success can mean usually one of two things. Number one is the most obvious one. You know, you want to get your ex back, you implement some strategies and tactics, and ultimately get them back.

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Doing Thing A leads to Thing B, very obvious.

I think also success can be considered if you come into this process wanting your ex back more than anything, and then exit this process choosing not to get them back, but also having them, or them exhibiting signs that they are interested in you, but you haven’t decided you don’t want them back anymore, essentially. I’d consider this to be a success as well.

Let’s Actually Define Success After The No Contact Rule

So, when you look at that, how you define success, or rather, how we define success, I did this interview with our head coach, master coach, Anna, who’s our head coach here at Ex Boyfriend Recovery, and we were just talking, and she mentioned that she’s had a success rate of her clients of over 70%. And I asked her specifically, “Well, how are you defining success?”

And she basically gave the same parameters that I gave: either you get your ex back, or things are going really well with your ex but you decide you don’t want them back anymore. So, those parameters had to be in place.

What’s interesting is, before my wife ended up moving on and doing something different, she was actually a coach here at Ex Boyfriend Recovery as well, in… I believe in the years 2018, or, I think 2017 or 2018, I can’t remember exactly, because years just kind of blend together, she ended up taking on 10 high-value clients. I mean, these were clients that worked with her day and night, every single day.

And her success rate was a seven out of 10. Seven of them got their exes back; three of them did not. One of them technically… One of the three technically did get the ex back; the ex literally looked at her and said, “Do you ever think about getting back together?” And she didn’t know what to do, so she texted my wife. So, there’s a little bit of an issue from there, so it could’ve been actually higher, but…

I think what’s interesting is when you take the basic strategy, the basic overall baseline, our chances of getting your ex back without any kind of help from us or any other coaching practice that helps you through this difficult time, helps you through this grieving process, you’re looking at roughly a 48.25% baseline chance. There’s a 48% chance that your ex will come back to you.

We cannot guarantee that. I’ve been on record saying multiple times that even if I sit here and say you have a 99% chance of getting your ex back, there’s still a 1% chance that you won’t get your ex back.

There’s no guarantees in this.

But what this tells us is a 48.25% chance is kind of the baseline. Yet our clients… We are obviously very, very big people, we think very highly of the no contact rule, if you will. Our clients are having over 70% success rates, and they are using the no contact rule.

So, if you’re looking for any kind of way of gauging what the no contact rule can sort of add to your overall baseline percentage of chances, I think roughly it’s going to add 21.75% improvement on your chances of success.

And look, this is not necessarily talking about the generalized no contact.

I realize this is very, very difficult to kind of get to the bottom of what’s working and what’s not, like I said. The way we define the no contact rule is it’s supposed to be this period of time where you work on outgrowing your ex.

This is the single… In fact, this is the single most important factor that we’re finding helps you get your ex back. It’s the ability to get to this place emotionally where you’ve outgrown them, where you are willing to let them go forever and be okay with your life.

How many of you listening to this or reading this right now are at that place?

Chances are, probably not a lot of you. So, if you’re not doing a no contact rule with that in mind, you can kind of kiss these improvements goodbye. But the impact, the overall impact that a no contact rule has on your chances is just impressive. To me, it still baffles my mind when someone wouldn’t even want to try it out.

I guess I… Playing devil’s advocate, the reason most people don’t want to try the no contact rule out, usually they fall into two camps. Number one is it seems like kind of a mean thing to do to an ex, someone who you care about so deeply.

And number two is you think that it is a type of a strategy meant to manipulate your ex. And we’re trying to reframe the way you’re looking at the no contact rule.

This is not a strategy that’s about your ex. This is a strategy about you. This is a strategy where you will work to heal after the breakup. This is the important part that we’re trying to get across.

So, the first thing we would say about, like, look, the first big improvement that the no contact rule will have on your chances is it’s really going to help the internal work that you’re going to be doing. It gives you time to create some steady habits, to create an efficiency of habit stacking that allows you to have more depth.

We have no control over the length of our life, but we have control over the depth of our life. And I’m a big believer in becoming someone so impressive that your ex just is naturally drawn to you, and you don’t really do that by obsessing about them and trying to play games during the no contact rule on making them miss you. It’s not about that. We need to sort of put that off. So, I think that’s the first big thing that can really improve the impact that the no contact rule will have on your overall chances of success.

For me, the second big thing is actually by looking at the data. We’ve had a lot of success stories, thousands that have come through our program, and I’m not kidding you, literally thousands.

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Our Way Of No Contact Is Different Than You Expect

I’ve been lucky enough to interview, I think I’ve got like 50 or 60 hours’ worth of interviews on YouTube just for free, where I sit down with success stories and interview them for anywhere between 35 minutes to an hour, talking to them, trying to pick them apart and understand what they’re doing that’s working.

And what’s interesting is that in 90% of those very same success stories, they used a no contact rule. So, the no contact rule’s clearly a huge factor for those who are successful at getting their exes back.

We also think that it’s a huge reason for why our program is so successful. What I think sets our program apart is that we initially started as one of the traditional, like, “Hey, look, we will teach you how to get your ex back,” but over time, we learned what actually work isn’t necessarily the tactics to make you more desirable to your ex. What matters more is that you make yourself more desirable to yourself, and by default, your ex finds that more desirable.

And I know that’s, like, incredibly cliché, and I think that’s why a lot of people, when they hear something like that, they kind of scoff and roll their eyes and say, “Well, that’s cliché, I’ve heard that a million times.”

But what I’m proud of is the way in which we empower men and women to actually make a difference, and the no contact rule is sort of the vehicle in which we give them the… Think of it like this. It’s the first big domino that falls.

Once we can get them to do the no contact rule and get them to adopt the no contact rule from an outgrowth mindset, we find they just end up improving week after week after week, becoming more empowered, becoming more confident to the point where, at the end, our end goal for everyone that comes through our website, program, everything is at the end of a no contact rule, we want to see such a change internally within you that you don’t even really want to get your ex back anymore, because that’s how we know, look, now you have all the leverage.

You talk to them, you don’t care if they respond, you’re not going to be looking at your phone every five minutes. You’ve kind of grown past them. You kind of have to ask yourself, “Are they willing to meet me at my new level?”

I also think that you need to understand that the no contact rule is a tool and not the entire strategy for getting an ex back. Look, the no contact rule will absolutely make anger dissipate, and will absolutely make people nostalgic, but that’s pretty much all it does from a stand from a “this will make my ex miss me” standpoint.

If you’re looking at the no contact rule, just purely what it’s going to do to your ex, it’s going to do two things.

It will make them calm down after the breakup, and it will help make them more nostalgic; our research on avoidance has suggested that. But we add this extra element of, like, “Okay, while that’s going on, let’s also do this work here. Let’s move on.”

This is not a popular thing to say, because I think most people come into this…

Most people come into this because they think their ex is the man of their dreams. And what we’re trying to make you realize at the end of it is, he may very well be, but also, so is this guy, so is this guy, so is this guy, and you have your pick of the litter.

No Contact Is The First Step… Not The Entire Strategy

So, the first thing I would say is you really need to understand that the no contact rule is just the first step to this overall strategy. It’s not the entire strategy. I think that’s a huge mistake people make. Right? There’s a synergy between all of the three core components that make up our program. So, if you were kind of to divide the three components of our program up, you would have three specific categories. You would have the no contact rule, you’d have the concept of the value ladder, and then the concept of the value chain. So, the no contact rule is all about internal work, the value ladder is all about external work, and the value chain kind of combines that value ladder and no contact work together.

All right, so the way I try to explain it to people who get confused, because sometimes I don’t do the best of explaining it, is simple. The no contact rule, this period of time where you’re ignoring your ex, is all about you fixing you. Not saying that there’s anything wrong, but there’s improvements that we can make. Everyone has improvements.

The value ladder is all about helping you understand the mediums in which you’re going to be communicating with your ex, and how you need to communicate with your ex. So, for example, after a no contact rule, what do you do? How do you get your ex back? Well, the first thing you’re typically going to want to do is build value through text messaging. Once enough value is built through there, you’re going to move up to phone calls, or sometimes video chat or Skype, or what have you. Once you build enough value there, while still using text message, you add on meetups. Meetups are kind of not romantic dates, they can be [inaudible 00:16:41] kind of hangouts, but they’re not romantic yet. So, while you’re doing texting and video chat, phone call, things like that, you’re also doing meetups.

Once you do a couple of meetups, that’s when you try to go for the romantic date. And usually, if you’ve gotten to that romantic date and you’ve sort of climbed your way to the top of the ladder, that’s usually enough for most women to have a man come and basically say, “I want you back.” But in cases where they don’t say that, there’s strategies that we teach that can help you do that as well.

But then, you kind of have this understanding of like, “Okay, I do the no contact rule, then I do the texting phase, then I do the phone call phase, then I do the meetup phase, then I do the romantic date phase. What the heck do I say? How do I build value?” Well, that’s where the value chain comes into play, by looking at the types of conversations you’re going to be having. Right?

So, generally speaking, I think there’s four or five main types of conversations that you’re going to want to have based on where you are at in the value ladder. So, the first types of conversation is small talk, basically. It’s the type of conversation that you can have pretty much with anyone, you know, like, “Hey, how’s the weather? What’s up?” That’s small talk. Next, you have telling stories, right? So, telling stories, you usually only tell stories to people who are acquaintances. They’re not necessarily strangers; they could be sort of work friends, they can be your closest friends, so there’s a wide variety. Next, you have sharing opinions. Sharing opinions is usually only reserved for close friends, family members, people you’re dating.

Then you have sort of the virgin ground. Virgin ground is where you start diving into topics that you’re maybe a little afraid to talk about. Usually, it’s not about your past relationship with your ex. This is usually sort of new ground where you’re kind of opening up and showing your ex the depth you have, and hopefully, in turn, your ex is sharing depth they have. And what you’re looking for is them to literally say, “Wow, I’ve never told anyone that before.” You’ve hit virgin ground. And then the final one is where you share feelings. You usually only share sort of romantic feelings with people you’re romantic with. So, there’s even kind of like a value ladder stair-step aspect to the types of conversations you’re having, and you sprinkle these all throughout the value ladder.

Now, how to do that is another article, another podcast episode, another entire YouTube video in and of itself. But that gives you kind of the idea that the no contact rule in and of itself will help improve your chances, but it’s not going to be the entire strategy. And the more you realize that, the more power the no contact rule can have, because you know, “Okay, this is just building the foundation for everything that’s to come.”