Today I’m going to show you why I believe that cutting a man off is one of the very best ways to get him to miss you.

Since I started Ex Boyfriend Recovery in 2012 I’ve witnessed thousands of women utilize many variations of no contact on men and studied how they react.

The natural assumption most people have is that by utilizing no contact, or cutting a guy off, will instantly make them miss you.

However, I’ve found that getting them to a place where they miss you is not always a straight line. In fact, there will be a lot of emotional value changes along the way.

Here’s how guys typically feel when you cut them off,

• Initial shock
• Pain (Genuinely hurt)
• Anger
• Vengeance
• Depression
• Regret
• Acceptance

Let’s take some time and dig in to each of these.

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Stage One: Initial Shock

You cut your guy off.

You’ve decided to stop talking to him. You’ve temporarily removed him from your life. I promise you it’s going to come as a shock, especially if you were on previously good terms.

And if you really think about this stage it has a lot in common with the five stages of grief,

1. denial
2. anger
3. bargaining
4. depression
5. acceptance

Your guy will go into denial.

They won’t believe that you’d be willing to take such a drastic measure.

Out of all the stages we are going to talk about today this one is by far the quickest because it quickly paves the way for our next stage, pain.

Stage Two: Pain

When the realization hits that you’ve cut them off.

That you aren’t going to be talking to them for the foreseeable future it’s going to hurt.

They are going to feel as if all the time they invested with you was for nothing. They’ll convince themselves that you don’t care about them (when that probably isn’t true.)

It’s going to feel to them like a full on rejection.

And it’s interesting, this pain stage is probably the second shortest one in terms of how long it’ll last.

Stage Three: Anger

It’s human nature to feel angry after you feel wronged.

I mean, one look at our facebook group and you’ll see some interesting examples of this stage,

Anger is an interesting phenomenon.

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As you can probably tell from the title of this website we got our start specializing in breakups and one of the things we noticed was the fascinating role anger plays in the breakup.

Even if an ex is the one clearly at fault, they find it easier to blame you.

It’s a way of internally soothing themselves.

By blaming you.

By making you out to be the bad guy they distance themselves from taking any blame themselves.

Which leads us very nicely to the next stage.

Stage Four: Vengeance

What do we do when we feel wronged?

We seek vengeance.

And this is an extremely potent feeling.

Check out this study I found from Virginia Commonwealth University,

Across six experiments involving 1,500 participants, researchers found a clear and consistent preference for immediate revenge.

Let’s look at that screenshot I took of our group above.

Our clients ex, unprovoked sent them a message calling them a monster.

Why?

Revenge.

It’s a way to make our client hurt as much as they are hurting.

Is it childish?

Yep.

Does it happen often?

Yep.

Stage Five: Depression

Want to know the funny thing about vengeance?

It’s a short term boost that maybe makes someone whose being cut off feel better in the moment.

But long term…

Well, the benefits don’t last.

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Instead, the realization that you may be gone forever begins to creep in.

But it’s interesting. Look at the journey it took to get to this moment.

I think that’s the single biggest misunderstanding that people have about cutting men off. They think the results will be instantaneous, they aren’t.

It’s a primal journey filled with emotional change.

And just because a guy starts to feel sad in this stage doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to miss you.

Our avoidant relationship death wheel taught us that,

They need to sit in the depression stage for a bit before they begin to regret.

Stage Six: Regret

One of the very best videos that I ever filmed was about making avoidants miss you,

At the time when I filmed it I was a novice on Avoidants.

I understood the basics of attachment theory but didn’t really understand the nuances behind each individual insecure attachment.

Over the years I had taken a few quizzes and found out that I was a dismissive avoidant.

I also found out that most of my clients believed their former partners were avoidant as well,

Here’s the crazy thing about avoidants. They don’t tend to regret until they feel like there is no chance that a reconnection could ever happen.

Only then do they give themselves permission to feel nostalgia and miss their previous partners.

Seems like a backwards way to operate but if you understand the nuances of their attachment style it actually makes perfect sense.

You see, the avoidant attachment style operates from a core wound of independence. This means that when anyone or anything threatens their independence their attachment gets triggered and they are likely to flee.

They like to do things on their own terms.

So, commitment has to be their idea.

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Same goes with re-commitment.

By cutting them off, while they can still go through all the stages before this one, they aren’t’ going to allow themselves to feel regret until they feel like you have moved on from them.

They fall in love with phantom exes far too often.

In fact, they prefer it.

Ironically, when you believe your partner is smack dab in the middle of this stage is usually the best time to stop cutting them off and start reaching out to them.

Otherwise you run the risk of encountering stage seven.

Stage Seven: Acceptance

You ever wonder why I’m so adamant about not falling in complete love with the no contact rule?

It’s because giving your ex partner too much time away from you can absolutely cause them to simply get over the breakup.

It’s one of the reasons why I don’t believe in 90 day no contact rules.

In fact, I think the longest you should ever be in no contact for is 45 days.

The reasoning revolves around something I call the habit rule.

According to experts, it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit.

By that logic it could theoretically take a guy 66 days to get over you.

So, if that’s not the outcome that you want, why would you ignore them and literally give them the opportunity to move on?

Contrary to what is being peddled out there online, there is a time limit on attraction and relationships.

One of my favorite movies ever is Cast Away,

The end of that movie is not only powerful but it’s a haunting look at the concept I’m trying to talk about here.

People don’t wait around forever.

Tom Hanks is literally cast away on an island. He loses his freedom, his sanity and the love of his life.

So, when he is miraculously rescued and comes back to the real world, did the love of his life wait around for him?

No.

She had moved on, gotten married, had kids.

It’s rare to find someone that’s willing to wait around forever. Eventually we accept what was lost and move on. So, my argument to all of my clients is don’t wait too long before you try to reach out.

Doing that can lead to disastrous results. Instead, reach out during the regret phase. Doing so will usually be the phase where your ex is actually missing you.