How To Get Your Ex Back or Move On for Good (I Tried the Matthew Hussey Method)

Forget everything you know about playing it cool. It won’t work.

As a matter of fact, anything at all which is remotely fake or preconceived and rehearsed will end up looking like a crappy version of amateur theatre.

Most dating coaches and Google will tell you that phase 1 of the breakup holds a golden rule: no contact for 21 days (some go so far as saying 1 month). Why? Because you can’t miss something that is still there.

My grandma used to say, “you cannot chase a ball that isn’t rolling away”. Point taken grandma.

So here I am, 25 days into the breakup. I have turned blonde, because I had read that you’re supposed to look different the next time you see them, fit, because you’re supposed to look hotter, smiling, because you’re supposed to be happy.

Let me tell you, I have been trying so hard to be happy. Apparently endorphins are the number one superfood that allows you to survive while you’re in the no contact zone so I have been hitting the gym, which I normally never enter; at least once a day. Plus walks, plus cycling around town, plus cleaning my flat like a crazy person.

Where is the happiness? That’s what the Black Eyed Peas should have sung instead of the love, not that love is anywhere to be found, in fact, it’s probably hanging out with happiness in an unknown location as we speak.

Rationally, I knew it was over but to this day I wish he would come running back to me. In lack of better ideas I re-read the Matthew Hussey advice on how to get your ex back.

The Matthew Hussey 5 step plan to getting them back:

RIGHT AFTER THE BREAKUP: day 3 or 4 post-breakup you can send a goodbye letter that basically says ‘I have acknowledged that you no longer want to be in this relationship. I don’t agree but I take notice, I thank you for all the beautiful times we shared and wish you all the best as I move on.
NO CONTACT FOR 21 DAYS in which you rebuild your life, your happiness, your heart and start doing new things (or fix things that weren’t working in your life and you never actually took time to do).
THE LOW PRESSURE TEXT: you send a message with no question marks to re-establish contact in a light way. The goal here is not to get him back with love but with attraction. Forget the heavy stuff, you want to remind him of the light and amazing bits of you. Example of text ‘finally went to that cafe we talked so much about. It was amazing!’ or ‘Watched House of Gucci last night, reminded me of x y and z.’ This operation can be repeated 2–3 times with 3–4 days in between until you then follow up the text with ‘we should catch up soon!’.
THE FIRST MEETING: A brief, one hour meeting doing something you have not previously done before, ideally a walk or coffee, no alcohol, in which you show up looking hot and new and talk about the things that are new in your life. You destabilize the person a bit by giving them a version of you that they don’t quite know. The overall goal is to keep them off balance. You can meet up with them in a light and fun way two or three times. Do not talk about anything deep, feelings, breakup yet. This is meant to be a time to reconnect on attraction, not on love.
WAIT FOR THEM TO FOLLOW-UP and don’t sleep with them until you are sure it’s headed back to being a relationship. Let them lead this piece, once you have hooked them back in they should be the ones driving it.

Does it work? Here’s what happened when I tried it.

Note to readers who want to try it: I didn’t fully follow the plan to the T because life happened but I’m not far from it.

I didn’t write a letter because I said all of this during our breakup live. Without even having the Matthew Hussey instructions. At the time I thought I was so cool and that it worked, realistically he never actually reached out so who knows what he thought.
I disappeared for 25 days. Challenge accepted and it worked (this was the easiest part as all the control was in my field).
I became blonde, went to the gym, went to therapy. I tried to work but my brain was fried and I am still sad. Can you really get over someone in only 21 days? If you can, I am feeling a bit like a looser but I can tell you I am definitely not there yet.
I didn’t ask him out and do the whole texting thing because I ran into him at the neighborhood pub. I did do what Matthew says in the sense of telling him that I was doing new things and how amazing my life was. I told him about a new friend I made and he said ‘no surprise there. Girls love you. Well, guys love you too but anyways…’
No follow up from him yet and it has been 5 days.

Plan for the unplanned.

In truth, despite having decided to try this out, nothing went according to plan.

I had been prepping every day for three and a half weeks to see him. I blow dried my hair perfectly, I brought lots of sexy- casual pieces of clothes back from home just to make sure every time I step out the door I’m perfect as he lives in the same neighborhood as I do.

Nothing. I decided mentally that in the end I would never end up seeing him so I dressed in white and hot pink and headed out with my girlfriends. Who do I see right in front of the pub? Him.

I have to admit, my heart properly enlarged itself like an inflatable balloon and filled up my whole chest. It couldn’t skip a beat because it could barely beat from how huge it had become so compressed within my chest. My friend said smile, get down from this car, let’s go.

He came up to me practically right away. I appreciated it. We said hi and my friends left us alone for a moment. It was tough. I smiled and did exactly what Matthew Hussey tells you to do on a first meeting after a breakup: smile and create a sense that you are in a new and better place in life. A better place than three weeks ago? Oh please. I’m in the same shit place where I cry all the time and hope he comes back while my 30+ year old friends are all getting married and having kids. I’m the breakup valley covered in mud.

Despite all this, and I have no idea of how, I felt okay. I genuinely have been putting in the work by talking to my therapist, going to the gym, taking care of me, allowing myself to have some ups and downs and to love myself through the rejection.

I quickly realized that I wasn’t pretending. I was okay. Barely, but okay.

Without even noticing it, I felt like the best version of me. What a surprise! I hadn’t seen this version of myself in a really long time, possibly not even when I was with him.

He said it felt strange not to talk anymore, he thought about asking me to coffee yet he never did. I have to admit, watching him nervous and happy just like I was, or even a tad more, made me feel excited and bubbly.

In order to digest the breakup, I had made up a story in my head that went something like this: he doesn’t like me enough, he’s just not that into me, therefore he ended things. Looking at him interacting with me, knowing he was full on staring at me while he thought I wasn’t watching, I realized this was not the case at all. Wow. He likes me. Still. A lot.

I told my well thought out ‘my life is amazing and I am so happy’ story and with this new realization of him liking me in mind all I could think of was: WHY ARE WE BORKEN UP?!

I held it together so well. Someone from up above event sent me a few assists: first of all a man I had met 6 years ago (and had no recollection of meeting) came over to ask for my number right in front of his nose. In a formal elegant non flirtatious way, I gave it to him and met up with him and his friends and my own friends for dinner.

Right when he decided to leave, I received my second assist: my friend anticipated his goodbye, told me to smile quickly and said ‘girls, we’re late for dinner we need to run!’ This way, I managed to say my goodbyes to him. He pulled me a bit closer than what you would do with a friend, his hands properly holding me and his lips on my cheek with a tiny bit of lip contact.

As we headed to the car the third assist came in: my other friend started playfully dancing with me heading to the car and, in what looked like the world’s best mood, we left for dinner with the other group of guys. He never took his eyes off of me all night.

I always say too much.

I told him the stories I had decided I wanted to share plus more information that was surely too personal on a first run-in. He was doing the same, rambling on about all the things he wanted to share and hadn’t been able to as we broke up. We were nervous.

Truth is, I thought about all the reasons I could think of for which he did break up with me and I couldn’t think of any that would fit what I was experiencing at this moment.

Why you should or shouldn’t try it.

Overall I think having a plan helps us mentally. It helped me to know what was next. It helped me to survive the first three weeks, I knew it was a not contact zone and I felt comfortable in not writing at all as I didn’t need to constantly think of what I should or shouldn’t do, the decision was already made.

Usually I am a pro talking about what’s going on and being direct and open in communication, however in this case despite the feelings of rejection and my self esteem gone under the soles of my shoes I did decide that I was worth more than this. He didn’t deserve my vulnerability and kindness. Ididn’t feel the need to put my heart even more out there, I was feeling the need to protect it a bit. To this day I believe in my core that I deserve someone who feels so damn lucky to be with me.

My therapist told me that there may be a blockage within me, that there may be parts of me which still need to heal. Absolutely, this is likely true, however do we really need to be fully healed and perfect to deserve love? To be loved?

I want to believe that no, we don’t need to. It would be great and I will keep working hard at it every single day however I know that we don’t because I have personally loved people at all different places of life. Also, the only certainty we have in life is constant change, so we are bound to swim on different waves, through highs and lows.

We always want to know why.

The end result of this meeting on Thursday was that my friends and I were fully convinced that he would at the very least message me. He never did.

‘Why’ doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things because in real life, he is just not there and that’s the only thing we can count on.

On the other hand I had the opportunity to speak to a friend of his who told me that he genuinely is a very good person and that men can have a lot of pride and mess things up with people they actually care about and never have the courage to retrace their own steps.

He suggested I make a move and invite him to that coffee.

Here is the thing, I am not sure I want him back, based on the elements I have so far I probably shouldn’t want him back at all. That said, I do believe there is such a thing in getting him back and then you’ll know if you want him or not. Hello Ego!

Reminders:

We cannot change others. If you think of how challenging it is to change ourselves, and that’s when we are fully invested in that change, you can imagine how completely useless it is to attempt to change someone else who doesn’t even want to change.

In my view, the real value added to this plan is the structure it gives to a time in life when nothing makes sense and where it feels like there is no path.

The only direction we need to follow is the one towards regaining love towards ourselves, one that leads us back to fully seeing our value not just when we are okay, but also and especially when we need love the most.

As my sister-in-law-to-be taught me, we need to learn to re-channel all that love we were ready and willing to give to the other person towards ourselves and love ourselves a little harder, especially now that we need it so much.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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