Playbooks for Common Ex Back Scenarios

Below are guides for specific situations — you cheated, they've moved on, you were the needy one, it's a marriage rather than a relationship. I call them playbooks because each is self-contained: read the one that matches where you are and skip the rest.

Worth saying up front what these are and aren't. They aren't scripts for producing a particular reaction in your ex. There's no sequence of moves that reliably retrieves a specific person, and most of this category is built on pretending otherwise. What each playbook covers is what's actually yours to do in that situation — which is less than you'd like, and more than nothing.

New here? The Undo A Breakup home page is the introduction to the whole site and the best place to start. Then come back for the situation that's yours.

How the playbooks fit the six stages

The playbooks are situation-specific. The six stages underneath them are the same path whether you end up back together or not — that isn't a hedge, it's the design. None of it is wasted if they never come back.

That's also the test to keep on you while you read any of this: if you'd stop doing it the moment you knew for certain they were never coming back, you were building an exhibit, not changing.

Step Back — Real space. Not a silence timed to make them wonder; room to stop grasping so you can think.
Rebuild Yourself — Your own recovery, done for its own sake.
Weigh Up What To Do — The honest evaluation, including whether you should, not just whether you could. Sometimes the answer is no. This is where we say so.
Say Where You Stand — Once — One honest statement of where you are and what you'd be open to. Said one time, asking for nothing, then done.
The Honest Conversation — If they respond, you work it out together. If they don't, that's your answer and you take it.
Start Fresh — Rebuild the relationship differently, or move on well.