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. 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 retrieves a specific person, and most advice about getting an ex back 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.

If you've been reading that other kind of advice, it doesn't make you a schemer. Often it's because you're hurting, and what's on offer — timed silences, jealousy, calculated distance — is sometimes the same kind of thing that hurt you in the first place. Wanting to stop feeling powerless is fair. Those just aren't the way out of it.

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.

If you were frightened of them, controlled, belittled, or made responsible for their temper, none of these situations is yours to fix by working on yourself — and that includes "needy," if that's what you were told you were. Missing them isn't a sign to go back. Talk to a domestic abuse service before deciding anything, including whether to make contact. Your safety comes first.

How the playbooks fit the six stages

The playbooks are situation-specific. The six stages underneath them aren't. Most of what got you here is the same work either way: the honesty, the rebuilding, knowing what you actually want.

Stages 1 to 3 you do regardless. Stage 4 only happens if weighing it up gave you a yes, and only where they haven't blocked you or asked you not to get in touch — plenty of readers never reach it. Stage 5 only happens if they answer and want to talk. Stage 6 forks: rebuild the thing differently, or move on well.

None of the first three is wasted if they never come back. That isn't a consolation prize; it's the whole basis for doing them in that order.

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.

  1. Step Back — Real space. Not a silence timed to make them wonder; room to stop grasping so you can think.
  2. Rebuild Yourself — Your own recovery, done for its own sake.
  3. Weigh Up What To Do — The honest evaluation, including whether you should, not just whether you could. Sometimes the answer is no. That's the page that says so.
  4. 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.
  5. The Honest Conversation — If they answer and want to talk, you work out together where you both stand. If the answer is no, believe it. If there's no answer, there's nothing from them to act on, and nothing more to send.
  6. Start Fresh — Rebuild the relationship differently, or move on well.

Which one should you start with?

Not sure where to begin? Find your situation:

If it's more than a bad stretch

A rough few weeks is part of this. But if you're not sleeping, not eating, can't get through work, it isn't easing, and you can't see a version of yourself on the other side of it, that's past what a page can help with. See a doctor or a therapist, and tell someone close to you what's going on.

If you're thinking about hurting yourself, don't wait: contact a crisis line or emergency services now.

All playbooks

The full library is below. Each one takes a situation and works through what's honestly in your hands in it.