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 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. Stages 4 and 5 only happen if reaching out is something you've decided on and something that's available — plenty of readers never reach them, including everyone who's been asked not to make contact. 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 respond, you work it out together. If they don't, that's your answer and you take it.
  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:

All playbooks

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