This is a pretty underrated concept. Yet whenever I offer it up as advice to people, it blows their minds. Sometimes the best move with an ex is to do nothing. Sometimes doing nothing is more powerful than absolutely anything you could possibly say or do in a situation.
Yet, you don’t see many people following this advice. Instead, you see them succumb to what I call the illusion of action.
The illusion of action is essentially a panic and neediness-induced misconception that simply taking any form of action — regardless of its effectiveness or appropriateness — will automatically raise an ex’s attraction level or even lead to reconciliation.
This misconception gets most people into a mindset of reactivity, which causes them to behave less attractively. Think: incessant calls and texts, grand romantic gestures, or begging and pleading with their ex for another shot. All unproductive, sabotaging behaviors that nine times out of ten, only push an ex further away (see: top ex-back mistakes).
To break free from this illusion of action, here’s a novel mentality to adopt.
- You don’t have to respond to all of your ex’s texts.
- You don’t have to acknowledge everything they say.
- You don’t have to call them back.
As I type this out, it sounds so plain and obvious, but it really does blow some people away when they realize it. It blew me away.
Think about it this way: would you rather err on the side of your ex feeling like they’ve engaged with you too much or not enough?
Exactly; it’s better to let them miss you too much than to have them be sick of you. Too often, people feel so obligated to act or do something or respond around their ex that they end up making themselves too available and too easy for them.
What happens to you when your ex doesn’t reply to your text? That’s right, you sit around and obsess over what happened, how you lost them, why they aren’t replying, and what you could have done better.
That goes both ways — you not replying to them can send them into the same tailspin of insecurity.
This may ruffle some codependent’s feathers, but let your ex feel insecure. Not to manipulate or game them, of course. But simply because their insecurity is not your responsibility.
To be crystal clear, I’m not saying time your responses — that’s gamey and therefore needy. All I’m saying is that you should never feel obligated to respond or reply to everything your ex throws at you immediately.
So next time you’re talking to your ex and you don’t like or care about something they said, don’t reply. Sit in silence. See what happens. Or next time you’re busy and they text or call you, don’t text/call them back asap. Wait until you feel like it or genuinely have the time to reply.
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I just had an interesting coaching call this week. A client went on a date with his ex right before he went on a business trip. He cared about her but wasn’t smitten or anything. They traded some messages on Instagram while he was gone, and she told him to call when he got back.
When he did return, my client was tired from the trip and needed to catch up on a lot of stuff, and didn’t bother calling his ex for a few days. But when he finally did call her, she became very nervous and actually started apologizing to him for stuff that she didn’t even do wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not saying that you should relish in your ex apologizing to you for crap they didn’t do. But the reaction did show me something intriguing. It showed me that this ex spent the previous 2-3 days genuinely worrying whether my client would call her and had invented reasons in her mind as to why he waited so long.
Now imagine if my client called his ex at the moment he got off the airplane. Then called her again the next morning. Then texted her the next afternoon. Bam. Suddenly he’s way too available and crowding her and there’s absolutely no question in her mind whether she can have him or not. Therefore, she’s less excited, less uncertain, and overall less attracted to him.
I’ve seen this happen to clients over and over again, and if I could point to the biggest problem people have with their ex, this would probably be it (that and trying way too hard to be funny or clever over text — both are almost universal rookie mistakes).
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Before I end this article, I should add one final caveat. It’s important not to mistake the “you don’t have to do it” impulse with the “I’m chickening out” impulse. It’s an easy mix up the two.
For instance, if you don’t feel like calling your ex back because you genuinely are busy or value doing something else, then that’s fine. If you don’t feel like calling back because you’re scared to death that your ex will reject you, well, then you’re just lying to yourself and you need to suck it up. It’s that simple.
So use discretion. Pay attention to the reason behind your actions.
Moral of the article: get in touch with what you actually want. Not what you think your ex wants or what you feel obligated to say or do out of politeness or whatever.
