Navigating getting your ex back can be tough, and starting to develop feelings for your ex-boyfriend along the way is very common.

It’s totally normal you develop feelings for someone you like but this causes some problems when trying to win your ex back. With this in mind, it is a good idea to protect your heart until you are in committed relationship for three reasons: –

• You need a clear head to win your ex back
• You don’t want to get hurt again
• You don’t want to over invest

To help you to avoid falling in love with your ex or even try to reverse those feelings if you are already falling in love, I’m going to teach you the steps you need to take to ensure you don’t start to develop feelings for your ex too soon.

This article is going to cover:-

• Why you might start to develop feelings
• Is it love?
• Has your ex-boyfriend earned it?
• The techniques to stop you from falling in love with him.

I am guessing you are reading this article because you are already starting to fall back in love with your ex-boyfriend.

Feelings are a part of everyday life.

Anger, sadness, love, jealousy, joy… they are all part of what make you a human being and are totally normal.

The problem you are facing is that developing feelings for your ex-boyfriend too soon leaves you at risk of getting hurt if he isn’t reciprocating.

The other reason you want to avoid falling in love, is that it will lead to you having expectations for a relationship earlier than your ex-boyfriend might be ready to commit and this can blow your chances of winning him back and we definitely don’t want that.

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Why Are You Developing Feelings? 

I see it happen all the time on Ex-Boyfriend Recovery, a girl will make amazing progress and successfully complete her no-contact period; she will come out of the other side feeling like a new woman and I am always amazed by the progress you ladies make in a few weeks!…..

But then BOOM!!!…

Feelings appear and things start to unravel again.

The best thing you can do in that situation is to put the brakes on and avoid falling in love too soon.

Developing feelings too early on in the process can cause you to become a text gnat or push for a commitment too soon, which will scare away your ex.

There’s two things that will cause you to develop feelings for your ex-boyfriend.

1. You are in the texting stage
2. You have been on some dates

When you are in the texting stage you might start to develop some feelings for your ex-boyfriend because you are thinking about him all of the time.

It’s tough when you are trying to focus on creating the perfect text and remembering all the good times you had together; it can cause you to backslide on your progress.

This is why I suggest that you try and come up with your texting topics during your no-contact period…. If you plan your texts earlier you can avoid thinking about your ex as much as possible.

The other reason you might start to develop feelings for your ex-boyfriend is that you have had a few dates together…. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

If you have been spending time, together this is a fantastic step towards getting your ex back but you don’t want to jeopardize that by catching a “case of the feelings” too soon!

When you spend time with your ex-boyfriend you are going to experience those same fluttery feelings of excitement you had when you first started dating. Unfortunately this is likely to happen sooner for you, than for him, as you already want to get him back.

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So…. What do you need to do when going through the Ex-Boyfriend Recovery process to avoid falling in love too soon? Your ex-boyfriend and you have history together so it sounds tricky to avoid right?

It’s possible to avoid falling in love if you follow the advice in this article.

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Is It Love?

Feelings can be so confusing, one minute they are all calm… the next they are everywhere!

Let’s take a moment to establish if it is love you are feeling or something else.

I’m going to call those other types of feelings pre-love…. The things you feel before you get to love; they are a kind of infatuation with your ex that can easily be confused with love.

There was a clever guy called Robert Stenberg who decided that you need to have three things safely in the bag before you can have proper love.

1. Feelings
2. Commitment
3. Intimacy

Stenberg created this cool way to classify the types of feelings that exist.

I’ve adapted what he learnt so that you can understand what this means when getting your ex-back.

Looking at this cool little diagram, you will see the three big circles, each of these make up one element of a relationship.

The elements of feelings and commitment are as simple as they sound, but you should be aware that intimacy covers all physical aspects of a relationship from kissing to right through to sex.

Where two of these circles overlap you get a type of pre-love or infatuation.

Feelings + Intimacy= Friends with benefits

This is what happens when you are stuck in a Friends With Benefits situation.

What you have here are feelings of physical lust or desire, they may even be mutual but unfortunately you are lacking commitment and this is preventing you from having real love.

If you are in this area I really suggest you pull back a little until you start seeing more commitment from your ex.

Remember ladies…… no sex with your ex

Feelings + Commitment = Early dating

When you combine feelings with commitment you tend to be in the “we are taking it slowly stage” of dating. This means you are at quite a critical point in securing your relationship fully because you need all three elements to make a real relationship work long term.

When you have both feelings and commitment the kind of pre-love you are experiencing is a type of affection.

If you are in this stage you need to be very careful you don’t scare him away by overwhelming him with your feelings so try and keep things under control and don’t get carried away.

Intimacy + Commitment = The deadzone

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This is not one you need to really worry about much, this generally tends to happen before a breakup rather than when you start winning your ex-boyfriend back.

In the unlikely event that you do happen to find yourself in this situation, it is worth recognizing that these feelings are an idealization.

What does that mean?…. it basically means you are falling for the fantasy of what you want your relationship to be like, rather than the situation you have with your ex.

Feelings + Commitment + Intimacy = Awesome relationship

This is the amazing tri-sector sweet spot that you want to be in. If you are in this category then congratulations you made it through winning your ex-boyfriend back and are probably wondering whether it is too soon to say “I love you”.

I think if you have all three elements of a relationship in place then it is safe to start thinking about calling it real love.

But this begs the question….. does he deserve your love yet?

Does He Deserve Your Love?

This is a really important thing to consider when getting your ex-boyfriend back.
Most breakups are generally caused by problems experienced by both you and your ex.

Now, you are on the awesome Ex-Boyfriend Recovery journey so you have been working hard to better yourself, and are ready to start an improved relationship with your ex; but, your ex most likely won’t have done any self-improvement so you might see him falling back into old annoying habits.

The questions you should be asking yourself when thinking about whether your ex deserves your love yet are:-

• Do we have a commitment?
• Does he treat me with respect?
• Is he making a regular investment in the relationship?
• Is he saying he has feelings for me?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then it is fair to say it is too soon to give your love to your ex because one of the key principles of Ex-Boyfriend Recovery is that he has to chase you.

The reason you want him to chase you is because he needs to be more invested in the situation than you are for this to work. People want what is difficult to obtain, this is called the

Principle of Scarcity and you need to use it to your advantage.

How to avoid falling in love.

I am going to give you a quick explanation on how the Principles of Scarcity and Abundance which I mentioned earlier are going to help you.

To explain it I am going to use a food example….. because I love my food!

So have you ever been on a really tough diet?

You know one of those strictly no ice-cream, no chocolate, no cake, no meatball subs, no milkshakes just one of those boring old salad and water regimes….. yeah I have too and I hate those diets!

Well at some point during that diet you probably caved-in and had a huge pepperoni pizza with extra cheese.
I bet you had been dreaming of it for days.

The reason you were dreaming of it was because you couldn’t have one, it was a thing that was not easily available to you on your diet…. In other words, it was scarce. 
That pizza was probably the most delicious thing you had tasted in ages and it gave you a warm happy feeling afterwards.

On the other hand, I bet you have also been to one of those all you can eat buffets…….. I love them because there is just so much choice!

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That choice is exactly why I am using buffets in this example.
When you go to the buffet, there are food options everywhere; in other words there is an abundance of all different types of food.

This makes it difficult to pick just one because you feel you might miss out on all the other tasty things; so you take your gigantic plate and fill it up with a little bit of everything, a bread roll here, a pork-chop there, and then a second or perhaps third helping of the potato salad….

The thing that you don’t do is solely eat the spring rolls!
After you have tried everything on the buffet, you still have that warm happy feeling and feel just as satisfied as if you had ate a whole pizza on your diet.

So what’s my point?…….. the point is that by going to the buffet you were still satisfied with your meal but you didn’t over commit to one thing.

Now you understand the difference between scarcity and abundance let’s talk about using it to help your situation.

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Date other people

If you are in a non-committed situation with your ex-boyfriend then I want you to go on dates with other guys. I know many of you will feel guilty about dating but trust me when I say, if you are broken up, it is not cheating.

The reason I want you to go on dates with other guys, is that you will be less available to your ex. When you are less available you will seem scarce…you will become the pizza that he craves on the diet!

The other great part is that if you are talking to other men and going on dates then you are going to feel like there is an abundance of options available to you…. and he becomes the spring rolls at the buffet! That means you are much less likely to give too much focus to your ex-boyfriend and develop feelings for him.

Don’t over invest

The next suggestion I want to give you to avoid falling in love with your ex-boyfriend is to only invest as much time and effort as you are seeing from him.

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Quid pro quo”?
I used to hear it all the time and I never knew what it meant until I looked it up.
Quid pro quo is a fancy Latin phrase that translates to mean “something for something”

I want you to only invest the same level of interest in your ex as he is showing in you. Basically when he gives you something towards a relationship, you can give him something. In my earlier articles, I talk about tide theory and word count in your text messages, that is great example of how your level of investment should match his.

The reason you should avoid over investing, is that firstly it sets you up with an expectation that he will automatically match your level of effort and if he doesn’t then that is going to leave you upset.

Secondly over investment tends to lead to you developing feelings for your ex-boyfriend faster than he might commit and you will be at a greater risk of getting hurt.

Lastly over investment on your behalf is going to seem like you are highly available to him, in other words, you are in abundance and you will become less desirable to him………. you will turn into the dreaded spring roll!

Distract yourself

This one should be easy as hopefully you are following my advice on becoming the Ungettable Girl.

The Ungettable Girl has a busy lifestyle, she is working out so she looks more attractive, she is spending time with friends and family so she has a happy life of her own, she is improving her career prospects by going back to school so she can be self-sufficient, she has hobbies and reads books to become more interesting when she talks to her ex-boyfriend.

One of the great things about having plenty of activities and friends in your personal life, is that it stops you from focussing too much on your ex-boyfriend.

Stalking his social media and checking your phone every 5 minutes to see if he has text you, will keep him on your mind constantly and will give you that emotional backslide we spoke about earlier in the article; for that reason you should keep yourself busy with being the ungettable girl

Do you know what happens, when you have a lot going on it your life?…. that’s right you feel like you have abundance of options and are less likely to find your ex as desirable. When you keep yourself busy with friends, family, work, fitness and other distractions you will decrease your chances of falling for your ex-boyfriend too soon.

Equally when you have a lot of distractions in your life, you are going to be less available to talk, text and spend time with your ex…. And that means you are a scarce commodity and this will make you more attractive to him!

This scarcity and abundance thing goes together like burgers and fries, because you can’t have one without the other!

So let’s round-up this article with a summary of what we have covered today.

• Why you are developing feelings
• The difference between love and pre-love
• If your ex is deserving of your love
• How you can avoid falling in love
• That I really LOVE junk food.

You will be just fine if try to keep an abundance of other options in your life, whether that’s dating options or social activities so you maintain a sense of abundance, and present a picture of scarcity to your ex-boyfriend.

This is going to make him chase you, whilst also protecting your own heart until he gives you the commitment you want!