Today we’re going to talk about if you should contact an ex who dumped you.

So, should you?

Once the prerequisites have been met then yes, it’s in your best interest to contact your ex. However, it must be done a certain way using the texting formula I’m going to outline in this article.

So, what are these prerequisites?

• A full no contact must be completed
• You must have gotten to a place emotionally where you don’t really care if you get them back or not

And then of course there’s the “how?” of the question.

How do you contact an ex and get a positive result?

Well, there’s a simple three step formula we’ve come up with but you’ll have to keep reading to figure out what that is.

😉 .

For now, let’s talk about all the prep work that needs to occur before you reach out to an ex who dumped you.

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Understanding The Pre-Requisites

It’s been my experience that most people who’ve been dumped gloss over this section thinking it’s not important. After all, the texting formula is sexy and can yield those responses.

What’s not explicitly called out is the fact that the formula really only works if two things have happened.

1. You’ve gotten through a no contact period
2. You’ve gotten your mind right through that no contact period

To be honest, I’m tired of talking about the no contact rule and its benefits. You can see all of my thoughts on it here.

You can watch my thoughts on it here,

Basically the quick crash course lesson is that no matter how difficult it may be it’s really important to get through a complete 21-45 day period of no contact.

Refer to the massive no contact guide I linked to above to determine what the best time is for you.

Getting through a no contact period unscathed is going to be challenging in and of itself, but the more meaningful thing is your mindset after you come through the no contact rule.

What We’ve Learned From Success Stories

Ex Boyfriend Recovery has been operating since 2012. That’s almost 11 years in business. We’ve literally had tens of thousands of men and women come through our program.

Thousands of those have successfully gotten their exes back.

I’ve interviewed them multiple times,

Want to know the big thing I learned?

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Most people who succeed are the people who at the end of their no contact rule got to this place emotionally where they weren’t sure they even wanted their ex back anymore.

Authentically they need to believe this though. It can’t be a faked thing.

Why does this work?

Well, the best answer I’ve ever been able to come up with is that it gives you a certain confidence when going into the texting phase.

Instead of worrying about if an ex is going to respond or if your text is good enough you’ll think,

If they respond, cool. If they don’t, cool.

Somehow that bleeds through in your reach outs.

But it probably has more of an impact on response time than anything. You don’t appear to be as valuable and thus your exes perception of you slowly begins to shift.

Of course, my team and I have the benefit of not really worrying too much about getting an ex to respond.

We’ve spent years testing and seeing what actually yields the best response. We’ve then created a formula for that.

Our Texting Formula

Now, here’s the cool part of this article. Not only am I going to show you what the formula is but I’m also going to show you real life examples of it in action.

So, what’s the formula?

Hook + Payoff + High Point = Success

Ok, this is going to require some explaining so lets break it down one by one.

The Hook

This is going to be your text starter and it’s entire job is to capture your exes interest, much in the same way that the first sentence of a book is supposed to capture the readers attention.

You can utilize a combination of,

• Pattern Interrupts
• Knowledge Based Issues
• Damsel In Distress Topics

We’ve actually seen a lot of success with the damsel in distress type texts. We think this is because it makes the ex feel good to not only “help you” but also generally you are asking about a topic in which they have a lot of expertise in.

It’s also important to note that the hook isn’t meant to be more than a sentence at most. It’s entire job is to just hook your ex is.

To get them to respond.

Here’s a few real life examples from clients,

Soo… have you heard the news?

What news?

There’s an unanswered question that the ex just has to find out.

Here’s another example of a great hook,

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Tom, I need your cooking advice.

This hook is more of an expertise/interest question. It sets the ex up so he gets to be the hero saving the damsel in distress.

One more,

You literally won’t believe what I just saw…

This one is a more direct open loop/curiosity text.

As you can see it went really well for our client but only because they knocked it out of the park on the payoff.

Payoff

Ok, so this is the hardest part to get right.

With your hook you are introducing an unanswered question. I showed you three examples from above.

1. Soo… have you heard the news? (Unanswered question: What’s the news?)
2. Tom… I need your cooking advice? (What specifically do you need my advice with?)
3. You literally won’t believe what I just saw (What did you see?)

Once you have your ex hooked in and get the quick response you face a greater challenge. You need to create a payoff that makes your ex either,

• Satisfied
• Want to help
• Engage with you

There are many clever ways in which you can do this.

One of our communities favorite ways is to respond with an open ended question. Basically respond with something where your ex can’t respond with a simple yes or no.

Here are a few examples of that done really well,

I’m taking a first year geography module next semester, what did you think about Globalization: Economy, Space and Power?

Notice how this is a really specific interest based open ended question. It’s not something I’m particularly interested in but this ex is.

Also, notice how the ex couldn’t respond to the question with a simple yes or no answer.

It forces them to dig in.

This is a good payoff.

The donut example from above is another really great example of a payoff.

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Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words,

This payoff works because it is interest based and shocking.

Someone created a D’oh!Nuts shop… From the Simpsons,

It’s a good payoff.

And then of course comes the most challenging part of our formula.

The High Point

Now, I’ve stated this multiple times throughout the history of this website.

End conversations at the high point.

Don’t overstay your welcome.

But when you are in the texting phase it can be difficult to figure out when this is for a lot of different reasons.

For one, if you are texting your ex right out of no contact the conversation shouldn’t really last very long. In fact, if this is your first contact after no contact then you are supposed to dip out of the conversation after you get the payoff as evidenced here,

You see how they said,

“Ohhh… that sounds interesting! Just dashing into town now but thanks so much for that.”

They got their payoff and now its time to end the conversation.

On the other hand, if you’ve been slowly building rapport over weeks with an ex conversations are going to stretch out.

You need to do your absolute best to identify the high point of the texting conversation and end it in a similar manner shown above.

My general rule of thumb for high point identification is that if you don’t want the conversation to end then you’ve probably reached the high point and should end the conversation.

Why this is so important is it taps into the Zeigarnik effect,

A concept that posits that people remember interrupted or incomplete tasks better than completed ones.

By consistently ending the conversations at the high point you make it more likely that your ex will want to reach out to you going forward.