Today we’re going to talk about what to do if your ex goes back to their ex.

And if you stick around until the end of this article I’ll show you,

1. How to determine if you’re the rebound
2. What to do if you find yourself in that situation.

But first things first, without a doubt the number one burning question that people have when they find themselves in this situation is, what are my overall chances of getting my ex back?

It’s important that you determine the answer to this question so that you don’t waste your time going after someone you have little chance with.

Luckily for you I have put together a quiz right here on my website which will give you an approximate answer of what your chances are of getting your ex back, and the next steps you should be taking.

It’s free and should only take a couple of minutes to complete.

It’s that simple.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Boyfriend Back?

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Let’s First Determine If You Are The Rebound

So. You’re afraid because your ex went back to their ex.

Usually in situations like this, the first thing I encourage people to do is to determine if they are the rebound for their ex.

Now, I’ve done lots of podcasts, videos and articles talking about your ex going on the rebound from you but let’s put the shoe on the other foot here.

There are two points that you have to look at to work out if you are the rebound girl (or guy).

1. How quickly did your ex move from their previous relationship into a relationship with you?
2. How closely did your relationship follow the four phases of a rebound relationship?

Let’s start from the top.

How Long Did It Take For Your Ex To Move On To You?

As a general rule of thumb, in order for you to be considered a rebound, your ex needs to have moved on pretty quickly from their past relationship.

But what is quickly?

Generally speaking, we’re looking at a move-on time of between a week to a month.

Specifically, this is the time from them finishing it with their previous partner to starting to date you. Sometimes you might not be sure of the exact dates, but use what you do know.

Now this does also depend on how long that previous relationship lasted – but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Let’s move on to our next data point:

The Four Phases Of A Rebound Relationship

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Boyfriend Back?

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One of my most popular videos on YouTube is the one where I argue that every rebound relationship will go through four phases.

The first phase is a mini-honeymoon. We’ve all been in a relationship where the first part is all candy and roses. Everything’s perfect, just like it should be on a honeymoon.

The second phase is when you have your first argument and the cracks begin to appear.

This can happen really early on, making the honeymoon period short – as short as a few weeks.

But remember that every relationship is different. Some rebound relationships can last quite a bit longer – in our experience, up to a year. (Again, every relationship is unique.)

After that, you begin to settle into a more normal relationship pattern and the rebound danger is more or less over.

The third phase in a rebound relationship is the fight or flight phase.

This is an interesting one.

When the cracks begin to form, your ex will either be arguing with you, often a lot, or they will fly away – literally run away and disappear.

In our experience, most exes will just fight, and carry on arguing with you.

The fact that you have been getting on so badly makes the fourth phase easier for them to arrive at.

The fourth phase is where they have an epiphany. This is a moment of clarity for them where they think, “I made a mistake in the relationship. I should go back to my previous one. I didn’t know how good I had it.”

Those are the four phases. But how can this help you, especially if you’ve ended up on the other side of the fourth phase, or ghosted at the third?

Most of the time when we get thrown into a breakup situation we have our blinders on.

We are afraid to look at the broader picture; we are consumed by our own pain.

It’s hard to look at things objectively, but this will help you.

If you can be brave, take a step back and look at the broader view of your relationship, and you can see that it fitted into the four phases I have talked about, you may have been indeed a rebound for your ex.

And if you were a rebound, it makes sense that your ex will go back to their previous relationship.

But all is not lost.

So what do you do next?

Well, I always recommend for my clients to keep on analyzing things, to give them as much knowledge of their situation as possible, and thus the best chance of success.

The Good And The Bad

So now I want you to look at the good components and the bad components of your time together.

Believe me, there are both – but there are usually more bad components.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Boyfriend Back?

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If you take stock of this situation and your ex has moved on back to their ex, there are three things I want to take a look at. And if your relationship has these three things, then you are, most likely, not going to succeed.

(That’s not to say you can’t succeed, just that your chances are a lot lower.)

So what are these three components?

1. Your ex is still married to their ex.

He and his wife were separated (for however long). The problem is that when your ex goes back to his wife, it’s hard to compete with that kind of history.

That’s common sense.

But also, you shouldn’t be trying to get into a relationship with anyone who is married to someone else.

The next one is a bit more difficult to decide.

2. How long has your ex been with his ex for?

If they’ve been together for five years or longer, that’s going to be really hard to compete with.

You have only been in his life for a short period of time, relatively speaking. You only have a small amount of your ex’s attention in the whole of his dating life.

Your ex and his ex have years of experiences and time invested into that relationship, whereas you only have a month or so.

Together, they will have lots of good memories, as well as bad, and lots of deep knowledge of that other person – a familiarity which you can’t really hope to match.

The honeymoon period often makes you feel like you and him are perfect together, but it’s only when you get over that period and begin to interact with them during the less fun times that you see that this isn’t the reality (for anyone!).

The longer you are with someone, the more you support each other, and this is a glue which holds you together tightly.

The non-honeymoon times can include serious things like sickness, family problems, money problems or bereavement – but also just the little things like how much it annoys him when you paint your nails next to him, or how much it annoys you when he burps at the table.

These things – the big and the small – can add up to create a strong relationship, or they can derail a shorter or less serious one.

So if you’ve only been with your ex for a month or so, and he was with his ex for a long time, this isn’t really a good sign for you and him.

3. He Cheated On Her With You

The next one will be hard for you to hear, if you are in this situation.

What if your ex actually cheated on his ex with you?

Now, there are two main points that I have to share with you here.

The main one should be obvious, but it’s often very difficult to face up to when you are blindsided by the feelings of a breakup.

To you, this guy is worth the effort of working to get back together with.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Boyfriend Back?

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But consider this carefully: if your ex is willing to cheat on his ex, what’s going to stop him from doing the same to you?

It’s a big red flag.

I hear people try to explain this away or justify his actions with how awful the ex was to him and suchlike, but in the end, if they were still together – it’s cheating.

Secondly, do you want to be with a man who values women so low, he would cheat on them?

Now, we’ve only been looking at the bad red flags that we should be keeping an eye out for.

That’s not to say that it’s all bad, and in my opinion there’s one good flag that you should be keeping an eye out for.

So, what is that good thing?

On-Again Off-Again Situations

If your ex and his ex are stuck in an on-again and off-again cycle that repeats quite frequently, that can be a good sign for you.

(If you want to know more about this kind of relationship, I have a video that will help you understand it in more detail.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bjCqULEXcg&t=18s

One of the things we see with this kind of on-again, off-again relationships is that they have their own phases…the on phase and the off phase!

You came along when they were in an off phase. And when things aren’t going so great with you and she comes back into the picture, he might just fall into the same pattern and jump back into being ‘on’ with her again.

But if the relationship is unsustainable in this way, you have a chance of disrupting this cycle and becoming his always-on phase!

And how can you go about doing this?

First Step: A No Contact Period

Don’t be doing what she probably is in the off-phase.

Don’t be bugging him and carrying on arguments, crying, begging for him back or anything like that. You’ll make him remember the bad things.

Don’t show up and try to reignite things without letting things settle down, and following the proper process.

You want to get your ex’s attention and make you the new master in the relationship.

One of the first things you should be doing is extending the length of your No Contact Period.

If you don’t know exactly what this is or how best to do a No Contact period, I highly recommend you look through my other articles, podcasts and YouTube videos, where I have lots of resources to help you with this essential step.

If you know how I do things, you’ll know I recommend three different lengths – the 21 day rule, the regular 30-day rule and the extended 45-day rule.

We’ve experimented a lot with this situation where your ex has moved on back to their ex, trying to figure out, what exactly is the ideal length of No Contact?

What we found is that, contrary to popular belief, the 21- and 30-day rule are not as effective as the 45-day rule.

Now why is that?

We think that the more time you leave your ex to be with his ex, the more time there is for the cracks to form and the fights to happen, and eventually the off-again phase comes round once again.

But once that happens, what are you supposed to do?

Well, this is where you employ the Being There Method.

The Being There Method

Depending on your morals, using the Being There Method can be construed as a bit of a grey area.

So what is the Being There Method?

Basically, you’re using your ex’s girlfriend’s insecurity against her.

How do you do that?

Just by simply being there.

So after your 45-day no contact rule, you are going to slowly and methodically compete with her for your ex’s time so that he and you are often communicating.

The other woman sees this, grows insecure, starts blowing up at your ex, he gets sick of it and voila, you have essentially engineered a situation where he sees you as a better candidate than his current girlfriend.

Of course this might not sit well with you – as I said, this is the morally grey area.

If they are off-again, and really aren’t together, then you can use this strategy very successfully with no qualms.

If they are together, I am absolutely not telling you to try to wreck their relationship in any way.

In fact, you are in essence friend-zoning yourself.

He sees you as a friend he can talk to and be comfortable around – but rest assured, you can never really be friend-zoned if you’ve shared intimate moments.

He will remember them, even if he doesn’t show it.

So you be his friend, while all the time presenting yourself (subtly) as a better option than his ex.

All you have to do is be around, and shine brighter than her.

So, how can you make sure you look like a better option?

Work on yourself during your No Contact Rule period.

This is a part of the No Contact period that people don’t always take as seriously as they should.

But working on your health, your relationships with your own family and friends, succeeding at work, trying new hobbies and experiences – these things will all make you more attractive when he snoops on your social media (and 90% of them do!).

Again, check out my resources on No Contact and also on how to be the Ungettable Girl. When you come out of No Contact, you’ll be ready to lure him back to you.

Remember those red flags though, and that if there are any you are probably better off not trying to get your ex back.

But if you do want to go forward, you don’t necessarily have to do the Being There Method as described. You can go as far as you feel comfortable with on your moral scale.

I’m just here to tell you the options, and what we have found works; it’s up to you to make the decision on whether you use it or not.

The next and kind of last option in this situation is MOWOMO.

Moving On Without Moving On

MOWOMO, as people in the Facebook support group refer to this method, means that you give up and move on – start dating other people and open your life to new possibilities without your ex.

You might have to do this if, for example, he goes back to his wife.

The last part – Without Moving On – refers to the fact that you don’t entirely forget him. If he came back into your life ready and willing to work on your relationship again, you wouldn’t entirely rule the possibility out.

This strategy can allow you to finally get over an ex, but without consigning them to the no-chance pile.

It’s true that exes often come back in the end, and if he wasn’t waving one of those big red flags, maybe you could take another shot at it.

But you are, of course, the Ungettable Girl, and you’re not going to wait around for him to realise it.

Thank you so much for making it to the end of this article – we had a lot to cover!