Do you miss your ex?  Are you having trouble moving on?  Here are seven strategies to pursue when you miss your ex.

1.    Decide that it is over.  As long as you think there is a chance to get back together, you will continue to experience feelings of missing your ex girlfriend or boyfriend.  If you practice strategies like texting or phoning them trying to catch them off guard, you will continue to keep the feelings alive.  When you miss your ex, try one of the other strategies presented here.

2.    Get rid of all of their stuff.  Do an exchange where you give them their stuff and they give you yours.  Don’t hold on to physical items for sentimental reasons, it will just remind you of how much you miss your ex.  If there are small things that you don’t give back (such as a tooth brush or a comb) throw them away.  You don’t need the constant reminders.

3.    Write them a letter – then burn it.  One reason why you continue to miss your ex is because you haven’t gotten them out of your system.  So, write a letter pouring out all of your feelings about the relationship and the break up.  When you have released your emotions, then get rid of the letter.  There is something emotionally satisfying about watching your words go up in smoke.

4.    Reconnect with your friends.  Sometimes when you get in a hot and heavy relationship, your ties to friends and even family wither.  If this is the case, reconnect with your friends.  Redevelop relationships that you have let simmer.  Your friends and family love you even if your ex doesn’t anymore.

5.    Make new friends.  One of the reasons you miss your ex is because he or she took up so much of your time.  Now, in addition to the intense emotional void you are feeling, you have time on your hands.  Fill that time with new activities or interests.  Take a class at the local university’s extension program.  Learn to do the tango.  Join a co-ed softball team.  Volunteer to clean up the park through an environmental program.  When you keep busy, you will find that closing the time void also helps you close the emotional void.

6.    Get a pet.  A dog, cat, or other pet can help you reconnect to what is real.  A pet needs your attention and love.  A pet can also give you love.  When you miss your ex, you can reach out for a pet who loves you.

7.    Start dating other people.  The world moves on.  There are lots of other fish in the sea.  Once you reconnect with your friends, start new activities, and even start to walk the dog, you will begin to see all of the opportunities you have with the opposite sex.  Don’t worry that a first date has to lead to a complicated relationship when you are not ready for one.  Just go out and enjoy yourself.  Soon, you will stop feeling that you miss your ex so much.

Follow these seven steps and you will soon find that you are not saying you miss your ex at all!

If you are someone that is trying to find out how to get your ex girlfriend back, there is good news and bad news.  Most people like the bad news first, so here goes.  The bad news is that there is no sure fire method for getting your ex-lover back.  The fact of the matter is that many exes are gone for good and at some point you might end up having to deal with that and move on.

That was the bad news.  The good news is that if you are willing to control a lot of your more natural instincts, you could end up finding that your ex has started to become interested in you once again.

The first instinct that you need to control is the instinct to yell and scream at your ex every time that you see them around.  This is a very natural instinct, especially if you were shocked by the breakup and feel betrayed by your ex-lover.  However, it is an instinct that you need to curb right here and right now if you ever want a decent shot at getting her back again.  The more civil you are to her, the more likely it is that she will become interested in you once again.  So return her things that were at your place when you next see her and always be prepared to laugh and be merry around her.  They might not seem like big things to you right now, but they could be the tipping point in the future.

The second instinct that you need to control is the instinct to decide right away how things are going to happen.  Many people do not really care one way or the other whether their ex has a relationship far away from them or close to them so long as they know what the relationship will be right away.  This is wrong.  You should let your post-romance relationship develop naturally.  With some exes, your best position is being the person they see every now and then at parties.  With some, you can eventually become a best friend and a confidant.  Take it slow and let them decide which way things will go.  Both of these positions can lead to successful re-ignition of a relationship, so keep that in mind when trying to curb this instinct.

Finally, the third instinct that you need to curb if you ever want to successfully find out how to get your ex girlfriend back is the instinct to force the issue.  Many people will force the issue with their ex, forcing them to make a decision when they really are not ready for it.  If you force the issue right away, obviously you’ll get a no from the ex.  After all, she just broke up with you!  You don’t want to force the issue.  Instead, you want to sit back and give them the space they need, pushing slowly later on after they have gotten over the feelings that made them dump you in the first place.

This is the question my husband’s brother asked me the other day. Why did you break up was my response when really what I wanted to ask was how could you be such a donut to dump her?

He looked a bit sheepish and told me that he had met this girl at work and she smiled at him. Seemingly she is young, very pretty and looks rather like she belongs in Baywatch. So he, being a he-man type, decided that he had to dump his lovely girlfriend to date this beach babe. Needless to say, he soon found out that she had been smiling at his mate and looked on him like he was something on her shoe.

Well he deserved that but I believe he had ditched his girlfriend for a less obvious reason. He loves her and was scared of making a commitment to her. He had started thinking about settling down and having kids and nobody had made him feel this way before. But he was worried that being a career girl, this was not the future she had planned.

Unfortunately he is not very good at expressing his feelings so decided that it was better to finish the relationship rather than try to find out if his partner shared his vision of the future. Doh!

Honestly, how can someone so intelligent on a professional level be so emotionally backward. Anyhow his ex partner is a lovely lady who, God love her, adores him so I knew that getting back with his ex girlfriend was possible. It was also a great idea as despite his obvious faults, they make a great couple and he does love her.

So I told him to write her a letter. He decided an email would do but I insisted it had to be a letter. A hand written letter is such an old fashioned way of courting someone that it almost always guarantees a positive response. So off he went to buy some paper and a pen and as I thought complete the task at hand.

And then he was back. “But what do I write?”  He asked. Seriously he would have let me write the whole thing for him. So I told him to tell her how he felt. An MBA from Harvard and he is looking at me like I advised him to pull out his finger nails. I said “Tell her you love her and that you are very sorry for the way you behaved and that you would like to take her out this Friday to her favorite restaurant”.

Believe me that this approach works much better than a text, a bunch of roses and a takeaway. Thankfully his partner knows him well and saw the funny side, and my brother in law is no longer asking “how to get back together with my ex-girlfriend“.

His new question is what to say to his future father in law when he pops the question but I will leave my hubby to deal with that one!

So the relationship is over but now you have decided that you want your ex back.  Are your sure it is your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend you are missing and not just having someone special in your life?   This is especially important if you were the one who decided to break up.

Most relationships go through a bad patch at some point.  Some of the best marriages have survived problems that would have torn apart less sturdy partnerships.  Relationships are all about give and take.  That doesn’t mean that one person gives and the other takes!   Men and women are very different and we need to learn to live with one another.

Deciding you want to share your life with someone is a big commitment.  The sexual attraction between a couple, especially in the early stages, can often cloud their judgment and it is surprising how many people enter into long term relationships without having agreed the basics.  Little things like where you want to live and whether you want to have children are often forgotten in the excitement of being together.

Men and women fall out for all sorts of reasons.  At times of financial and family stress, we often pick on those nearest to us.  When you care for another person and know them intimately you have the power to really hurt that person.  If we ourselves are hurting, we often turn that hurt and anger onto the other person.

It is important to understand why you broke up in the first place. If you ended the relationship because one of you wanted children and the other didn’t, then you will find that this probably hasn’t changed. You may get back together but in the long run will split up again if this issue is not resolved.  Forcing someone into a huge life commitment like having a child against their will does not usually result in a long  term happy relationship.  If you have very different viewpoints on these life issues, you should stay apart and find someone more compatible to fall in love with.

If, on the other hand, you split up because of jealousy or some other petty incident then your relationship may be worth saving.  If you really miss your previous partner and know that you want to share your life with them, then you must do everything in your power to get back with your ex.

Contact your partner and let him/her know that you would like to meet up to discuss the future.  Do not get involved in a dissection of what went wrong before. It is too easy to put the blame on the other person.  Instead agree that there were problems but that you would like to rekindle the relationship.   If you want your ex back and your relationship was serious then you might want to suggest counseling.  It is often helpful to have an impartial person listen to your discussions. You are less likely to lose your temper, storm out and find yourself suddenly single again.

Do you know how to win your ex girlfriend back?  Let’s look at the situation with Tom and Sheri.

Shari was busy one night and Tom went to a party alone.  It was stupid, but he started to make out with one of Shari’s friends there.  Shari, of course, heard about it and had a dramatic confrontation with Tom.

“I never want to see you again,” se said.  “I am so out of here.”

Tom’s devastated.  He knows he was wrong, but he wants to know how to win his ex girlfriend back.  He misses Shari.

The first thing Tom needs to do is sincerely apologize.  This is not just a quietly mumbled “I’m sorry” either.  He needs to realize what he did wrong, figure out why he did it, decide whether he will ever do it again, and most importantly, communicate all of this honestly to Shari.

At this point, Tom should stop.  The ball is now in Shari’s court.

Tom shouldn’t call Shari.  He shouldn’t email, text, or comment on her wall.  He shouldn’t send flowers or candy.

What he should do is let her make the next move.  She is 100 percent in control here.  If Tom goes out to score, he’s going to lose her.  If he wants to know how to win ex girlfriend back, he needs to be planning for the next step not focusing on the present.

At some point, Shari will initiate contact.  There are many pretexts for doing this.  For instance, she may be mad and want to exchange all personal property.  Or, she could be missing him and just want to talk.

At this point, Tom needs to make his move.  He needs to show her that he’s the one.

He should put the incident behind him.  Tom should only bring up what happened if she does first.

Otherwise, he should talk about the positive memories that they have had together.  He should bring up specific incidents that were special for the two of them.

For instance, he could say, “I was walking around downtown and I saw the restaurant we went to on our first date and I thought of you.”

If he keeps it casual, he can talk about missing her.  “I miss the way you laugh at my corny jokes,” is a good line.  Telling her that he can’t imagine life without her is a bad one.

If she’s receptive, and she probably will be (why else is she calling?) Tom should suggest a casual get together.  For instance, he should ask her to meet him for coffee or something similar.  A half hour mini-date might get things back on track for them.

If he plays it right, he will have found the right solution to the how to win your ex girlfriend back dilemma.