How To Avoid The Temptation To Contact Your Ex

I’m going to get a thorny issue with No Contact out of the way today because whether you’re thinking about it, have just started, or are already well on your way, let’s not pretend that you haven’t thought about:

• But what will I do/how will I react if he gets in touch?
• Surely it’s really rude to ignore their message? What if they think something’s happened to me? What if they think I’m dead?
• Maybe I should just pick up the phone or reply to one of their texts so that I can tell them I’m no contact?
• Surely it won’t do any harm to see how they’re doing?
• What if they’ve been trying to call me/text me and I’ve not been getting their messages?

Contact Is Contact

When you make contact after starting NC and by ‘make’ that means instigating or accepting it in any, way, shape, or form, it is contact. Period. Contact is contact.

The trouble with thinking about what you will do if they get in touch is that if you imagine a ‘problem’ instead of imagining a solution and a confident you rebuffing the contact, you’re already on your way to imagining scenarios where you’re helpless to the cause and unable to stop yourself.

For stuff like texts, emails, voicemails, it’s ignore and/or block.

If you end up accidentally picking up a call because they withhold their number, you bump into them, or they turn up on your doorstep, decline to speak, make a polite exit as quickly as possible, or ask them to leave. If you imagine talking and explaining, eyes meeting across a room and you being overwhelmed with longing, or you letting them into your home, you’re disempowering yourself by fantasizing instead of actually working out what you will do.

If you expect that one of these scenarios could happen, you can be prepared.

It is not rude to ignore their message – you’re now NC, it’s what you’re supposed to do. They are no longer your problem. If they need a shoulder to lean on, money, sex, or an ego stroke, you don’t need to know about it.

They don’t think you’re dead. Would you think they were dead if you didn’t hear from them? Cut the fantasy of them being so desperate with worry and concern that they hunt you down, profess their undying love, and you run off into the sunset. You know you’re not dead but the old you that put up with their stuff, is on their way out.

You don’t need to pick up the phone or reply to their text.

Why? Actions speak louder than words. You have cut contact. You don’t need to say ‘I am ignoring you’ because it is an opening to a discussion and an invitation to start a dialogue where hopefully they beg forgiveness, show remorse, and beg for your attention…so you can run off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

You don’t need to see how they’re doing.

Why open yourself up to pain? Wanting to see how someone who you are cutting contact is about curiosity about how they will react from hearing from you and seeking validation that they care.

Let me assure you, there is nothing wrong with your telephone line or your service provider.

You can pick up the phone and check for messages a gazillion times, but just remember that you are at that stage of NC where you have a rubbernecking, kneejerking curiosity to know if you doing NC is making an impact. You want to believe that they care, that you’re desired, missed, and triggering remorse.

NC is not about them – it’s about you.

If there is something wrong with your service provider, look at it as them doing you a big favor!

Be careful of thinking that it’s just a ‘little text’ or a ‘little phonecall’ etc.

You may look at it as giving them 1% attention but they just see it as attention, period. He realizes he’s proved his point, and often, won’t even bother to return your call or will just straight up vanish.

99% of the time, whatever reason you have come up with for making contact or accepting it, it’s not the real reason and if you’re even THINKING about making contact, it’s a neon flashing light of a signal that is telling you that you haven’t cut contact for long enough.

For now, even if you have to sit on your hands or tape them to your side, forget about making or accepting contact.

When you get the urge to make contact whether you instigate it or contemplate accepting it, write down your reason, what has triggered it, and what making the contact will achieve in the medium and long-term. If you can’t think of a medium or long-term reason, it’s impulsive, kneejerking. If you can think of a medium or long-term reason, ask yourself if it’s a fantasy/illusion and what the reasoning is based on. By the time you’re finished, you’ll have tired of the idea if you’re genuine about cutting contact for your own sake and keeping it real.