In this video, we're going to talk about whether or not your ex is playing games with you.
Why they probably aren't and what you can do if it seems like they might be, or if you're
just getting confused by their behavior. But first, my name is clay with modernlove.life,
where we help you get the great loving relationship that you're looking for without having to
play mind games, without having to play hard to get, and without having to pretend to be
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All right. We're going to talk about, in this video, whether or not your ex is playing games
with you. Now, first and foremost, it's pretty rare for your ex to play games with you. I
mean, unless you're in middle school or something, or your ex is someone with some severe psychological
issues or something like that. It's pretty rare. Most of the time, if your ex is just
a normal person who's just trying to live the best life that they can, they're probably
not playing games with you when they maybe do hot and cold sort of behavior. When they
say something and really get you excited and interested about a potential future together,
and then pull it back a day or two later. They're probably not playing games with you.
They're probably just confused themselves and just trying to navigate through this whole
strange world of their own emotional state as well. And as confusing as it might be for
you, I'm sure it's equally as confusing for them. But we don't want to just let them go
ahead and do whatever they're going to do. We don't want them to just walk all over us
obviously, even if they're not doing it intentionally. We want to be able to lay down some boundaries
and be able to enforce those boundaries as need be, so that they can treat you, or us
in general, I guess we were talking about us together, in a respectful way. So that
you can get your needs met and not have to feel bad about it. Right? So first of all,
in the slim chance that your ex is playing games with you, you probably would have seen
them do something like this in your time together.
You probably would've seen them play some sort of games with someone else. You probably
would've seen them manipulate someone else in a certain diabolical way or something.
But if they weren't that way when you were together and they were just a normal person
just trying to live the best life that they could, chances are, they're probably still
a normal person just trying to live the best life that they can. And they're not playing
games with you, they're probably just confused or being motivated by other things. Okay?
So what do you do when your ex is confused like this? First of all, if your ex is confused,
they need you to actually empathize with that state of confusion and call out the dynamic
that's actually going on. Because if you don't, they just might continue to be confused. Indefinitely
thinking that they're in this all by themselves, thinking that they have to figure this whole
thing out between you and them, how have the two of you fit into each other's lives and
all of that on their own.
And yeah, they might be able to do that, but it's going to be harder. But if you can bring
them into the fold and say, hey, I know that this is a really confusing situation to be
in. I know that we're trying to figure out how we fit into each other's lives, and I
know that I definitely feel confused and conflicted sometimes. I wouldn't be surprised if you
felt that way sometimes as well. Rather than just being confused and awkward on our own
as individuals, let's be confused together so that we can just find something that works
for us. That's probably the best way to go about helping them to feel like they have
a channel of communication between you and them. So the two of you can start to figure
things out together as a team. That's what I'd most likely recommend for most people
moving forward.
Your ex still may have their mood swings and they still might have their confusing behavior
and they still might be genuinely confused. And by the way, again, this is probably one
of those five stages that your ex is going through emotionally on the journey of getting
back together. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, maybe because you're new to
this channel or something, check out this video series over here about your exes five
emotional stages. This is the stage that we would most likely call riding the dragon.
If your ex is showing this confused, hot and cold behavior that might make you think that
they're playing games with you or stringing you along or something like that. But check
it out. A lot of people have said it's been really insightful for them in terms of helping
them to understand what's going on in their situation with their breakup and with their
ex.
So what you want to do, if you are starting to still get this hot and cold behavior where
you're ending up in these circles that seem to keep repeating themselves in your dynamic
with you and your ex, where the two of you are maybe starting to get close, you're getting
close, you're getting closer, but then the two of you accidentally seem to have the same
disagreement or argument all over again. And then you get a setback and then you have to
start to repair and find yourself back to where you were before. And then you have the
same argument or a similar argument over and over again, that's a cycle and we don't want
this to continue to happen indefinitely. So what you want to do is you want to use what
we call the one-way spikes of doom strategy.
That's an intense name. But basically how it works is, you know how certain parking
garages or maybe car parks as they call them in other parts of the world, have these metal
spikes that you can drive over one way and they fold down and you can keep going just
fine with your car. But if you go over them the wrong way, if you go over them backwards,
if you go in the wrong entryway or something like that, they're not going to go down and
you will proceed to have your tires punctured and regret going that way. That's what we
want to do. We want to gently steer our ex in the right direction. And when they pass
over these spikes, we want to let them know that they're passing over these spikes so
that they know that what they're doing is causing them to move forward over the one-way
spikes.
And they know that if they reverse course or change direction, they might regret it.
This is a little bit different than an ultimatum. This is also different than the fork in the
road strategy that you may have heard me mentioned in other videos, in that we are just simply
enforcing our boundary. Telling our ex our boundary, letting them know that there's a
boundary happening here. And then we're letting them choose what to do next. So for example,
let's say you and your ex have a conversation, let's say it doesn't go so great. And they
say something like, hey, we should just stop talking to each other forever. Okay, obviously
that's a little bit of an overreaction in most cases, at least in the case I'm imagining
in my head. It's a little bit of an overreaction. And so what you want to do is you want to
check in with your ex before they drive over the one-way spikes of doom and say like, okay,
are you sure you really want us to never talk again?
And you're just checking in with them. Right? Maybe they just said something in the heat
of the moment and they're suddenly starting to realize, okay, maybe that isn't what I
truly want. And maybe I need to cool it down a little bit. Great. If that happens, excellent.
If they still are like, nope, I think we should never talk to each other again. Then what
you want to do is you say, okay, if that's really what you want to do, I can respect
that. At the same time, I still do like connecting with you emotionally. So do you really just
want to not talk ever again? And if they say, yep. Then, okay, they're driving over the
spikes again. And then at that point we have to say, okay, well then I guess this is the
last time we're going to talk.
And then you can just say like, okay, if you ever have a change of heart, let me know.
I'm still at a place where I would like to stay connected to you if you're open to it.
But if you really feel strongly against it, then I'm totally fine with that. And then
you can just let them feel the weight of the consequence of their choice. And I know it
feels like, okay, I'm letting them go, I'm giving them up, I'm in this totally hypothetical
situation. But that's not necessarily true, especially if the two of you have an emotional
connection to begin with. Now, if they're just overreacting or something like that,
they may just need a couple of days to cool off or something like that, before they realize,
oh, wow, I opened my mouth and bit off more than I can chew. In which case, okay, we've
left the door open by building a golden bridge that they can come back over.
By the way, golden bridge is another technique. By building a golden bridge that they can
come back over if they realize that they maybe said some things that they weren't really
prepared to follow through on in the heat of the moment. But basically we are allowing
them, by checking in with them along the process, to say, okay, this is what's happening. Are
you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want
to do this? And then we're letting them feel the weight of the consequence of the choices
that they're making. That's really what the one-way spikes of doom is about. And as they
are going over those spikes in a direction that we don't want, we do want to build golden
bridges so that they can come back to us without necessarily looking like they're losing face
or risking rejection or embarrassment or shame or something like that.
So anyway, that's what I'd recommend that you do if your ex is seemingly playing games
with you. Chances are they probably aren't, but I'd recommend you use one-way spikes of
doom. So anyway, once again, if you want to help us out, support this channel, please
make sure you hit that thumbs up button so that someone else gets a chance to see these
videos instead of the mind game videos that I'm sure you probably had to watch before
you found me. Anyway, thank you so much. Please feel free to subscribe to the channel as well
too, so that you can get notifications on your newsfeed when we post new videos. And
again, if you are curious about that connect and commit course, it is down in the description
box below.
And if it's right for you, feel free to sign up. If not, no worries. But anyway, thank
you so much. If you want to learn more about those five emotional stages your ex goes through,
here's a video playlist right here that will go over that. Or you might want to check out
this video right here. But thank you so much, I hope you have a great day and I'll talk
to you in the next video.