Clay Andrews: If you're frustrated because your ex won't
commit but won't let go then this video is for you and stick around to the end because
we're going to talk about specifically what's happening and what you can do about it moving
forward.
But first, my name is Clay Andrews with ModernLove.life, where we help you get the great loving relationship
where you can be loved for the person that you are.
If you like what you see here, do me a favor by hitting that thumbs up button or by subscribing
to this channel if you're new here.
Clay Andrews: Okay, so let's go ahead and get into this.
So, if your ex won't commit to you but won't let go, that tells us something.
That tells us that there is a bit of a polarity of dynamics between the two of you happening
right now.
On one hand, they have this lingering memory of what wasn't working in the relationship,
of what caused the two of you to break up in the first place, of all the bad times,
all the arguing, the fighting, the whatever wasn't working out, but they won't let go
because they also have some sort of memory of some sort of positive experience between
the two of you.
Maybe that's a current memory.
Maybe that's things that the two of you are currently doing that feel good that are bringing
the two of you closer together.
Clay Andrews: And so we have these two things pulling your
ex in different directions.
And so your ex sometimes wants to get warmer towards you because they remember the good
times, and sometimes they want to pull away from you because they still have their doubts,
they still have their concerns, they still have their fears that things aren't going
to actually improve between the two of you if they were to warm up to you or if they
were willing to get back together with you.
Clay Andrews: So what do we do?
Well, obviously we want to starve out the bad memories and we want to continue to nurture
and strengthen the positive experiences that we're having with our ex.
So let's get into this.
Clay Andrews: First of all, we need to starve out the negative
experiences, the negative memories from the past.
So what do we do when we want to do that?
Well, first of all, we need to really demonstrate to our ex that we are not the same person
that they broke up with, and if they were to get back together with us, they are not
walking back into the same relationship that they walked out of in the first place.
So that means we need to really look at what wasn't working.
What didn't work in the relationship?
Was it arguing?
Was it a lack of vulnerability?
Was it a lack of emotional availability?
Was it being too insecure?
Was it being too clean?
Was it a lack of trust?
Clay Andrews: Whatever it might be, you need to take some
time and focus on fixing that issue.
Take some time and focus on realigning yourself because, of course, yes, it would be great
if we could somehow control our ex and make them do the things that we want them to, but
unfortunately that's not how life works.
You can only control yourself, you can only control the things that you do and the responses
that you have in any given situation.
So we want to work on ourselves, we want to control ourselves so that we can adjust how
we're bringing ourselves to our ex, how we're bringing ourselves to the situation, and really
show them that at least the part of the relationship that wasn't working, that is our fault, that
is our responsibility, has been worked on and has been changed.
Clay Andrews: Now you can do this in a lot of different
ways, such as using active no contact.
I'll go ahead and put a link to a video, a playlist up there, that'll tell you more about
the active no contact rule and some ways that it's different from maybe other things that
you've heard about on the internet when it comes to passive no contact, just stop talking
to your ex and hope and pray for the best and all of that.
So you can do that in order to help work through some of these issues.
You can do that to do whatever you need to do to work through your own, personal issues,
whether those be working through feelings of insecurity, whether those be working on
feelings of anger, feelings of judgment, feelings of attachment to outcome, or whatever it may
be.
That's going to help you a lot when it comes to starving out those negative memories.
Clay Andrews: Another thing that you may need to do at some
point is to really just draw a line in the sand and let your ex know, overtly, that,
"Hey, things are different.
Okay?"
Sometimes our exes can be a little bit dense, especially if our exes tend to be men, and
although demonstrating change can be extremely helpful, sometimes just showing it may not
get through.
And so you don't always want to do this, but you may need to just overtly tell your ex,
"Hey, I know that things were not so great in the past when we were arguing all the time."
Let's just go with that as an example.
"I think you can maybe tell that over the past few weeks that things have been better
between the two of us, and I want you to know that's because I've worked through my own
issues regarding anger, expecting other people to do things for me, or whatever the case
may be."
And you just may need to overtly let them know this.
Okay?
So that's definitely one side of this whole equation.
Clay Andrews: Now we have this other side of the equation
too, which is about bringing up and nurturing the positive aspects of your interactions
together.
Now it's not just enough to eliminate the negative.
Just because you eliminate the negative...
I mean, sure, that's going to help some people, that might be enough to get some people back
together with their exes, but you want to actually nurture the positive because we all
want things that feel good.
I know that there's a lot of people on the internet that tell you that we all want what
we can't have.
It's not that we want what we can't have, we want what feels good.
Massages are plentiful and there is no shortage of massage therapists out there that will
be willing to give you a massage.
People still get them anyway because they feel good.
It's not because there's some sort of scarcity of massages and we can only give 10 massages
today or anything like that.
No, it's because we all want what feels good.
Clay Andrews: And so don't think that scarcity alone is
going to help you to get back together with your ex.
Scarcity can be helpful if interacting with you feels good and if it is a clear benefit
to them, but scarcity alone is not going to get the two of you back together.
It has to be something that feels good.
So you need to really nurture that aspect of your connection that feels good on an emotional
level.
Clay Andrews: Now, if your ex is not willing to commit but
not willing to let go, that means that there's already the nugget of that positive interaction
and that positive dynamic between the two of you.
We just really want to amp it up.
Typically, when I work with people who are in a situation where their ex won't commit
but won't let it go, they often have some positive interactions and some negative interactions.
So it's like sometimes we take two steps forward and one step back, sometimes we take one step
forward and two steps back.
Clay Andrews: And so what we want to do is we want to, number
one, eliminate the negative, so eliminate the steps back that happen.
And then, number two, accentuate and elevate and nurture the positive side of this equation.
And what we do in order to do this is we focus on the emotional connection.
I know that there are an immense number of things that you could be focusing on, such
as who is initiating contact with who, how long it takes somebody to reply to you, whether
or not somebody is flirting with you, whether or not somebody is asking if you're single
or dating or anything like that, but these are totally irrelevant in the big scheme of
things.
Clay Andrews: What you want to focus on is whether or not
the interactions between the two of you are bringing the two of you closer together or
further apart.
If they're bringing you closer together, that is the ideal outcome here.
We want to continue to have outcomes and interactions that bring the two of you closer together
on an emotional level.
Clay Andrews: So what exactly are the components of this?
Well, we do have an entire video playlist on advanced relational skills, I'll go ahead
and put a video card for that up there in the corner, but advanced relational skills
are basically a way to connect emotionally with someone else so that we can bring more
of ourselves to the interaction and encourage the other person to bring more of themselves
to the interaction as well too.
And the more of both of us that we bring to the interaction, the more we can actually
connect on an emotional level, the more we can actually be vulnerable and honest with
one another, and the more we can talk about things that are really significant.
I don't know if you've had the experience of trying to talk to your ex and it's been,
let's just say a bit of a struggle.
You end up talking about just pointless surface level stuff like the weather or sports or
coworkers or traffic or TV shows or just pointless stuff that never seems to lead anywhere.
Obviously, those sorts of interactions are not going to help take you anywhere.
Clay Andrews: What you want to do is you want to be able
to cut beneath the surface down to what we call the emotional level of connection because...
yeah, sure, it is totally possible to connect with people on a surface level, but you know
what happens if you don't like the same TV shows?
What happens if you didn't go to the same college?
What happens if you don't have the same life experiences?
Then it's going to be a lot harder.
But what we do have in common is our emotional experiences, and as long as we're able to
cut down through the surface, down to the emotional level, then that is going to be
what actually brings us closer together.
And as soon as you can learn to start communicating at that emotional level, through things like
the advanced relational skills, that is going to help you immensely.
Clay Andrews: Okay, so I hope this video has helped you
out.
Please give it a thumbs up if you like what we're doing here.
Please feel free to subscribe to the channel.
If you want to learn more, feel free to check out our playlist on advanced relational skills
over here, or if you'd like to learn more about the active no contact rule, please also
check out our playlist about the active no contact rule over here and how it is different
from the regular no contact rule that you've probably heard about everywhere else.
Anyway, this has been Clay.
Take care.
I'll talk to you next time.