I did something I don’t think I’ve ever done before.

I asked our Private Facebook Support Group if they wanted to ask me a question for the podcast. I figured it would be fun to take questions from the support group and answer them in a day in an in-depth way,

I made it first come first serve so the very first person to record a question was answered. Interestingly, the first person to ask a question was a coaching client whose situation I knew pretty well.

She finds herself in a situation that I’ve noticed is a little too common.

Trying to get an ex boyfriend back when he has multiple “girlfriends” or “lady friends.”

The interesting thing is that I’ve notice the common theme of “other women” with a lot of my coaching clients so I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out what to do and I talk about that in this episode of the ex boyfriend recovery podcast.

Hey, hey hey!

What’s up and welcome to the exboyfriend recovery podcast.

Like always I am very excited to have you here today. So, we’re going to do something a little bit different today. I actually–not that I’m running short on voice mails or anything like that. I have probably 10,000 just sitting there but typically if you don’t know how this podcast works, I like to take voice mails from my visitors, readers, clients, so on and so forth and answer their questions in an in depth way because sometimes when you’re answering question on the website or through an email, you normally have time to put 20 minutes into a detailed explanation.

And so, usually what I do is I have a speakpipe page where people can come in and ask a question and then I could take a question and post it here but I thought I was going to do something different today.

I went to our private Facebook group, there’s currently around 1300 members in there and basically said, “Ok guys, I am literally about to record a podcast. I am going to post that podcast live to the website today. If you want your question answered here’s the link, go record and the first person to ask me a question I am going to take and answer the question in depth. ” And interesting enough, one of my coaching clients asked me a question first.

And so, I’m going to be doing a lot of episodes this week. Actually one every single day, so I have my work cut out for me but one of my coaching clients ended up asking me a question and there was some issue–there was some technical issues on her side of things trying to actually record. She was able to figure those issues out luckily but when I actually downloaded her mp3 file, it was all choppy.

I could still hear her question obviously but it was all choppy. So, rather than actually posting it here like normal, I am just going to tell you what she said.

So, just to kind of give you some insight, we had a coaching session last week. I gave her some pretty, pretty actionable advice. I told her to–there’s a graphic designer on our Facebook group that I told her to go contact and create a specific post using this graphic designer and by using the strategy–and I won’t get too far into it because I want to protect my client’s privacy obviously but without getting too far into it, by doing this thing and just posting it to Facebook to all of her friends, her ex caught wind of it and reached out to her.

They ended up going on  date and on that date on Friday it kind of took a turn for the worse.

Not to say that her situation is completely horrible but she went on this date on Friday with him which was instigated by him as a result of the strategy that her and I kind of came up with. He let her know that he didn’t want a monogamous relationship. She left the date a little broken hearted.

He asked to be friends with her and she told him that she just wasn’t interested in that. He’s already reached out to her which she has ignored. And then after she ignored the first reach out attempt, he reached out again and sent her a text saying hi and asking her how she was.

Now, she kind of confused on how to deal with this kind of a situation. She’s getting a lot of mixed signals and doesn’t know if s`he should respond or what not. And so, just to give everyone listening and just to give my client sort of the detailed timeline of what happened, her and I had our coaching call early last week.

I think it was like a Tuesday or a Wednesday and she ended up getting an instant date on that Friday and then that Friday he ended up saying this comment about “I don’t want a monogamous relationship.” And just to put this in perspective he is dating other women and he is–we kind of think–sleeping with other women as well. And so, he’s probably enjoying that single life type mentality and then on a Sunday it seems like he reached out to her and then today or maybe late Sunday again, he reached out to her again. And so, now she’s sitting and wondering, “How do I even handle this situation?”

There’s a lot of ways to handle situations like this but mostly the thing I like to start out by tackling is what the individual client which my client in here–particularly I already know what she wants because I know her situation very well. I would typically start off by asking, “Ok, what is the end goal here?” We need to find out your end game. And so for my client, the end game is obviously she wants to get him back.

That’s where her heart’s at. She’s wanting to get him back. So, looking at everything that I see here, the first thing that you have to understand is the idea of not falling back into the no contact rule.

A lot of people, not just my client–but a lot of people just believe that the no contact rule is a very empowering strategy and it is. If you’re doing the no contact rule correctly, it can be one of the most empowering experiences of your life. You can basically make him miss you while at the same just looking like a total bad A. I think it’s important to note that the no contact rule while it’s an important aspect of the strategy for getting an ex back, it isn’t everything.

In fact you cannot get an ex back if you do not communicate with them. And so, for my client who’s wondering how do I handle this situation?

I think if the end game here is to get him back, you have to understand, going back to the no contact rule I think at this point might hurt your chances.

You can sprinkle in little mini no contacts where you just kind of disappear for a few days but I think at this point what we need to do isn’t so much, “Ok, I’m going to sort of punish him or I’m going to go into the no contact rule so, he misses me and it makes me look like kind of a strong woman.” I think that’s effective only immediately after a break up. Right now, I don’t think it’s going to be effective at all.

So, instead of doing that, what we need to do is change his perception of you. I think we talked a lot about this on a phone call that you and I had on the one on one call that we had but one thing that I didn’t talk about was the idea of how he views his relationship life right now. So, the important piece of information to get here is that this particular ex boyfriend has multiple options. You’re just basically one option.

We’ve already kind of took an educated guess and it seems that that educated guess was correct from his monogamous comments during your date that he’s got other women lined up, that he’s sleeping probably with 2 or 3 other women or at least flirting with them.

So, when I ran into men like this, they’re a little bit difficult to get back because, ok well, if you’re not playing the game or if you’re not playing his game, guess what, he’s got other options to go to right?

The big fear is if you do the no contact rule, he’s just going to say, “Ah, whatever. I’ve got 2 or 3 other women on hold I could just go to.” If you get angry and curse him out well guess what? Ah, whatever, I’ll just go to the other 2 or 3 women. So, if you’re really wanting this guy back, there’s the question of, if you do get him back, what’s going to change?

Is he still going to be like sort of be attracted to those other women? Is he going to cheat on you? That’s something that you have to internally kind of figure out and determine if this is even worth the effort but I already kind of know what you’re going to say.

You’re going to say it’s worth the effort, I want to make this happen. So, what can you do? Well, I always like to give an analogy. 09:14 seem like a weird analogy but bear with me here, I’ll circle around when I’m dealing with men like this. He’s like a spider and you’re caught in his spider web.

So, a spider puts his web up overnight or if it goes over the course of a week. I don’t know how–I don’t know the logistics of insects but or–I don’t know if it is an insect–bugs. But the spider will put the web up and the idea is that a bug of a fly or something will get caught in the web and it’s stuck and it can’t move and then the spider can go and eat it right?

Your ex is kind of like a spider right now and you’re caught in his web but you’re not the only woman caught in his web. You’re one of many. He’s a spider and you’re a bug or something caught in his web. So, are the other women as well.

And so, naturally the spider is going to be drawn to what tastes the best. He’s always going to go for what sort of makes him the best or taste the best.

He’ll basically eat that up and then move on to the next best thing and the next best thing and it’s almost the same thing with relationships except instead of eating you he is using sort of like falling for you or using sex for example. So, what you’re going to have to do is find a way to outshine those other woman. The big advantage you have is the other women, they’re not dumb either.

They’re going to figure out that he’s talking to other women. It seems like when you were dating him, you figured that out but the key here is to become so appealing to him that you hoard his time.

So, the end game for you is to get him to commit to you right? And so, there’s really two set of strategies that you’re going to have to use to create a commitment. Number 1 is the interdependence theory and number 2 is the scarcity and urgency and fear of loss theory. I won’t go too deep into them but I think if you understand the spider analogy and understand, “Ok, If I’m going to compete with these other women–” because make no mistake about it, you are in a competition with these other women, especially if you are trying to get this guy back.

You have to find a way to become the woman that he spends most of his focus on.

And that’s the only conceivable way I can think to make this situation work and the only kind of way you can bring that about is if you actually do communicate with him. So, even though I feel like that you stood up for yourself and you said that hey, we’re not going to be friends. I want you to almost treat him like he’s your’e gay best friend. That he’s beneath you and that you’re not interested in him at all but you want to kind of flirt with him and make him interested in you.

And so, basically what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to hoard his time. So, you’re trying to get him 12:11 of your text messages, you’re trying to have really engaging, interesting conversations. You’re also trying to see him in person. So, as long as you can do these things, you can really stand out from the other woman because you’ll be hoarding his most valuable asset right now which is his time.

Now, here’s where things get a little bit tricky, this goes against everything that is probably in your mind right now. You’re thinking, “Well, why should I have to do this?” And that’s a legitimate concern to have but if he doesn’t want that monogamous relationship, let’s make him suffer.

So, the way to make him suffer is to –this is evil! But the way to make him suffer is to make him fall for you while not giving him many of the physical benefits other than maybe like kissing here and there, making out maybe but sleep with him–you don’t go past second base with him.

Basically there always has to be more for him to desire. So, to get to that upper level, to get to have sex with you because I think clearly he’s ruled sort of not by his brain but his other organ, we need to use that to our advantage here. And so, imagine this, Imagine that like he’s starting to fall for you again.

He wants to have sex with you again, imagine if you were to spend the entire night just laying next to him and him wanting to have sex with you but you keep turning him down. Imagine how that would drive him crazy.

That is the frame of mind that you need to get him in because that is going to be so much different than the other women right?

The key here is–I guess the concern you’re having right now is, “Well, if I do that, and the other women are a little bit easier than me, won’t he just be attracted to the other women because they’re easier?” Potentially, but that’s why it’s important to be such a time suck. You want to basically have the entire market share of his time because if that’s the case, you really have the interdependence theory working for you. So, I’ve found and we’ll kind of shift gears into getting a commitment from him because I know ultimately that’s what we want to work towards but I’m talking in huge broad strokes here.

With commitment,there’s really two strategies that you have to look in. You have to look at the urgency, scarcity, fear of loss strategy and you also to look at the interdependence theory strategy. I think what you need to harp on is the interdependence side of things.

So, the interdependence theory basically posits that human beings–we commit to each other based on a cost and benefit scenario. So, we’re always trying to maximize our benefits with an individual and minimize our costs. We’ll always have that going on. That’s just how we couple up generally.

And you can look at three main factors within the interdependence theory to kind of determine, “Ok, like, this is the cost, this is the benefits.” Those three things are satisfaction, alternatives, and investment. Ok?

So, satisfaction–one thing that you need to do is ensure that he is more satisfied with you than the other women. I think you have an opportunity there. I think the fact that his reaching out to you right now means that he’s feeling a little guilty about how that went down. He doesn’t want your feelings to be hurt. Ok, let’s take advantage of that. We can use that to springboard into a conversation and within the conversation kind of connect with him and make him feel a little bit satisfied.

What you’re struggling right now is with alternatives right? He’s thinking there are better alternatives out there than you and that’s the problem So, in order to dispel that, we need to use investment on him.

If you can invest his money, time and mental energy and also I guess sort of like little love notes or flowers or things like that, those are all little forms of investment. So, the more investment you can get from him, the more invested that he’s going to become into you and you’re going to stand out a little bit more to those other women.

Now, that is how much work it will take to get this guy back. So, let me ask you. Do you think this is worth all the work? Because I think clearly we talked, –he’s went through a divorce. So, he’s kind of–it’s playing into his mind the fact that he doesn’t want history to repeat itself again.

Not to say that you didn’t–marriage isn’t totally on the table here but still he’s going to think that you want marriage. This guy probably, it’s going to be real difficult to get him to change his ways is my opinion.

I think realistically this is the best strategy you can use to get him back but is it worth the work? Do you have the patience to do it? Because it’s sort of–it’s not necessarily taking–I mean it is taking a huge aspect of your time to get him back–and it’s not taking you off the market per say because I think you should weave in jealousy.

We’ve talked a little bit about how we can use jealousy and if you’ve tried that, what kind of effect that has but there’s some sort of emotional investment that you’re having into him and it’s going to take a toll on you. So, my question to you is, do you think is this worth getting him back if it’s a constant cycle or this happens again where he breaks up and finds–he’s wondering about the other alternatives out there? Sometimes the biggest enemy that we face when we’re trying to get exes back are other women or other alternatives out there.

Because if a human being has too many options, they’ll just go crazy trying to try every flavor if you will.

Whereas if we can give  him one clear option that’s a cut above the rest, he’s more likely to be drawn to that but sustainability to me is the issue here. It’s not so much strategizing on how we can get him back. It’s more about will history itself and what steps we can take to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.

So, I will get off my soapbox and stop preaching here. Here’s what you got to do, I say short term step here is you respond and you get into a little conversation with him and then you end the conversation at the high point. You continue this and you slowly start flirting and work on more dates to get him more and more invested to get him to fall for you, to get him to flirt with you. Try to flirt in a way in which you’re not actually the one who’s sort of leading it.

You’re just giving him an opportunity to flirt.

So, you’re putting yourself in kind of a sexual situation where he can kind of like tie into that and you can kind of like test him to see just how into he is but the more time and energy and investment you can get from him the better because it means you’re still in the market share from those other women.

The problem here is there is some sort of long distance factor or you’re not like super close. So, that means you’re going to have to utilize texting and phone calls, facetime a lot but I would also say try to see what you can do about getting dates in every once in a while.

The name of the game here is finding a way to stand out compared to the other women. That’s the mentality that you need to have. So, hopefully that answered your question. Again if you guys who are listening to this are saying, “Wow! This guy really has great advice!” You can just simply go to our SpeakPipe page. I’ll link that up in the show notes of this episode on our website exboyfriendrecovery.com .

If you are enjoying this episode, if you’re enjoying this podcast, please, please, please go to our podcast page in Itunes and leave us an honest rating and review.

I don’t care if you blast me. I don’t care if you sing my praises. I don’t care if you think I’m some sort of god. Just leave an honest rating and review. That’s all I want because that is actually how this podcast can survive. So, that’s going to do it for this episode of the exboyfriend recovery podcast. As always, it was a pleasure. I’ll be back tomorrow and we will tackle another listener question. Take care!