Today we’re going to be talking about why your ex responds to your texts immediately.

It’s interesting, most of the time when I’m dealing with clients, the number one problem that they have isn’t in the fact that their ex is responding to their text messages, it’s the opposite.

Their exes aren’t responding to their text messages.

But today we’re going to hear from a woman named Ella who basically is in the situation where her ex has responded to her but she doesn’t really understand why or some of the mechanisms behind why he responded to her.

Hey, Chris. So it’s been two weeks since my boyfriend and I broke up. We’ve been together for a year and the breakup was a mess. I actually slapped him in the face. I felt bad about it so I apologized by sending him a somewhat long text message, which basically sounded like a closure letter.

I told him I was sorry for what I did that night, that I understand now why he was confused about his feelings for me, and that I have accepted the breakup, that I’m doing well now with family, friends, and work, and I hope that he is too. I ended it by saying not to give up on himself and always take care of himself, and I wished him luck.

So I sent this to him. I know, I’m sorry I broke the no contact rule, but it’s at my own peril anyway. And then he replied with three messages consecutively. First, “Hey, I just woke up and read this.” Second, “I forgive you for that night.” And the last message was, “You know me well enough to know I don’t hold grudges, right?” With a question mark.

I haven’t replied to him and I have no immediate plans to. I want to finish the no contact rule and then follow your texting strategy, send two texts, Sunday one, and another two on day two, and so on. I still want to have another try with this guy, but not with how he is at the moment. I just want to know why did he reply so quickly but so briefly. He literally just focused on the slap and ignored the rest of the letter. And his last message was a question. Is expecting me to reply to him? I’d really appreciate some insight-

A Recap Of Ella’s Situation

So it looks like Ella got cut off there a bit at the end, but we got the gist of her situation. So what I like to do in typically these type of podcasts is I like to recap the person’s voicemail so that I’m on the same page and then from there just organically talk about what I think about her situation.

So from what I understand, Ella went through a pretty rough breakup.

So really, we’re going to be talking today about why your ex responds to your texts immediately.

But what I’d like to talk about first has to do with Ella. I think Ella actually has a lot of work to do because there’s a couple things that she said that struck me as a little bit of red flags.

Now, what are red flags? Well, red flags are things that will prevent her from not only getting him back but also prevent her from having a successful relationship.

The fact that she was moved to physical violence during the breakup is a bit alarming. It also says something about her emotional state at the time. So it seems like when she gets highly emotional she can act out physically.

And this is not something that really is conducive to a great relationship, but it’s great that she recognizes that it was a wrong thing to do and she apologized for it. It is great. But I would actually have preferred her to apologize first before she went into a no contact rule.

She actually did it kind of backwards.

She actually went into a no contact rule and then broke the no contact rule to apologize probably after sitting and festering a bit.

But ultimately, what’s really, really interesting I find is when we’re dealing with clients who are sitting there and they’re thinking they’re the exception to the rule, to the no contact.

But perhaps the most ironic part about the no contact rule is that there’s almost no exceptions.

So Ella has this need to break the no contact rule and think that there won’t be consequences. And I want to take this as a lesson to maybe not only teach her but anyone who’s listening and thinking about breaking the no contact rule.

What we found from a pure statistic-driven sort of study is people who break the no contact rule consistently this easily during their first no contact, maybe just this early, have a really hard time of sticking with the no contact rule for maybe the second attempt, or the third attempt, or the fourth attempt.

What alarms me about Ella’s situation is the fact that she’s just basically … She even admits it’s at her own peril, but she admits that she’s not going to try the no contact rule again.

She’s just going to go forward. But, it’s essential to the overall process for you to actually fully complete a no contact rule, even if you’re in a situation where you’re forced to do a limited no contact rule or a indefinite no contact rule. You still want to sort of serve your time, so to speak, because that time not only serves you well but it also serves your ex well.

And sometimes getting back in touch too soon can have the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve, and that’s getting your ex back.

That’s sort of looks like what Ella wants to do.

So Ella, even though she recognizes that it’s a mistake, she sort of plows forward. It’s a mistake, Ella. I just want to tell you right off the bat. I can’t tell you how oftentimes people in our private Facebook group break the no contact rule and think that there’s no consequences, but there is. Usually, the consequences come in the form of when you actually start having a conversation because you haven’t done any soul searching. They haven’t done any soul searching. So when you’re actually communicating with them, it’s almost too soon to be having any kind of talks.

Also, your other mistake, I think, Ella, is the fact that you got way too emotional way too soon. You sent this apology text, but it’s not really an apology text. It’s more of a closure text, which is extremely emotional. That’s not going to really end up well for you. But, why?

Well, I think first we should answer the original problem or the original question, and that is why does my ex respond to my texts immediately.

Like I said, most people have the opposite problem. They can’t get their exes to respond to their texts at all. So just be thankful that you’re in that situation where you have an ex that wants to respond to you. But, why?

Well, in my mind there are two reasons why exes will respond to text messages immediately, especially if they’re happening a little too soon.

Let’s talk about both reasons now.

The first one is that they’re thinking about you a lot. So I’m not really sure how to expand on that other than the fact that you go through this breakup.

Your ex is obviously upset about the whole situation, but they can’t stop thinking about you.

Sometimes when you implement a no contact rule, like Ella has attempted … She attempted the no contact rule but broke it.

I don’t know how long she was in the no contact rule for. She didn’t specify. But let’s just assume she’s been in it for a week. So a week has gone by. She hasn’t reached out to him. He hasn’t reached out to her. And maybe there’s kind of like this war of attrition going on. Well, I’m not going to reach out to her until she reaches out to me first.

And she’s thinking, “Well, I’m really upset. I want to talk about the breakup.” But the interesting thing is him. From his perspective, he’s thinking about her. Even if it’s I’m not going to reach out to her first, he’s thinking about her. So then when she breaks down, reaches out to him, which is what exactly happened here, he’s like, “Okay, okay. I could talk to her.” He gets really excited, right? That is probably what’s going on here.

He looks at like, oh, point for me. And if you don’t think men do this, if you think we’re all mature, I’m sorry to break it to you, but we’re not, especially when it comes to emotional topics and relationships. We are so immature it is almost laughable. But the same can be said for women from what we’ve found working with men who are trying to get their exes back.

So maybe it’s not accurate to say men or woman, but human beings can be extremely immature when it comes to relationships. And granted, breakups often attract immature relationships because usually there’s a reason that relationship failed, and usually that has to do with one member’s immaturity. And ladies, it’s usually not you. So that’s the first reason I think most exes will respond to your texts immediately. They’re thinking about you a lot.

The second reason is if you do what Ella did and you reach out with an emotionally charged topic very, very quickly after the breakup. What do I mean by that? So let’s look at Ella’s situation. She slapped him, which is not okay by any means. Thinking about it is a little funny. I’m allowed to say that. But it’s not okay.

It’s not something that you want to do. She recognizes that that is not an okay way to go about your situation. But it makes for a one heck, one heck of an emotionally charged topic.

So what’s interesting is she sends this closure/apology text message to him where she mentions, “I am sorry for slapping you. I am really sorry. That is not the way a woman should treat a man. I’m sorry.” It is a highly emotional topic. He’s thinking about her a lot. He’s maybe even thinking about the fact that this is the first time in my life I’ve ever been slapped by a woman. So he wants to respond.

I think the important thing to remember with the emotionally charged topic is that it has to do with recency. There is a recency bias. If the breakup just happened and then three, four, five, even a week later, three, four, five days in or a week later, you reach out to your ex with a closure/apology texts, which is a mistake … And I actually have done a YouTube video and written an article about this.

Go check that out if you haven’t. Your ex is going to want to respond. So the more recent or the closer you are to this emotionally charged topic like a breakup, the more likely they are to respond.

But here’s the thing. When we’re looking at responses, we don’t really care if … Sorry. I’m saying that wrong. Boy, I just sort of blanked out there. What we do care about really more than anything is the type of response that you’re getting.

You’re looking for a neutral to positive responses.

And ultimately, if you didn’t know, there are four types of responses to text messages.

And really, if you were to chart these on a spectrum, the best you could get is a positive response.

The second best is a neutral response.

The third best is a negative response, because a negative response is … It’s kind of like credit. Having bad credit is better than having no credit.

Well, as you could guess, no response is the worst thing you can get, indifference, being ghosted. Horrible. We don’t want that.

But what ends up happening typically when you enter into a conversation with your ex and he responds to this emotionally charged topic or text message that you send very recently after this emotional time, the responses maybe start out cordial, neutral, but quickly deteriorate to negative and eventually to no response.

We don’t want that to happen. That is not a recipe for success.

Now, what’s interesting is Ella points out that, well, I sent this huge closure text message. I talked about a lot of things, but he only focused on one thing, the slap. Why? So why is he only focusing on this one thing in this gigantic closures/apology text? Well, it’s probably because it’s the part that he feels he needs to address. It’s also the part he’s thinking about the most, and it’s the most emotionally charged aspect of the topic.

Also, there’s this concept of how human beings understand or organize their memory.

Your brains are amazing tools, but one thing that you may … Anyone who sits there and tells me they have great memory is actually not realizing how our brains really work. Our brains, our memory centers essentially try to decipher what is important enough to put in long-term memory, and what’s important enough to put in short-term memory, and what’s important enough to not put in memory at all.

So what’s really interesting is when you send this closure text, I mean, you’re making a lot of mistakes here, Ella. I’m not trying to sound like I’m picking on you, because I’m not, but think of it like this. You send a closure text where you’re essentially starting and apologizing, and everything else you’re talking about is sort of what you wanted a response to.

Let’s just assume your closure texts or apology/closure text started with an apology about the slap and then quickly goes into some of the issues with the relationship, and how he treated you, and how you felt wronged and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So why isn’t he touching on the things that you want him to touch on and he’s touching on the things that you really don’t want him to touch on? Well, it’s because the thing that you don’t want him to touch in on also coincides with the end of your relationship.

So I’m a big proponent of this concept called the peak-end rule, which basically is a way of showing you how human beings organize their thoughts, right? They think that if you put a list in front of people, they will organize that list based on the most exciting aspect of it in the end of it. So when you’re looking at memory, I don’t even think I explained that right, so let me try it again.

When you’re looking at memory, when you’re thinking back on your relationship with your ex, you’re thinking about two points most distinctly, the most emotionally charged moments, the exciting ones, the ones you can’t get out of your head years later, months later, days later, and the bad one, the breakup, the end of the relationship. It just so happens that your closure message is highlighting the end of your relationship, Ella. You’re talking about the slap and how you feel bad about it, how you apologize for it. But the fact of the matter is the slap happened at the end of the relationship and it is also an emotionally charged moment. Of course he’s going to focus on that. He doesn’t want to talk about anything else.

He feels, number one, that he’s won by getting you to reach out to him first. And he also feels, number two, that he doesn’t care about any of the mumbo jumbo stuff that you want him to talk about. He only cares about the stuff you don’t want to talk about, the slap, how you were mean to him. He maybe has a bit of the victim mentality. But what you need to understand above all is that this is why we don’t break the no contact rule. This is also why I don’t believe in apologies until you’re kind of close to getting back together.

If you really think about it, there’s two points that we want to hit on here. Why shouldn’t you break the no contact? Well, number one, if you break the no contact rule and have a conversation like this, it’s a prime example of what can go wrong. And what can go wrong is he will only focus on the negatives as opposed to the positives. Our goal, especially if you want to take a bird’s-eye view of this whole thing, if you’re trying to get your ex back, is to get your ex to remember the peaks of the relationships when all he’s remembering is the end of the relationship.

The other thing I think we really need to touch on is this aspect of apologizing. Now, it may seem weird to me, but why shouldn’t Ella apologize? Because ultimately, when you’ve been wronged, I mean really wronged … Because relationships, when you go through a breakup, you feel it down to your soul. And when you’ve been wronged to that extent, words alone cannot help you recover or make you feel better.

So in the end, all Ella is doing by sending this closure/apology text … And you may disagree with me, and you’re welcome to disagree with me. But in my opinion, all she’s doing is trying to make herself feel better. She recognized it was wrong, so she reaches out and apologizes for it. But it’s not going to make him feel better.

The also important thing to keep in mind here is when you apologize, you want to make sure your ex is in the right state of mind to not only accept it but sort of reciprocate. Because believe it or not, Ella, he’s not innocent either. He did something that hurts you to the core, and he might … He should be held accountable for that. Not to the point where you slap him, of course. But if you apologize in a way that only makes yourself feel better … And oftentimes the only way you can tell if it will make herself feel better is timing. You should only really apologize to your ex, in my opinion, if you’re in a situation where you’re very close to getting them back. And it’s okay for you to have these emotionally highly charged conversations about your past relationship without them walking away or getting freaked out. And clearly 6, 7, 8 10 days into a no contact rule is not the time to have that conversation. And that’s the big issue.

So ultimately, if you want to figure out why getting an ex back is difficult, it’s because timing really does matter. Not a lot of people think of it like that, but it does. When you say things, when you do things, what you do, all of it encompasses to create your overall chances of success. And most of the time that success is fleeting because people don’t have the self-discipline to stop themselves from reaching out and make an apology like Ella, reaching out and talking about an emotionally charged conversation before they’re ready to have an emotionally charged conversation.

I can tell you so many stories of women who went down Ella’s path and did not get their exes back. Now, that’s not to say that Ella can’t get her ex back if that’s what she wants to do. But my advice to anyone who’s in a situation where they’re thinking about breaking the no contact rule, where they’re thinking of having emotionally charged conversations with their ex is, number one, do you really want them back? And number two, if you do want them back, do you have enough self-discipline to time these conversations correctly? Because we’ve outlined it in the Ex Boyfriend Recovery Program. These are when it’s okay to share your feelings. This is what it’s okay to have these types of conversations.

And most of the time, people make two errors when they’re looking at the Ex Boyfriend Recovery problem. They take it as it’s the word of God, as if they don’t follow the words and timing exactly they’re going to fail. And then you have the other people who don’t take it seriously enough. You need to be a little bit in the middle I guess is my overall point here. You have to be open to adaptability, but that doesn’t mean you should adapt so much that you lose sight of the overall template that we’ve provided.

So ultimately, what you’re looking to do is have enough knowledge that you know what you should be doing as a template from a bird’s-eye view, but also having enough micro knowledge to adapt when the situation calls for it. That’s why it can be so hard for us to work or create a resource that just is a universal all-size-fits-one. We’ve tried our best to do that. But so much uniqueness is involved in each individual situation that each individual situation needs its own sort of built-in template and that decision to build that template or what that looks like lies with you.

More often than not, if you listen to what we say, you will have good success. But the people who don’t listen to what we say, who don’t follow the directions, who aren’t open to adaptability because adaptability is something that we really think you need to have, they’ll fail. I think in the end it really boils down to discipline. Are you disciplined enough to make the hard decision that you don’t want to make? If the answer to that question is yes, you got a really good shot. If it’s no, then you probably don’t. That’s as simple as I can make it.