Break-up coaches are exploiting the vulnerable

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Has the love of your life broken up with you? It hurts, I know. It’s fantastically painful. You’ve lost your other half, your best friend, the life you thought you’d have. You’d do anything to stop the pain. You’d do anything to get them back.

Well, according to the internet – and a variety of “break up coaches” – you can. You could read the Five Step Plan to Get Your Ex Running Back to You! by dating coach Matthew Hussey, or watch The Number One Secret to Getting Your Ex Back! by Brad Browning. You could go with Kevin, from the website Ex Back Permanently, or get private coaching from online service, The Art of Love.

You will generally begin with a 30 day “no contact” period, to give your ex-partner time to miss you. (The idea that they may be perfectly delighted to be free of your daily phone calls isn’t generally up for discussion.)

When the campaign for reconciliation begins, there are a variety of techniques to try.

Women can use social media to “re-seduce” their ex with enticing pictures of their exercise and travel. Men can use their “emotional masculinity” to “re-attract” their ex whilst at the same time letting the woman “feel like she’s in control”.

None provide statistics on how many clients succeed in “getting their ex back”, or follow up with happy couples who have worked through the techniques.

Of course, many couples do reconcile after a breakup, but it depends largely on the reason for the split.

According to Elisabeth Shaw, CEO of Relationships Australia NSW, many couples separate because they’ve reached a relationship impasse – a destructive conflict cycle, or infidelity, or betrayal. Others end their relationships due to anger, frustration or resentment, rather than a lack of love.

Some couples, however, break up for a simpler reason: one partner has fallen out of love, or feels the relationship has run its course. And in these cases, Shaw tells me, trying to call the other partner back into the relationship is not in your interests, or theirs.

“If you did manage to talk them into coming back it won’t have a great chance of success,” she warns. “It might work for a while if they are lonely or nostalgic, but then you’ll encounter the same problems and break up again.”

So when and how can one get their ex back? What actually works, when there’s still love and hope?

Well, even when there is a possibility of reconciliation, the path lies not in the tricks recommended by the breakup coaches. The path, according to Elisabeth Shaw, is self-reflection and hard work, and, possibly, couples counselling.

Some couples, however, break up for a simpler reason: one partner has fallen out of love, or feels the relationship has run its course. And in these cases, Shaw tells me, trying to call the other partner back into the relationship is not in your interests, or theirs.

“If you did manage to talk them into coming back it won’t have a great chance of success,” she warns. “It might work for a while if they are lonely or nostalgic, but then you’ll encounter the same problems and break up again.”

So when and how can one get their ex back? What actually works, when there’s still love and hope?

Well, even when there is a possibility of reconciliation, the path lies not in the tricks recommended by the breakup coaches. The path, according to Elisabeth Shaw, is self-reflection and hard work, and, possibly, couples counselling.