I know how difficult the holidays can be when you are missing someone like crazy. Been there. I also know that it is next to impossible to miss someone to the point of heartache during the holidays and be the only person feeling that. Always remember ladies that if you are missing someone like crazy, the chances are all better than not that they are feeling the same way, ESPECIALLY during the holidays. It’s just the way the laws of attraction and love work. The holidays are that one time of year when you remember traditions, people, and everything that is really important to you in life. So it can be a tough time, but you are not alone. This I know.

I get a lot of letters from women that feel this missing period is never going to end. They write in feeling like hope is lost, and asking for anything that can help them stop feeling this way, and feel better. I wouldn’t be here trying to help you with relationship advice and make him miss you if I thought hope was lost for any of you. I firmly believe that love is never lost, it is only ever replaced, but it can always find its way back again.

But I also know how normal it is to feel in that place where it truly does feel like there is no hope, that place where you almost consider moving on. It really stinks! But the truth is, moving on, in your own unique way, is what is absolutely necessary for that love to find its way back to you again. That’s why the No Contact Zone is so important.

The universe has given you a wake up call, angels closing doors as my grandmother would say. Something’s not working and it’s time for a time out. So take it!

It’s the best thing you can do for yourself. And your relationship. You deserve healing time and focusing on the wound is not going to help your case. At all. Ever. No man ever wants to keep hearing about how sorry you are and how you just want to explain to him one last time.

Even if you are the daughter of Mother Theresa and look like Jennifer Aniston, no man is ever going to take you back under those circumstances because the only purpose that serves is constant reminder of the pain. That he caused. He doesn’t want that reminder, he wants to remember you as a sweet girlfriend where things just didn’t work out and it was nobody’s fault.

Trust me, it sucks for him too. But you may be too busy sitting in your own pain and grief to have the fortitude to take the role of the other and just see his side for just a second. It’s hard, I know, I’ve been there. He may be a “man”, but despite the fact that he shows his feelings differently than you do, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them. You just don’t see them the same way you see yours, or your girlfriends. So that’s when you have to watch his reactions to you, especially those after the breakup, and mirror them. That is what you need to do to begin getting back into that sync with him.

When you are trying to get your boyfriend back, the first thing you want to do is whatever you can to fix the situation. But a nasty moment or conversation is probably the reason he broke up with you, so why would you remind him of that as much as you possibly can? What will the end result be?

Driving him away.

But when you make the choice to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and find YOU again, you pull away from him just enough to get him to start noticing you are gone. That he isn’t the center of your world anymore. And that you are an awesome amazing person doing all of these awesome amazing things, without him. That’s when he starts to remember what an awesome amazing girlfriend you were too, and those seeds of attraction begin to kernel again.

If there is a true love there and the two of you were meant to be together, the love is never lost. It will always find its way back again. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the prescription roll out for itself, and it’s even happened to me as well. Hope is never lost.

We have a reader who needs some encouragement in this area. Here’s what she has to say:

Hi Michelle,

This is going to be a long one, I hope you can bear with me as I’m in dire need of some good advice from someone who knows a thing or two about relationships, so far, the advice from my friends and relatives isn’t giving me a clear head to look towards the future.

I was with my boyfriend for two years, he was amazing to me in every way, we planned a future together and really loved each other, but there were some problems that kept us from going that extra step, from realizing out full potential as a couple. A little background, we are both 27 years old, we’ve known each other since we were in junior high, we dated when we were 12(junior high sweet hearts), we dated briefly when we were 18 again, and then reconnected when we were both 25 and had a better go at it that time around.

When we initially started dating I had recently gotten out of a 5 year relationship that left me with a lot of bitterness and sadness, I was just starting to pick myself up again when HE, the man I always wondered about came back in my life. It was amazing really, like all starts of a relationship I was filled with hope for the future and he seemed to be very serious about reconnecting and having a relationship with me, my only concern with him was his previous behaviour, having known him since we were 12 years old and dating him a couple times when we were younger, I know a lot about him to say he is unlike any guy I’ve met in a sense that he has a very unique way of handling relationships.

I knew that relationships are hard work, sometimes people fight, sometimes it’s harder to keep it together but when two people know what they want and love each other it can work. But this guy, this guy is different, he’s always gone through phases in his life when if he’s unhappy with his personal life he will neglect his relationship, or if things start to get too hard in a relationship or things aren’t going the way he hoped he will check out and emotionally shut down, i’ve experienced this first hand with him before, but I thought since time passed by and we were older and wiser, that it would be worth a shot with him. Having my own issues about my past relationship also did not make it any better, needless to say I took a chance and decided to try it out. It was great, everything I hoped for and more, but after things started going towards the end of the honey moon phase like all relationships and the arguments started, my own unresolved issues from past relationships came up, his own issues came up, and as soon as we knew it we were fighting over petty things. I broke up with him a couple of times, and he did the same, not really meaning it, but just to prove a point, so we would get back together after a couple of days and things would be good again, until something else came up. This was our cycle, and no matter what, we always fell into the same circle of arguments.

It reached a breaking point when he called me and told me it was over, at first I didn’t believe it, but when it finally sunk it all of the damage I had done to our relationship hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized I had sabotaged the relationship by letting my unresolved issues from my past relationship keep me in a bitter state. I realized I wasn’t the same person he had fallen in love with. I regret my behaviour, and this time I have been given a new perspective into what it really means to make a relationship work.

When he broke up with me he told me several things that didn’t give me much hope.
1. Things have changed for him
2. He has been unhappy for a while and doesn’t want to force anything
3. Things don’t flow with us, our personalities don’t mix
4. He would like to be friends but he needs time
5. I didn’t make him feel good about himself
6. He thinks two years is enough time to try
7. He’s not in love with me anymore
8. I’m a great girl, but it’s not working

I asked him if he knew it could work between us if he would be with me,and he said of course he would, this is why I don’t understand why he would say he isn’t in love anymore.

After the break up I blamed everything on myself, I texted him pages and pages of apologies and of things I wouldve done differently. I did this for about two days. I left him alone for another two days then texted him again, but this time as if things were normal, friendly, and just asked him about his day, he replied we exchanged a couple of texts then I left him alone for another couple of days. I began to panic and then resumed to texting him my apologies and my regret for another two days after that. I sent another text a couple of days later telling him that I was going to leave him alone and respect his decision because he had told me that when I text him it makes things harder on him as well. After a few days I couldn’t stop thinking of why he hadn’t given me the benefit of seeing him in person so I texted him just to ask him if he would be willing to meet up with me to discuss some things, he replied saying “we’ll see, but please respect my decision.” After that we texted again, in a friendly manner after i initiated the conversation just asking about trivial things…he replied to my messages about every 40 minutes and we exchanged a few texts. After this I have cut down on the times I’ve texted but still messaged him about once a week to see if he’s free to meet up, every time he will only reply with what he’s doing that week and that he’s busy. He hasn’t told me to move on, he hasn’t flat out told me leave him alone…I decided I will try no contact for good this time for at least a month. I’m getting frustrated thta he hasn’t even been able to give me a face to face to tell him so much of what I wanted to tell him. It’s been 6 weeks since the break up and I think after 2 years it’s the least I deserve. I‘m contemplating writing him a letter because there is so much I need to explain to him about what went wrong and how I see thins now. It hurts so much not being able to tell him or see him….I’m stuck in limbo and hoping the NC will still work and I haven’t done too much damage.

Once again I’ve highlighted what I think are the most important sections of the letter, the ones that speak volumes about what should happen next. Dear Reader, put down the cell phone immediately. Put it in the freezer if you have to. Do not send one more text.

You are doing exactly what I just mentioned above is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. You are reminding him of the pain over and over again to get your own ease of guilt from this situation, and you aren’t making him miss you at all. In fact, he’s even out right told you that hearing from you is painful, and yet you keep doing it.

What does that do? It sends the message to him that what he needs isn’t as important as what you need. I know that sucks to hear, but we’ve all done it, so don’t feel like I’m singling you out. If this wasn’t a problem global to the female human race I wouldn’t even print the letter. I would go find a letter that was. We have ALL been the Operations Commander of the text wars, no question about it. But as you know, that is not getting him closer to you, so why would you even consider that? Or better yet, a letter that is carefully written that will be written proof to him for years to come of all of the mistakes that you made in the relationship?

Don’t do it. He gets it. He is not blameless here. If you are taking ownership of all of your stuff, then he is sitting there trying to find a way not to have to take ownership of his stuff too. And that place is not the one that is going to have him crawling back to you. You need to make him miss you to achieve that goal. But as I have said it time and time again, he can’t miss you if he keeps hearing from you.

But you, definitely are not in the hope is lost category. You gave me about 15 different reasons for that in your own letter. You haven’t been dating him for 2 years either by the way. By my calculations it looks closer to 15. Okay give or take some breaks and some coming back togethers, three times already, but this has been going on for 15 years. That is some solid history.

But, getting him back is not going to be helped by reminding him about pain. Reminding him about the good history you have will help, you just can’t do it right away. You NEED to take at LEAST a 30 day No Contact Period, my recommendation is 60 though. Or maybe squeeze it out 45. Can we do No Contact until Valentine’s Day? Then surprise him with something sweet and flirty on Valentine’s Day and take it from there?

I think if you can spend some time on you for a while, do the things you like to do when you are single, and the time will fly. It will be a fun thing to look forward to, and it will definitely make him start to wonder what you’ve been up to. Then he will hear from you after a while, see this sweet, sexy Valentiney thing in his email one day, and he will begin to remember the awesome. Trust me. This is precisely how I landed the sweet gem I am with right now. But it’s not even been close to 15 years for us, so you have a serious advantage here.

Also remember, the two of you together have created the history that you CAN get back together. You already have proven, at least twice by my count, that you keep coming back to each other. There’s a reason for that. And yes you should explore it. But, it’s been 15 years. 45 days of salon time and yoga classes and shopping for a new wardrobe to pick you up isn’t going to suck, is it?

You definitely should not feel like hope is lost. You can get your ex boyfriend back, if you make him miss you. Put down the phone, do not send a letter, do nothing until some serious time has passed. It won’t be easy. Keep writing in and we will help support you through this.

I’ve got a good feeling about this okay, so please do keep us posted! Readers! Did I miss anything? Drop your comments in the box below and let’s help our friend get through this tough time. Always remember dear Readers, no matter how sad things may seem right now, everything is only for a season. Hope your holiday season is beautiful, and bright! Until next year friends : )