How do I talk to my ex when I have to?

By Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach & author ofHow to Get Your Ex Back · Updated2026-07-04

Short answer: Keep it brief, casual, and strictly business. When logistics force contact during no-contact — shared finances, co-parenting, returning belongings — send one short, low-key message that handles the task and nothing else: no emotional content, no nostalgia, no bridge-building. Handle it like a coworker would, then go quiet again. Necessary contact doesn't break no-contact; milking it does.

Short version: say what the task requires, in one or two relaxed lines, and nothing else. Then go quiet again.

I’m Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of How to Get Your Ex Back, and this question comes up constantly, because real life doesn’t pause for no-contact. Taxes come due. The lease has both names on it. The kids need a pickup schedule. Their stuff is still in your closet. My clients always ask the same thing: “Doesn’t this ruin everything?” No. Necessary contact is fine. What ruins things is treating necessary contact as an opportunity.

Why does necessary contact have to stay business-only?

Because every message you send tells your ex something, whether you mean it to or not. A clean, casual, two-line logistics text says: this person is fine, handling their life, not sitting around thinking about me. A logistics text padded with warmth, jokes, questions about their week, and a “we should catch up sometime” says the opposite — it says you were waiting for a reason to reach out, and the electric bill finally gave you one.

That’s the whole problem with using logistics as a bridge. It’s not that the extra content is offensive. It’s that the extra content reveals the need. The task didn’t require it, so your ex correctly reads it as being about them — and reaching out because you couldn’t help it is the exact signal no-contact exists to stop sending. This is chasing wearing a costume, and it connects directly to why waiting for your ex to move first works at all.

One more thing, because I want this said plainly: keeping logistics clean isn’t a manipulation tactic. You’re not icing anyone out. You’re handling shared business like an adult while refusing to outsource your emotional needs to a conversation about paperwork. That’s just discipline.

When does this apply — and when doesn’t it?

How do I actually handle necessary contact?

1. Check that it’s a real necessity. One honest test: would this message still have to exist if you didn’t want them back? If the answer is no, it’s not logistics — it’s an excuse, and you don’t send it.
2. Pick the most boring channel. Email for money and paperwork, text for time-sensitive coordination. Never upgrade a two-line task into a phone call.
3. Write it business-casual. Relaxed tone, zero emotional content. Something like: “Saturday works on my end — text me a time once you know it.” That’s a full, complete message. It’s friendly without offering anything.
4. Answer what’s asked and arrange what needs arranging. Stop there. No “how’ve you been?”, no leading with a cute kid story, no shared-memory garnish.
5. Close without promising future contact. No “talk soon,” no “I’ll text you later.” Ending a conversation with a promise of more contact hands the initiative right back. Let it just end.
6. Return to silence. The exchange handled a task; it did not open a texting lane. If your ex opens one on their own later — genuinely, not logistically — that’s a different conversation, and there’s a right way to carry it.

What should I NOT do when I have to talk to my ex?

• Don’t use the task as a bridge. No padding, no warm-up paragraph, no P.S. that does the emotional work the rest of the message was pretending not to do.
• Don’t lead with the kids as an opener. Kid logistics, yes. Kid content as an emotional doorway, no.
• Don’t compliment, validate, or explain your silence. Especially not to an avoidant ex who’s been warm one week and gone the next — a message explaining the pattern just gives them a map for staying comfortable at a distance.
• Don’t escalate when the response is cold or slow. If your ex barely answered a basic message, a longer and more heartfelt one won’t fix it — it makes it worse. Low effort from them is information, not an invitation to try harder.
• Don’t send it activated. If your chest is tight and your thumbs are fast, wait an hour. Logistics can always wait an hour. If this part is the struggle, read how to stay calm when your ex triggers you.

What does this look like in practice?

Here’s a composite — two clients merged, every identifying detail changed.

A client mid no-contact still had one string attached: her ex’s boxes were in her garage, and there was a shared phone plan to untangle. Her ex had a pattern — warm and chatty for a stretch, then gone, with her always the one restarting things. When he finally texted about picking up his stuff, she drafted the message she wanted to send: three paragraphs, an inside joke, a question about his new place, and a “we should grab coffee sometime” at the end. She sent me the draft first.

We cut it to one line: “Saturday afternoon is good. Text me when you’re on your way.” He came, got the boxes, and the whole exchange stayed light and easy. She didn’t explain her recent quiet, didn’t mention the phone plan feelings, didn’t promise anything. Then she went silent again.

About two weeks later he texted her with no logistics attached at all — just a real message, the first one in months that she hadn’t set up for him. It meant something because the boxes conversation had been clean. If that Saturday text had carried three paragraphs of hidden hope, he’d have known exactly where she stood, and there would have been nothing left for him to wonder about.

Handling forced contact well keeps your position intact. But it’s not how you come back — that takes a deliberate first move, made on your timeline, after no-contact has done its work. When you’re ready for that step, start here: the re-entry message.