What do I tell friends and family who don't want me to get my ex back?

By Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach & author of How to Get Your Ex Back · Updated 2026-10-04

Short answer: Save the detailed explanation for the few people who are actually willing to sit with the full story, usually one or two people, not the whole group chat. For everyone else, a short version is enough. You don't need their blessing to want your ex back, and most of them don't have the context to give good advice anyway.

I’m Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of How to Get Your Ex Back, and this one comes up constantly: what do you say to the people in your life who think you should just walk away? Here’s the short version, then the longer one for the people who’ve earned it.

Why does everyone have an opinion about this?

Because they love you and don’t want to see you get hurt a second time, especially if this ex has put you through a lot already. Most people respond to that fear with a simple, black-and-white answer: cut it off, move on, don’t look back. It’s not always wrong advice. It’s just advice given without the full context of your relationship, and most people giving it haven’t sat with the nuance, because they don’t have the time or the closeness to want to.

Who actually deserves the full explanation?

Think about which people in your life care enough to go deep with you, not just react to the headline. That’s usually one or two people, not your whole friend group and not every family member who’s weighed in.

For those people, you can go further. Most adults fall into one of four attachment patterns: secure, and three insecure variations, each driven by a different core wound. A dismissive pattern often traces back to feeling not good enough. A fearful pattern often traces back to being hurt before. An anxious pattern often traces back to fear of abandonment. Once someone understands which pattern your ex runs on, a lot of confusing behavior stops looking so confusing. It doesn’t excuse anything. It explains it.

What this looks like depending on who you’re talking to

What NOT to do

1. Don’t try to win over everyone who disagrees. Some people will never be convinced, and chasing their approval wastes energy you need elsewhere.
2. Don’t over-explain to people who’ve already shown they’re not going to engage with the nuance. It reads as defensive and changes nothing.
3. Don’t let a friend’s blunt “just leave him alone” talk you out of a decision you’ve actually thought through. Blunt isn’t the same as right.
4. Don’t use the attachment-style explanation as a way to justify behavior that genuinely crossed a line. Understanding a pattern isn’t the same as excusing harm.

A composite case

One client I coached spent weeks trying to get her entire friend group on board before she’d let herself reach back out to her ex, as if their approval was a requirement. Another client stopped bringing it up with anyone except one friend who actually understood the situation, and made his decision without needing a vote from everyone else in his life. Both situations had plenty of people with opinions. Only one of them let those opinions decide the outcome, and it cost real time waiting for a permission nobody else was positioned to give.

So do you need anyone’s blessing?

No. You’re the only one who was in the relationship, which means you’re the only one who actually knows what’s worth trying to save. Talk to the one or two people who’ll sit with the full story, let everyone else have their reaction, and make the call based on what you know, not on a group consensus you’re never going to get.