What does "waiting is the doing" mean when trying to get your ex back?
Short answer: Waiting is the active strategy, not the absence of one. Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of *How to Get Your Ex Back*, says the urge to act before an opening appears is almost always anxiety. Hold back until your ex creates a real signal, then move. Moving before that hands them control and collapses the tension you've built.
What Does “Waiting Is the Doing” Mean When Trying to Get Your Ex Back?
Waiting is the active strategy, not the absence of one. Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of How to Get Your Ex Back, says the urge to act before an opening appears is almost always anxiety. Hold back until your ex creates a real signal, then move. Moving before that hands them control and collapses the tension you’ve built.
What counts as a real opening at each stage
| Stage | A real opening looks like | Not an opening |
|---|---|---|
| No contact | Your ex reaches out to you first | A social media post, a story view, a mutual mention |
| Early re-engagement | Your ex gives a high-effort reply or asks a question | A brief acknowledgment or a one-word response |
| Dating phase | Your ex suggests meeting or creates a natural logistics window | You feeling like enough time has passed |
| Any stage | Energy is clearly warmer across multiple interactions | A single good exchange after several cold ones |
Why premature moves cost you
Every time you reach out before an opening exists, two things happen. You burn the opportunity the move was supposed to create, and you signal anxiety instead of confidence. Anxious reaching is the opposite of the grounded, unhurried presence that rebuilds attraction.
The process has its own timeline. Forcing it compresses the window where your ex would have come to their own conclusion. That conclusion — “I miss this person, I should do something” — doesn’t arrive on your schedule. It arrives when the absence and your changed state have had time to work. Moving early short-circuits that.
Low-effort responses deserve the same discipline. If your ex replies with something brief that doesn’t move things forward, letting the thread go quiet is the right call. Don’t try to resuscitate it. Chasing a low-effort reply signals that you need the conversation to continue, which shifts the dynamic back toward pursuit.
What to do
- Notice whether the urge to act is strategy or anxiety. If it feels urgent, it’s almost always anxiety. Strategy doesn’t feel like an emergency.
- Wait for the next opportunity. A real opportunity is your ex reaching out, giving high-effort replies, or creating a natural opening. Don’t manufacture one.
- Let low-effort responses die. If they replied but didn’t push the conversation forward, let the thread go quiet. Don’t try to extend it.
- Sit with the discomfort. A slow reply or no reply is not a verdict. Analyze it into a crisis and you’ll make a move you’ll regret.
- Use the time. Work on yourself, not on refreshing your ex’s profile. The waiting period is for building the version of yourself that’s worth coming back to.
What NOT to do
- Don’t reach out to do a temperature check. That’s a Rule 1 violation regardless of how casual the wording is.
- Don’t offer times, places, or logistics before your ex has signaled they want to meet.
- Don’t treat a single good interaction as permission to switch into pursuit mode.
- Don’t interpret silence, a late reply, or a brief response as rejection without more evidence.
- Don’t pursue until they’re hooked. Switching into pursuit mode before that point collapses the dynamic you’ve built.
What this looks like in practice
Impatience shows up at every stage of the process, and it looks slightly different each time.
In no contact, the urge tends to arrive after a few weeks of silence. Nothing bad has happened. Nothing good has happened either. It just feels like losing ground, like the window is closing and inaction is the same as giving up.
The same pressure appears later. After re-contact, a few good exchanges create momentum. The instinct shifts to capitalizing on it: suggest a plan, name a time, push for the next step. But the ex hasn’t signaled they want to meet yet. The energy is still in early-engagement territory, not the dating phase.
In both cases, moving early burns the opportunity. In no contact, reaching out before the window is ready restarts the clock and signals anxiety. In early re-engagement, pushing logistics before she’s created the opening shifts the frame back to chasing.
The rule is the same at every stage: wait for the next opportunity. Not until you can’t stand the discomfort anymore. Until your ex creates a real opening.
Related questions
How long should I wait for my ex to reach out?
As long as it takes. The process has its own timeline. What matters is whether your ex is creating real openings, not whether enough time has passed by your count.
What if waiting feels like giving up?
That feeling is the process working. It's uncomfortable because it requires giving up control over the timeline. Benny Lichtenwalner calls this 'waiting is the doing': it's the most active move available when no real opening exists yet.
What counts as a real opening?
Your ex reaches out. They give a high-effort reply that pushes the conversation forward. They create a logistics window. The energy is clearly warmer across multiple interactions. If you're not sure whether it's real, it probably isn't — real openings are readable.
Should I respond if my ex sends a low-effort reply?
Match their energy or let the thread go quiet. Don't try to resuscitate a one-word exchange. Chasing a low-effort reply into a conversation signals anxious investment and hands them control.
What should I do during no contact instead of thinking about my ex?
Work on yourself. Exercise. Get better at your job. Build something. The goal of the waiting period isn't just to endure — it's to actually become someone whose life is moving forward.