Why am I always the one texting first with my ex?

By Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach & author of How to Get Your Ex Back · Updated 2026-09-10

Short answer: Because your effort has been set above theirs, and that gap removes the reason for them to put more in. Match their message length, response speed, and energy, or land one notch below it. When they text something low-cost, reply in kind, brief and light, with no follow-up questions. Their effort usually rises once yours stops covering for it.

If you’re sending paragraphs and getting two words back, the instinct is to try harder, ask a better question, add a joke, find the message that finally gets a real response. That instinct is usually the exact thing keeping the imbalance going.

I’m Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of How to Get Your Ex Back. Effort mismatch is one of the most common patterns I see in early texting after no-contact ends, and it almost always runs the same direction: one person over-functioning to make up for the other person’s short replies.

What is my effort level actually signaling?

Whether you mean it to or not, your message length, response speed, and question-asking are all visible data. Out-efforting someone removes the tension that would otherwise pull them to reach further. Low effort from them has no natural cost unless your own response introduces one. Matching or dropping below their level is that cost.

What do I actually do?

1. Read their message before you respond. Length, tone, how long they took. That’s your ceiling, not a target to beat.
2. Go one notch below. Still be yourself, still be warm if the moment calls for it, just don’t add more than the exchange has earned.
3. Let quiet conversations end. Don’t prop up a dying thread with a new topic or question.
4. Don’t text first, beyond roughly once a week, during a stretch where their effort has been consistently low.
5. Match low-cost messages with low-cost replies. A forwarded video or a one-word text gets a brief, light reply, not a paragraph.
6. When they ramp up, you can ramp up too, but stay a step behind. Let them close the gap, not you.
7. Notice out loud when they do put in effort. A short, genuine acknowledgment reinforces it without you having to ask for more.

What should I stop doing?

Why does matching effort work better than trying harder?

The instinct to close a gap by adding more warmth treats the imbalance like a puzzle to solve with better effort. It isn’t one. The imbalance exists because there’s currently no cost to giving less, and closing it yourself removes any reason for that to change. Bringing your own effort down doesn’t punish anyone; it just stops absorbing a cost that was never yours to carry alone.

What this looks like in practice

A composite of two clients, details changed. One had been sending long, detailed replies to short check-ins for weeks, convinced that pulling back would end the conversation entirely. Once she started matching message length instead, replies got slower for about ten days, and then noticeably longer than they’d been before.

Another kept asking follow-up questions every time his ex sent something brief, worried that silence on his end would look like he’d lost interest. Once he let a few short exchanges end without adding anything, the pattern reversed. His ex started asking the questions.

Neither shift required a script. It required noticing the gap and closing it from the other direction.

For how this fits with letting an exchange end naturally instead of keeping it alive, is it bad if my conversation with my ex fizzles out covers the rest of it.