# What should you do when you re-enter contact with your ex?

> By Benny Lichtenwalner, breakup coach and author of "How to Get Your Ex Back".
> Canonical: https://bennylichtenwalner.com/videos/re-entry/

**Short answer:** When you re-enter contact with an ex, don't lead with "let's talk things out." That approach already failed once and reopening old arguments just repeats it. Instead, build your own energy first (fitness, hobbies, accomplishments) so you have something real to bring, then focus the conversation on making them laugh and feel good rather than relitigating what went wrong.

When people finally get the green light to reach back out to an ex, the default instinct is to sit down and talk everything through. Benny Lichtenwalner's advice runs the opposite direction: skip it.

The talk-it-out approach already had its shot, during the relationship, and it didn't hold things together. Leading a re-entry message the same way just reopens the argument that ended things in the first place. What actually rebuilds attraction is energy, not explanation. Your ex needs a reason to want more contact with you, and reason rarely comes from relitigating who was right.

Benny's practical fix is to spend the no-contact window building "energy assets": fitness, a hobby, real accomplishments, anything that generates genuine good feeling instead of forcing it. Most people are running a deficit instead, weighed down by a job they hate or people who drain them. Without something real to draw on, trying to bring good energy to a conversation falls flat.

When you do make contact, the goal is simple: make them laugh, make them feel good, and let that carry the exchange instead of your case for what went wrong. It's harder than it sounds when you're still hurting. But it's the version of re-entry that actually gives an ex a reason to lean back in.

## Full transcript

Here's an attraction tip about getting your ex back, or reattracting your partner from a failing relationship, that only a dating coach can really give you, over and above a lot of the clinician types in this space.
A lot of therapists will tell you to reach out and just talk things out. Maybe if your ex just understood your side, you could come to a nice resolution. But you've probably already tried that. It didn't work. So what actually works?
Having spent years getting single guys out to meet lots of different women, one thing I understand deeply is the science of attraction from a real-world standpoint, not something I read in a book. Attraction is about energy delivery. You have to create good emotions and share them with the other person so they feel like you're going to raise their state.
The problem is, how do you do that when you're emotionally wrecked because this person pulled the rug out from under you, your future evaporated, and you're sitting with the pain of loss? That's the predicament. And the answer is one of those things that's hard, but if you do it, it works. If you want results, don't complain about how hard it is. Just do it.
To create good energy, you need energy assets, because most of us are running an overabundance of energy liabilities: the job we don't like, a relative's unwanted opinion, friends who drag us down. All of that drains energy. You need things that feed energy in instead. Are you in the gym? Do you look good? Do you have clothes that make you feel good? A hobby that gives you confidence? Accomplishments you've racked up? Something you've mastered that you can share with someone else? All of that builds status and a cooler life, just by making you the source of value.
It takes time to build that, and it's going to take time to reattract your ex. But you can use that same time to build these things for yourself, so you have real energy to share when you reconnect. When you take the focus off talking things out, reopening the wound, relitigating every problem, or bringing up who else they've seen, and instead focus on making them laugh and smile, because you feel the funny thing before you say it, that's what actually works. Authentic good energy, shared with your partner, will attract them far better than trying to explain your way back in.