would someone please explain to me the deal with NC?

[plasticheartsandsmiles]

this is probably a stupid question, but i see SO many threads about NC and i'm curious as to why people do it and what it has done for people so far. ive read on some threads that people go NC to get over an ex and then i've read in some others thats people do NC to win an ex back. what are some of you guys doing NC for and does it work in winning someone back? no one has told me that i should do NC with my ex and im wondering if maybe i should

 

I would really like to hear your answers. (esp. about the winning an ex back part)

[Royltnxile]

My situation is I'm doing NC basically in response to her NC. There has been no closure and we havent seen each other since 13 Feb, when all was good. She flaked out on me on Valentines Day over the phone...we spoke on the phone a couple of times after that but I never begged, pleaded, grovelled or cried. Although I was crushed inside, I kept my dignity and vowed not to chase her. She has issues and I realized early on that there was nothing I can do to change her decision, she made it.

 

She wanted to keep in touch and do the "friends" thing. She was calling me like mad and sending me mixed signals within 2 weeks of the break up. I remained ambivalent to her, yet I wanted to see her. Our last phone conversation on 10 Mar was that she would give me a call later in the week. She called twice on both my phones a couple of weeks later, and again another week later....NO MESSAGES, so I never called her back.

 

I sent her a card and a letter in early April and she hasn't repsonded to it. I'm determined NOT to call her. Her curiosity will get the best of her and she will call me when she wants to. I'm trying to move on and heal. Yes, I fight the urge often to call her but I'm not going to do it. She knows how to get ahold of me, knows my schedules, and knows where to find me. She dumped me impulsively and rashly out of fear and her own issues. I didnt do anything wrong so I reckon that she needs to be the one making the super human effort to win ME back. Not my place to chase and pine for someone who decided her life is better off without me in it.

 

So NC is to heal, and to move on. However, there is alot of truth in the "absense makes the heart grow fonder" concept. If you chase them they will run farther away. No contact serves to give them a chance to miss you. It might take a long time, but you will eventually hear from them.

[Hope75]

I just finished a post to someone on here about NC, and I'll copy and paste what I told her here:

 

 

 

 

I just don't see the point in using NC to try and manipulate a person into coming back. It's just another form of playing games.

[shes2smart]

In previous relationships, when the time came that I knew it was over for me, I always insisted on NC. Why? Because there was no point in keeping contact with the ex. I didn't want a relationship with him for reasons that were valid to me (cheating in one case, alcoholism & abusiveness in another). I knew I had done everything I was willing to do to make the relationship work and it still didn't work, so it was time to pack my stuff and go. There was no further point in talking/arguing or anything...the patient died on the table and wasn't coming back.

 

I'll give people tons of "second" chances, but when I'm done, I'm done and that's it....I'm gone.

 

We cannot welcome new things in our life unless and until we make room for the new by clearing out the old. As long as we remain enmeshed with the ex, we cannot fully and freely move forward. Life is only lived in one direction --- forward --- it'll keep moving forward with or without you.

 

NC after a break up -- particularly after a brutal, nasty one -- gives you a chance to heal without the ex reminding you of what might have been. I've used this analogy before, and I'll use it again. When you were a child and you got a bad cut, didn't your mother tell you not to pick at the scab so the cut would heal? NC is the equivilent to not picking at an emotional wound so it has a chance to heal. Contact the ex when you're still recovering and you rip that scab off and start bleeding all over again.

 

As for those who use NC as a way to get their ex back.....that smacks of manipulative game playing to me. Not a good thing to base a relationship on, IMO. Then again, I don't get why anyone would want an ex back. Like I said above, I'll put in everything I've got while I'm IN the relationship....if it's not enough, it's not enough and nothing will make it enough. If things are so bad that I'm eyeing the door, it's over and in my experiences, it's generally things that are not fixable.

 

Can you be friends with an ex? Maybe, after an extended period of NC. Me, I'm only friends with one of my exes....and I didn't talk to him for the better part of a year before we became friends. The rest of them...I wish them well, I hope they're happy....but I still don't want to hear from/see/know about them again.

[shes2smart]

My situation is I'm doing NC basically in response to her NC. There has been no closure and we havent seen each other since 13 Feb, when all was good.

 

In another thread awhile back, someone noted that closure is not something someone else can give us....it is something only we can give ourselves. I heartily agree.

[pappylove]

I think NC also allows a cooling off period for both parties to try and work out what they really want and even a period for the dumper's to re-evaluate their position and maybe, if the case, deal with their fears/insecurities/ doubts so that they can talk to the ex again without feeling compelled to turn and run. So I don't think NC for a reason outside Healing which I would agree is the main benefit is always game playing.

[Dragonfly81]

Along with giving me time to heal, I've also found that NC gives me dignity in the breakup and a certain amount of control. I had no control over the fact that he wanted to break up with me, I had no control over him getting a new girlfriend, but I can control whether or not I want to contact him, and right now I don't.

 

Don't get me wrong, it has been incredibly hard and there are days that I compose emails to him in my mind, but I've come to realize that the reason I feel the need to contact him is that I am still emotionally dependent on him. So I am going to continue NC until that dependence is broken.

[pattysky]

No contact is crucial in healing. At first, I played tricks in my mind thinking NC would bring him back, but I realized that after one month of not hearing from him, he meant everything he said about never wanting to see me again.

It still hurts and probably will from time to time, but I have stopped or at least (tried to stop) blaming myself for the breakup. I also feel better and stronger and more rational than I did 3 weeks ago. I know that I will survive without him, even though I will miss things about him. Just remember these words:

 

There are people who can walk away from you. And hear me when I tell you this - when people can walk away from you: let them walk. I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you. I mean hang up the phone. When people can walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. The Bible said that, "they came out from us that it might be made manifest that they were not for us. For had they been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us.

 

People leave you because they are not joined to you. And if they are not joined to you, you can' t get super glue and you can't make them stay. Let them go. And it doesn't mean that they are a bad person it just means that their part in the story is over. And you've got to know when peoples part in your story is over so that you don t keep trying to raise the dead. You've got to know when it's dead. You've got to know when it's over. Let me tell you something. I've got the gift of goodbye. It's the tenth spiritual gift, I believe in goodbye. It's not that I'm hateful, it's that I'm faithful, and I know what ever God means for me to have he'll give it to me. And if it takes too much sweat I don't need it. Stop begging people to stay. Let them go.

[Tulula]

However, there is alot of truth in the "absense makes the heart grow fonder" concept. If you chase them they will run farther away. No contact serves to give them a chance to miss you. It might take a long time, but you will eventually hear from them.........

 

Or in a lot of cases, 'out of sight. out of mind'.......

 

NC won't bring an ex back, if that ex doesn't want to come back. Neither will pursuing. When someone loses interest/doesn't love you anymore, then no matter what you do/don't do........it won't bring them back to you!

 

An ex however, that still has interest/that is unsure of whether they want to let you go, etc, etc.........will be back and no matter whther you go NC or carry on pursuing them like crazy!!!

 

People think that NC is some magical formula to win an ex back........that if they go NC, their ex will magically return!

 

If an ex returns to you while you've been NC for a few weeks, then chances are that this ex would have returned anyway, yep, they would have also returned had you pursued them like crazy too!

 

Only an ex who is no longer interested in you, will run like hell from you if you pursue, an ex who still truly loves you....WONT!!

 

A 'disinterested' ex who no longer wants you back, will be literally over the moon that you are doing NC!