My Story

Hi there! My name is Lauren and I’m writing this to let you know that there IS HOPE for you!

Now, I’m no neuroscientist by a long shot. I’m just an ordinary gal from upstate New York who wasn’t even looking for love, but when it found me I wasn’t about to let it go.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the reason you are reading this is because someone that you love very much has left, or you left them and now you realize it was a mistake. Perhaps you think it's too late to turn things around. Well, I say IT’S NEVER TOO LATE!

My story may be similar to yours in some aspects, but in other ways it could be completely different. The two things I’m sure are the same, however, is that –

1. We've both lost someone we love AND
2. We aren’t willing to let them go without a fight

Fighting for love is something that is often romanticized in movies and books, but when you are actually faced with trying to win the love of your life back, you probably won’t feel very “winsome”.

When you are actually in this situation, you will feel many, MANY things, but for me, the pervading feeling was: LOST!

I had no clue how to go about getting my ex back! All I knew is that I HAD to! If you are feeling lost, like I was, this site was meant as a “map” to get you on the right path and help you find your way using the tips, techniques and strategies I invested in and which saved my relationship.

Let me tell you about my break up & how I managed to get my ex back and grow our relationship to the beautiful thing it is today. I want to be as helpful as possible so this is going to be quite a detailed post. I don't want to leave anything out which might be helpful for someone so go grab yourself a juice, strap in and let me tell you how you too can go from break up to make up.

- My Own Break Up Hell

My story starts all the way back in high school.  Back then, my boyfriend was just a friend and I never really thought of him as anything but that.

Then one fateful day, while we were sitting next to each other in the cafeteria, he slips a piece of paper into my hand and later I read his confession of undying love and fall head over heels, myself.

That was all it took. We held hands on the bus ride home, and from then on we were inseparable.

Lots of guys and girls tried to break us up over the years. Even well meaning friends would tell us that childhood sweethearts never lasted, but we didn’t really care. We stuck together through graduation and college and things were going great.

- Where Things Went Wrong

Somewhere along the line, though, things started going south. We didn’t have the same appreciation that we used to have for each other, and our familiarity with each other was starting to show itself in ugly ways.

We would never really fight about “real” things, but our little tiffs about the small stuff were frequent enough to make both of us frustrated and fed up.

Usually I would start these tiffs, and it was usually because I was a little jealous that he was paying attention to another girl and not paying enough attention to me.

In my mind, I would dismiss these little fights, as they didn’t seem to be about very important issues – I just wanted a little affirmation from him. I thought we were still doing moderately well as a couple. Little did I know that these little misunderstandings and disagreements were wearing away at our once rock solid foundation.

The very long story short is, my boyfriend screwed up one day and slept with our friend, Melissa.

When I found out I was gutted, and to be honest I pretty much flipped out and basically begged him to come back (big mistake). He told me that he was in love with her, and in the end, he left our 6 year relationship.

Heartbroken and confused, I left to see my sister for a few days so that I wouldn’t actually have to see him moving his stuff out of our apartment.

Family is a godsend at times like this, because many of our mutual friends stopped talking to me during this time. They just “didn’t want to get involved”.

My sister listened as I cried my heart out to her, and shooed her husband away when he tried coming in the kitchen to check the fridge for food.

She then told me that she has been in the same place as me before, and she asked me if I still wanted “That Bastard” back. I told her that, yes, despite everything; I just wished things would go back to the way they were before.

She said, “Okay, then..” wrote down the name of a book and told me to Google it. I’m kind of leery of looking for advice online, but my sister has NEVER been wrong before.

When I got home that evening, I sat down at my computer at typed in the following web address – www.MagicOfMakingUp.com.

Looking back now I sometimes wonder what would of happened if I hadn't taken my sister's advice or I had decided not to invest in T.W. Jackson's make up magic because it was right after reading this book and applying the techniques and strategies T Dub talks about, that things started to turn around for me.

At that time I really had no way of knowing if these tips and tricks were going to help but I didn't have much to lose by trying so I gave it a shot. The rest as they say, is history.

- Finding My Way

Step 1 – Doing The Foundation Work

Perhaps the most important thing I learnt from T Dub was also the very first thing I read and was right in the title of the opening chapter: "Understanding Why Your Relationship Ended".

I thought “I KNOW why my relationship ended! He cheated because I’m not good enough!” Of course, I found out this just wasn’t true.

Discovering the REAL reason he left was so important, and actually helped me place blame properly, because, as a female, I always tend to think of things in the “Physical” arena.

However, after mentally analyzing every single physical flaw I had using the process T Dub recommends, I was relieved discover that my break up probably had little, if anything, to do with physical traits. Phew!

T Dub taught me that what men want more than anything else is to feel admired!

My nagging him and showing my distrust towards him and other girls wore away at his confidence and made him feel like a cheater, even though he originally wasn’t.

I had shown him my lack of respect and admiration, and he was desperate to get it back, and have that feeling you get in the beginning of a relationship when things are new and your boyfriend or girlfriend worships you.

This was my first big "ah hah!" moment. The next came in Chapter 2.

This chapter specifically deals with how to handle your emotional turmoil. Looking back now, if I hadn’t learned to control my emotions with the tactics in this chapter, I would have NEVER been able to employ any of the strategies which T Dub goes into in the following chapters that actually deal with getting back your ex.

I read this on the bus to school and that evening when I got back to our apartment, as expected, he was gone. Even though I knew he would be, this sent me into a panicky frenzy and the feeling of loss was overwhelming.

This is where learning T.W. Jackson’s “Calm Mind Technique” really came in handy. Instead of freaking out and calling my ex to beg him to come back, I used the calm mind technique so that I could focus on my “Get Him Back” plan instead of wasting my energy worrying where he was. You can learn the "Calm mind technique" direct from T Dub himself in the video below:

You can get more advice from T Dub by going to his website.

T Dub goes onto explains why it is important to take a full break from your ex after a break up. Not just a physical separation, but an actual break from thinking and feeling for that person. This is the extreme I had to go to get a little perspective on the situation and even though it was quite painful to do, it also really helped me.

As I'm sure you know, it’s very hard to stop obsessing over an ex and during this break I'd often get the urge to call him up and apologize for everything that I did wrong in the relationship.

However, As T Dub explained to me, this is the WRONG MOVE to make.

At first I avoided this mistake simply because I am non-confrontational by nature and talking to him would have dredged up a lot of unwanted feelings.

But, as time went on, it became more difficult to keep my urges controlled, as I felt that if I didn’t do SOMETHING I would lose him forever.

I would get panicked and unable to control myself. This was until I started actually using the “Fast Forward Method” that T Dub suggests in his book.

I initially skipped this step, as I thought that I could handle myself. However, I would still get that achy feeling in my chest that would make it difficult for me to eat or sleep.

I was having a real problem with this, and I was becoming very unhealthy. But as soon as I started practicing this technique 3 times a day as suggested, the healing process really started taking place.

What is "The Fast Forward Method" you ask…

The Fast Forward Method is actually supposed to “speed up” the healing process. It forces you to “feel” the emotions you are going through instead of trying to avoid them, and then ask yourself some questions about where those feelings are coming from and if you are going to accept them or not.

Once I was able to get my head back in control, instead of just going purely by my emotions, I was able to take the necessary steps to get my life back in order and make myself attractive to my ex again.

I also took T Dub's advice to renew my old hobbies. I’m a pretty crafty person, and my ex and I were always doing some DIY projects together. This slowed a bit as we got busy with other things but with him gone, I had a lot of time on my hands so I started putting my efforts into making wood carvings again.

At first, this was just to keep my mind busy, but within a week I had created enough carvings to put up a little display in the local café that one of my friends worked at. Everybody loved the carvings, and that gave my confidence a nice big boost.

As much confidence in myself was coming back and I was healing pretty well with the “Calm Mind” and “Fast Forward” techniques, I felt I was ready to take the next step, which was to review the history of my relationship with my ex, and evaluate what went wrong and how I was going to prevent it from happening again (at this point I was CONVINCED that I WOULD be able to get my ex back, so I wanted to make sure that I did it the RIGHT way this time around).

Chapter 3 of The Magic of Making Up tackles this very topic.

T Dub encourages you to look at your relationship as an outsider and just review the facts, without getting emotionally influenced by the memories.

So I looked at all the good points of the relationship: how we had so many interests in common, how we always seemed to know what the other person was thinking, how great sex was, and how happy we were in the beginning.

This is where I would have stopped and probably would have started crying and getting all nostalgic. That is, if I hadn’t also been encouraged to look at the negatives in the relationship.

This is very important, as we usually look back on a relationship that ended with rose colored glasses. But, if you really want to fix a relationship, you can’t ignore the problems.

I thought about this, and I came up with a few things that I hadn’t really realized before.

- Our intimacy was slowly dying after years of being together

- I felt as if I was forcing him to be with me, when in the beginning HE was the one chasing me.

- Our arguments were almost always about him not paying attention to ME!

- We had stuck together for so long, that we took it for granted that we’d always be there for each other, and thus we didn’t put so much effort into “keeping” each other.

- And then the obvious: he cheated.

There were other things that were wrong with the relationship, but the main ones were that I lost my confidence when we moved away from “home” and this made me quite clingy and dependent on him.

I would NEED him to go with me everywhere, and if he didn’t want me around I’d get emotional and whiney, kind of like an annoying little sister instead of a partner…

So he started treating me as an annoying little sister, and this made me act even more insecure. I had “Doormat syndrome” where I was literally just “there” and he didn’t even realize he was hurting my feelings because he had forgotten how much I was worth to him in the beginning.

I looked at the situation for what it was, for the first time ever, and I was unhappy with what I saw. I knew that things could be better, because when we were in high school things were SO much better, and it was mainly because I was happy with myself back then, which made me MUCH more fun to be around.

The Magic of Making Up made this all quite clear to me, and I was able to see where things had gone wrong and my part in the break down of the relationship.

I knew that I could get it back to the way it was, if I just had another chance, but I also knew that I was dependent on HIM to give me that second chance. I needed to know that HE would choose ME if he just had a second to think clearly and remember how great we were together.

I knew he still loved me, to some degree. I knew he still had feelings for me. He couldn’t hide the emotion in his voice when he left a message on my phone when I was gone to say “goodbye”.

So it was up to me to capitalize on those emotions so that I could GET HIM BACK!

Step 2 – Getting Back That "Sparkle"

After I had worked on the mental side of the break up, I was ready to start working on the physical side of it.

The truth is, after years of being in a relationship, we tend to slack off when it comes to our physical upkeep. I was guilty of this. I never dressed up unless we were going somewhere “special” and hair and makeup was a necessary evil that I sort of skimmed (or rather “skimped”) through before I headed out the door.

I had also lost a lot of weight from being so upset about the breakup, and this wasn’t good, as I was quite slender to being with. I knew I had to gain a little weight, but I didn’t want to just start stuffing my gut with junk.

So, instead, I followed the very detailed dietary recommendations The Magic of Making Up contains and started changing my shopping habits to include healthy foods.

I also took on board T Dub's advice in Chapter 4 about how friends can help you through these times and I started going out of my way to be more friendly and cheerful with some of the girls who I knew but wasn’t that close to.

Samantha was one of these girls. She turned out to be my greatest ally during the first couple weeks, as she didn’t judge my situation, but was truly there for me when I did slip up and needed to talk about things.

The biggest things she did for me, though, was force me to eat. She sat at the table with me, and her healthy appetite made me aware of how ridiculously sparse my eating habits were becoming.

I was about ten pounds underweight at the time, and I knew the only way I was going to make any of the weight “stick” properly on my bones was to exercise.

So, I tried some of the fun activities T Dub recommends. I’m not a huge exercise buff, so having some other options that didn’t “seem” as exercise-ish, really helped in the beginning, and soon I was running and doing yoga and some other “real” exercises with Samantha.

In less than a week, I could see how the exercise was changing my body. I felt sexier and more confident than I had in a long time

Soon, I started doing the other things it suggests in the book, such as going out with friends more often, and focusing on having fun.

At first it was difficult to see how doing these things were going to help me get my ex back, and I would have to force myself to have fun. At first it was just playing a role, but after a while I started to genuinely enjoy doing things that I hadn’t done in a long while, like having a girl’s night out with Samantha and actually acknowledging the attention I was getting from the opposite sex.

In the past, I would usually avoid noticing whenever a guy would flirt with me or pay me any attention. I didn’t want my boyfriend to feel jealous, so I would try to keep those things from him.

However, After reading the Magic of Making Up, I realized that there is a certain competitive side to men that needs to be satisfied in order for them to stay interested in their women.

If I had realized this before, I still wouldn’t have gone out of my way to make him jealous, but I wouldn’t have spent so much effort keeping other men’s interest in me a secret.

I learned that you have to keep your significant other on edge, just a bit, as well as not get too comfortable yourself. The monotony of relationships usually stems from either one or both partners feeling completely comfortable with each other, to the point where they don’t put any effort into being attractive to the other partner anymore.

This certainly seemed to be the case in our relationship, and I was doing my best to reverse this trend by becoming the interesting, attractive, full of confidence gal I was in high school!

For the first time, I was aware of how people associate the way a certain person looks or even smells, with certain memories, either bad or good.

So, since we hadn’t had a very good relationship for at least a year, I knew I’d have the best chances of getting my ex back by changing up my look, and disassociating myself with “the way things were” the last year or so.

If you are trying to get your ex back, I highly recommend you do this as I’m certain it helped my ex to see me in a new light. How exactly you do it is something that should be judged on a case to case basis.

But for me, personally, this physical transformation involved wearing my hair down (it had been in a tight bun for the last two years as I was too busy to maintain it down, even though my boyfriend had mentioned several times that he liked it down. Funny how we dismiss these little cues from our partners.)

I also whitened my teeth, which T Dub suggests in his book, and this gave me a lot of confidence in flashing my beautiful smile (also something my boyfriend had mentioned he loved about me, and that I dismissed… with a frown!)

With my renewed confidence and my revived personal interests and social life, I was feeling in good shape to win back my ex! But, as per the plan in the Magic of Making Up, I held off calling him or contacting him… yet.

 Watch This Video for More Details on the First Step To Reversing a Break Up –

If you found this info helpful and want to continue watching this video series, click here.

Step 3 – Getting Them Back (And Making Them Stay Put!)

So after reading T Dub's book and following his advice I was FEELING GREAT!

I looked my best, I was busy with things that interested and excited me, I had new friends and my old friends were more comfortable talking to me now, and I was enjoying myself!

This was much more than I had expected in just two weeks of following “The Plan”.

Now, as promised in the book, I felt that no matter what happened, I would be okay!

I realized that my survival, or even just my happiness in life, was not contingent on one person and what they felt or thought about me.

Believe it or not, the best way to get back someone you love is to realize that you DON’T NEED THEM!

Once you realize this, you take the pressure off them and yourself. They no longer have the responsibility of being your all-in-all, and you no longer need to feel like your life revolves around this person.

Love is not about losing yourself in someone else (although that certainly can happen). But lasting love is always based on mutual respect and affection. NOT on dependency (which is unattractive and is better fitted for a parent/child relationship than two people who are in love)

So, like T Dub suggests, I wasn’t going to call him for AT LEAST 30 DAYS, and in that time, I was just going to go on improving myself and making myself a better “CATCH” for him, or for anyone, for that matter.

Knowing you have the option to “walk away” from a relationship, gives you a lot of power in a relationship. If you have the confidence to do this (say, if your boyfriend cheats on you!) you will have the upper hand, and HE (or she) will have to think about how they are going to win YOU back, instead of the other way around.

Anyway, after only two weeks of not calling him or contacting him in any way, apparently HE couldn’t take it anymore, and he ended up calling me.

He asked me how I was doing (trying to keep cool about it) and I didn’t have to lie when I told him I was doing great. I asked him how things were going with him (being careful not to sound like I REALLY wanted to know; anger, sadness or even curiousness would be viewed as insecurities, and I didn’t want him to think I was insecure).

He told me, unconvincingly, that things were okay, and would I like to meet him out somewhere “just to talk”?

I told him I was pretty busy, but we could meet up for coffee the next day before I had to get to class. This is exactly what  T Dub recommends in Chapter 6 of The Magic of Making Up and it worked like a charm. The advise he gives is to make that first meeting as light and non-committal as possible.

Telling him that I had somewhere to go after the meeting ensured that the meeting wouldn’t drag on and get overly emotional. Also a daytime meeting at a casual location makes it easier to keep it feeling like a casual “meet up” rather than a date.

You don’t want a “date” this early, as you want to be able to judge the situation between the two of you, without the expectation and pressure of being on a date.

Anyway, we met up the next day, and I was looking AMAZING but effortless, because I certainly didn’t want him to think I was trying too hard.

The meeting went pretty well and we kept things fun and light and just chatted about school and what was going on in our friends’ lives.

And then…

He broke down and got mushy on me.

Apparently, the things I was doing were driving him crazy wondering how he could undo the harm he had done to our relationship.

He told me he had seen the woodwork I had done in the café (which were actually strategically placed in an area he visited frequently!) and that reminded him about how much we used to love doing things like that together.

He told me, a little remorsefully, that after moving in with Melissa, things had just gotten horrible, and he couldn’t stop thinking about me.

He was still with her, because he had no where else to go at the moment, but he was going to move in with one of his other friends as soon as he got his extra room cleared out.

I listened as he spilled his guts and apologized for everything, EVER! I really wasn’t expecting something like this so fast and I was a little taken aback.

However, I kept my plan from the Magic of Making Up firmly in mind and I didn’t immediately tell him to come move back in with me and I would make everything alright. I didn’t want to be fall into the trap of “premature reconciliation”, because I knew it could ruin my chances of getting him back.

For more info on premature reconciliation check out this video –

To continue watching this video series, click here.

I just told him that that was a lot to take in, and I was sorry he was in such a predicament. He never technically asked me back, so I didn’t need to respond to that. I just kept things light, and tried to look concerned but not over eager to get back together.

I eventually got him off the topic and we started talking about lighter subjects and the mood shifted back to being friendly and happy.

And then I did something sneaky!

I use T Dub's ninja Magic of Making Up trick – “The Instant Reconnect Technique”

While we were talking, I leaned a little closer and wiped some imaginary food off his mouth. He smiled and said “thanks”.

WIN!

This technique completely puts your ex off their guard and makes them feel like you are in a relationship again.

There are many more sneaky tricks like this in The Magic Of Making Up which give you INSTANT RECONNECTION with your ex. If I hadn't quite the food wiping right I could have tried another of T Dub's tricks but for me this wasn't necessary as when I looked in my ex's eyes I knew this has done the biz!

After this, I told him I had to run but maybe we could catch up some other time. He seemed reluctant to see me leave, which was just what I wanted. But he eventually said goodbye and as soon as I left I got a text message from him saying “Same time tomorrow?”

So, after a few more of these meetings he grew the balls to break up with Melissa, and after some pleading on his part, we started dating again.

"That's awesome" I can hear you say and yes it was. However, as T Dub warns, this is perhaps the most DANGEROUS TIME in any make up process. I really think without The Magic Of Making Up to guide me through this potential mine field, all my efforts up to this point might have gone to waste.

I was more than ready to jump back into the relationship with both feet but T Dub stopped me. There is one sentence in the book I'll never forget:

"To build a lasting relationship you need to let your ex work to get you back"

This is just one of thousand pearls of wisdom which T Dub includes in The Magic Of Making Up but this in particular really, really help me.

So instead of going to dinner and falling into bed with my guy the very first night we were back together, for that first week I made sure we never got intimate. Sure I allowed him to woo me but I knew that if we started to sleep together too early, he might lose interest so I kept stalling him and when he finally asked me why, I told him exactly what I had read in the book:

I was done with casual sex!

His reaction was literally “by the book” and he told me very definitively that he wanted to be back in a committed relationship with me and make things work this time.

That’s what I was waiting for! And so, almost exactly 3 weeks after getting dumped, I had my boyfriend back again!

But I knew that my job wasn’t over, nor would it ever be.

We still had to fight to keep things fresh and interesting and the advice on how to do this in Chapter 6 has really helped us to do this.

Also, the past sometimes tried to creep up and drive a wedge between us, but I used the techniques which The Magic Of Making Up teaches you to make sure that these incidents didn’t ruin out happiness and love for each other.

Two of T Dub’s quotes particularly helped me through these times.

“Try to look at every day as an isolated incident. It’s okay to make your feelings known, but it’s better not to go on the attack. Let go of the things that caused you to break up in the first place. There’s no need to rehash arguments. The same technique you used in the early communication phase of your reconciliation will continue to be valuable. Listen to what your partner has to say. Take responsibility for your part. Apologize. Move on.”

And also:

“It’s okay to disagree. In fact, it’s healthy to have different views and opinions on things. The problem is when arguments flare up because of those disagreements. There are some ground rules you can follow that will keep you from having knockdown drag-out fights.”

Remembering these little golden nuggets really helped me to keep my urges to bring up old hurts in check.

Nonetheless, there were times when my boyfriend would go back to unintentionally hurting my feelings with his actions or words and while I didn’t want to nag him about this I also didn’t want to let resentment build up inside of me because I didn’t say anything about it.

So what's solution when you're faced with a dilemma like this?

Again, T Dub’s methods came to the rescue! If you have ever wondered how to prevent doormat syndrome, WITHOUT being a nag, watch this video! It’s a response to a letter from a woman who was wondering how to correct her boyfriend’s negative behavior in a positive way:

To get more great info from T Dub why not check out his website.

 Also, having fun together was a good way to keep things exciting and interesting but we've also learned the value of spending time apart once in a while. This showed him that I trusted him, and it also gave us a chance to miss each other once in a while.

THE HAPPY ENDING

The greatest thing about this amazing journey I've just described is that despite all the turmoil, stress and pain which I experienced in those weeks we were about, have in fact made our relationship 100 times stronger than it as before. And this is all down to T Dub.

Following his advice has taught both of us to appreciate each other much more and not take anything for granted. I also started taking better care of myself and this has made me much more confident which my boyfriend finds VERY sexy.

Even better that this, instead of having to whine and complain to get some attention from my boyfriend, he now gives it to me freely because he now appreciates just how special I am to him.

After a year of being back together our break up was just a distant memory. We graduated college and started a new phase of our lives together.

Shortly after, he proposed and we’ve now been married for three years! Our relationship is stronger than ever and our marriage is proof that childhood sweethearts CAN make it together, despite all the ups and downs!

I hope my story has been useful and that with T Dub's help and support you too will rekindle that special connection you once had with your ex.

Please leave me a comment below or drop me an email if you have any questions.

I wish you the best of luck for the future and always remember one thing – "with the right advice & support there is always hope."

Best Wishes,