I understand that I need to do no contact and work on myself to become a better version of myself. And I implemented the no contact rule yesterday and am planning to stick to it for at least 30 days. But I keep thinking that my ex is just too prideful to come back. He has always been too proud to admit when he is wrong. And I feel he will never allow himself to admit that he made a mistake by leaving me.
I feel when the time comes, he will not want to get back together because he will try to stick to his decision because of his pride. Because I think that even if he wants me back, he would rather suffer in agony than let his pride be taken down.
Do you think my ex will come back even though he is very prideful? If not, should I ask him to take me back after 30 days of no contact?
– Anonymous
When it comes with an ex with a lot of pride or stubbornness, I have come to realize that most people either misunderstand their ex’s pride, or give it too much credit.
Before we go deep into each one, here’s the short version. Most “pride” people describe after a breakup is actually one of six different things:
- Not going back on a decision — protecting the decision itself, not the relationship
- Not admitting mistakes — will act differently, won’t say the words
- Stubbornness — a lifelong pattern that shows up everywhere, not just with this breakup
- Public commitment — protecting the decision in front of the people who know about it
- Pride as armor — fear of getting hurt again, wearing pride as a disguise
- Shame disguised as pride — silence that comes from not feeling worthy, not from ego
As for reaching out after 30 days, remember 30 days is just a rough guideline and not a number set in stone. For a lot of people, you may need more than 30 days. The idea is to take as long as you need to heal and accept the breakup. To understand that you want to get back together for the right reasons (love, potential for a healthy relationship), not because of loneliness, desperation or fear.
So if you have taken enough time to heal, and you think your ex is worth it, then you should reach out to your ex; despite their pride. You should not wait for a prideful ex to reach out first.
If you reach out, you get to know if your ex is interested in speaking to you or not. If they are not, then you can move on knowing that there is no future there. If they are interested, you can move to the next step which is attraction and talking about getting back together.
I talk about this all in my 5 step plan to get your ex back. Here is a summary of it –
The 5 Step Plan when your ex has pride –
- Stop desperately trying to get them back — chasing and desperation push people further away, no matter what type of pride you’re dealing with above.
- Give each other space and time — this is the step most of the pride types above softens. Whether it’s protecting a decision, avoiding an admission, or shame in disguise, space is what lets any of it soften. It doesn’t have to be 30 days. It can be as long as you need.
- Become a better version of yourself — use the time to actually grow, not just wait. This also doubles as your answer either way: whether they come back or not, you’re better off for it.
- Reconnect — if you have given enough time, and you feel a healthy relationship is possible with your ex.
- Talk about getting back together, only if it’s healthy — this is the step that matters most for readers dealing with pride. Even if your ex does come back, it’s only worth pursuing if there’s been real growth, not just renewed contact.
Here are the types of pride that most people associate with their ex and my experience, as a breakup coach of 15 years, with them –
1. The pride of not going back on a decision
A person who wants to stick to a decision they made, no matter what. Almost all human beings want to stick to a decision they made. In psychology, it’s called Cognitive Dissonance. Essentially, the bigger the decision, the more we want to stick to it.
A lot of people make it a point to let their partners know that once they make a decision, they always stick to it. But it’s rarely actually about the relationship. It’s about what going back on the decision would mean for how they see themselves. The bigger and more public the decision, the harder it is to undo, because undoing it means admitting the decision, and the person who made it, was wrong.
If this is your ex, you’ll usually see it before the breakup even happens. They’re the type who’s said things like “once I’m done, I’m done” long before the two of you ever had problems. It’s a stance they’ve held for years, not something new they decided about you specifically.
What To Expect and What To Do?
This type of pride softens with distance, not pressure. The further your ex gets from the moment they made the decision, the less it costs them emotionally to reconsider it. Every time you push, argue, or ask them to explain themselves, you’re pulling them right back into that original moment, and reinforcing exactly what they’re trying to protect. Space is what actually gives them room to change their mind without it feeling like losing.
If enough time has passed, if both of you have grieved and healed – then the breakup has already happened and they don’t have to defend their decision. If things have genuinely changed, if you have genuinely grown as a person, then you will get back together in a new relationship, not the same old one that they decided to end. As a result, it will be easier for them to convince their ego to give you another chance.
I explain how to do that in my 5 step plan to get your ex back.
Does it always work?
Of course not. Every situation is different and whether or not your ex will come back depends on the reason for the breakup, their personality, the way you handled the breakup and what you did after the breakup. You can improve your odds by focusing on healing, growth and honest communications, but there are no guarantees.
Recommended Quiz – Find out the chances of your ex coming back
2. The pride of not admitting their mistake
This isn’t about protecting a decision. It’s about never having to say “I was wrong,” specifically about this relationship and the mistakes they made in the relationship.
You’ll often see this type change quietly. They might get nicer, check in more, ask how you’re doing, even hint that they miss things about you. What they won’t do is say the words. They won’t say “I shouldn’t have left” or “I was wrong for how I handled this.” Saying it out loud feels, to them, like handing you something they can’t take back: proof they messed up, and proof you get to hold onto.
What to Expect and What To Do?
I’ve coached a lot of people who wait for that apology as their sign their ex is really ready to come back. Don’t. If you’re waiting for the words, you could be waiting a long time, and worse, chasing them out of your ex usually makes them dig in harder. Watch what they do instead. Actions tell you more than an admission ever will, and for this type of person, actions are the only apology you’re going to get.
At the same time, you also need to be honest with yourself how important an apology is to you. If what they did was truly hurtful, then you must not take them back unless they are willing to apologize. In fact, you should clearly tell them that you expect an apology, remorse and actions to rectify their mistakes.
On the other hand, if you feel an apology is not really important to you, then you can choose to let it slide and build a new connection. However, try your best to build a new relationship on honest conversations and still talk about what went wrong in the past. Such honest conversations are very important when you are reconciling because they build a stronger foundation for your new relationship and reduce the chances of an unhealthy on/off dynamic.
Recommended Reading: What to do after no contact rule.
3. Stubbornness
This type looks a lot like the second one, so here’s the real difference: type 2 is specific to this relationship and this mistake. Stubbornness is global. It shows up everywhere in your ex’s life, not just with you.
Ask yourself: is your ex like this only about admitting fault with you, or are they like this about everything? Do they dig in during arguments with family, refuse to change their mind at work, hold positions long after they stop making sense, regardless of who they’re dealing with? If so, this isn’t really about the breakup or about you at all. It’s a pattern that predates the relationship entirely, and it’s rooted in something much older than this specific mistake, usually a lifelong association between “giving in” and “losing.”
What to Expect and What To Do?
That distinction matters because it tells you what you’re actually up against. Someone who only won’t admit fault with you might soften once they feel safe enough to say it. Someone who’s globally stubborn won’t be moved by logic, evidence, or being proven right, no matter who’s doing the proving. Pushing only gives them something new to resist. The only thing that reliably moves this type is time, distance, and letting the decision be entirely theirs, on their own schedule.
In my experience, a lot of people who come with such types of stubborn exes were in an unhealthy and toxic relationship. In some cases, they were being emotionally abused without even realizing it. I remember telling one of my client that I think she was being gaslit by her ex boyfriend throughout the relationship. She searched google for gaslighting and her mind was blown over how much he made her doubt herself. The playbook her ex used was described word to word on websites explaining Narcissism and Gaslighting.
He wasn’t just stubborn, he was a master at making her feel guilty about everything. Years of such patterns led her to becoming extremely anxious with low self-esteem. She believed that she could never find a loving partner and whatever little affection her ex boyfriend gave her was all she deserved.
Needless to say, if you feel your ex never really agreed to any of their mistakes, constantly blamed you for everything and that you still want them back, then you must do no contact for at least 3 months. In my experience, an extended period of no contact can help you heal from the years of emotional abuse and gain some perspective. It’s also imperative that you try to get some professional support during this time such as therapy, group therapy or something equivalent. In addition, I also recommend you look into trauma bonds, and emotional abuse.
If after all of that, you still feel your ex is the right person for you and they were not emotionally abusive, then perhaps consider reconnecting. But still be very skeptical and only reconnect when you feel you have the strength to walk away from them.
Recommended Reading – Stages of a Narcissistic Abuse Cycle
Recommended Reading – Gaslighting Explained
4. Public commitment pride
This type is about audience, not ego. If your ex told friends, family, or posted anything that made the breakup public, they’re not just protecting their own decision anymore, they’re protecting it in front of everyone who knows about it. Reversing course now doesn’t just feel like admitting they were wrong to you. It feels like walking it back in front of everyone who watched them make the call.
This is why some exes seem far more rigid in front of others than they are one-on-one. They might soften completely in a private conversation and then go right back to the story they told everyone the moment they’re back around them.
They feel the need to stay broken up because they feel their friends and family will think of them as weak or stupid if they go back to you.
If their friends and family were against the relationship or if they influenced your ex to break up with you, then it makes it even more difficult for them to change their mind.
Lastly, if your relationship had some serious issues, such as a lot of fighting, infidelity, or trust issues; and their friends and family know about those issues; then it’s one of the hardest situations for an ex to come back from.
What to Expect and What to Do?
The best and the most effective way to facilitate your ex coming back is to give them a lot of time and make actual changes in your life. This works in two ways. When you give your ex a lot of time, they can convince themselves and their friends that the breakup has already happened and you both have accepted the breakup. In most cases, friends and family are more concerned about an ex returning to an unhealthy dynamic out of fear, grief or loneliness. But with enough time, all of those things dissipate.
The second thing is to make a lot of positive changes in your life. Getting therapy, working on becoming a better person, rediscovering yourself, working on your career, health and social life etc. These positive changes are not only good for you to help you move on, they also act as a way for your ex to convince themselves that it will be a new relationship because you are a newer, better version of yourself. As a result, they can convince their friends and family that they are not going back to the same old relationship. It’s genuinely a new relationship built with more trust and honesty.
Recommended Reading: How to get your ex girlfriend back by leveling up
5. Pride as armor
This one isn’t really pride at all, even though it looks exactly like it from the outside. It’s fear, wearing pride as a disguise.
Some people would genuinely rather stay away and call it pride than risk coming back, being vulnerable again, and getting hurt a second time. If your ex was the one who got hurt, blindsided, or humiliated at some point in the relationship, staying distant and “unbothered” protects them from ever being in that position again. It’s easier to tell themselves and everyone else that they’re just too proud to go back than to admit they’re scared of what happens if they do and it goes wrong again.
What to expect and what to do?
This is the one type of pride that isn’t really working against you, it’s working to protect your ex. And it’s usually the softest of all five once they feel safe enough to lower it, because there was never a decision to defend in the first place, only a wound they didn’t want reopened.
However, if an ex gave you a lot of chances during the relationship and they were hurt repeatedly, they are going to keep their defenses up and it will be very difficult to change that. A lot of time, an ex needs this armor to protect themselves indefinitely. And if they were hurt a lot, then you must respect it.
If you must try your chances, do it only after giving them a lot of space and time. Let their wounds heal so they don’t feel the need to protect those wounds anymore. And once you get back in touch, respect that they were hurt and treat them with the dignity they deserve.
6. Shame or Guilt Disguised as Pride
This last type gets mistaken for pride more than any of the others, because from the outside, it looks identical. Someone stays silent, doesn’t reach out, doesn’t apologize, seems unmoved. It reads as ego. But underneath it, what’s often actually happening is shame, not pride, and the two produce almost the same silence for very different reasons.
Pride says “I don’t need to reach out.” Shame says “I don’t deserve to.” That’s a completely different internal experience, even though your ex’s behavior looks the same from where you’re standing.
Why this happens
This shows up most often in people with an avoidant attachment style. Avoidant attachment tends to develop as a way of coping with emotional needs not being reliably met early on, and it teaches people that the safest response to conflict, failure, or hurting someone is to withdraw rather than move toward the discomfort. So when someone with this pattern knows they hurt you, or knows they mishandled the relationship, their instinct isn’t to fix it. It’s to disappear from it. Reaching out would mean sitting in the exact feeling they’ve spent their whole life avoiding.
This is a useful place to bring in the work of researcher Brené Brown, who draws a distinction between guilt and shame that applies directly here. Guilt sounds like “I did something bad.” Shame sounds like “I am bad.” Someone feeling guilt can usually still reach out, apologize, and repair, because the bad thing is separate from who they are. Someone in shame often can’t, because reaching out would mean facing the belief that they themselves are the problem, not just their actions. Her research also found shame thrives on silence and secrecy, which is exactly why this type of ex tends to go quiet rather than explain themselves. The silence isn’t a decision. It’s the shame doing what shame does.
What it looks like
You may notice this ex doesn’t seem angry or cold, the way a genuinely prideful ex often does. They might seem sad, avoidant, even visibly uncomfortable if you do end up in contact, more than defensive. They may have said something in the moment like “I don’t deserve you” or “you’ll be better off,” which sounds like self-pity but is often a real signal. They tend to disappear rather than confront, and they’re more likely to avoid the topic entirely than to argue their position, because there’s no position to defend. There’s just something they don’t want to look at.
What to expect and what to do?
A lot of times, avoidant exes come back within a year of the breakup. Some of them reach out to apologize, while others reach out casually as if nothing ever happened.
But a lot of avoidant exes never reach out. For them, the shame is simply too much to get past.
This is why, in most cases, I recommend you take a lot of time to heal and accept the breakup. And if you still feel there was a special connection with your ex, then reach out yourself. Sometimes, when an ex who is drowning in shame hears from you, it gives them a ray of hope they desperately need. Imagine blaming yourself every day, unable to build up the courage to reach out, but when they hear from you they feel like someone still cares about them. To them, it feels like a sign that maybe they are not that bad. They can convince themselves that maybe they deserve a chance at happiness.
But, the sad part is that the shame is often so deeply ingrained in them that there is a good chance they will repeat the same patterns in the relationship after getting back together. This is why, before you get back with someone who lets shame control them, is to ensure they are aware of their unhealthy patterns and are working on them.
Recommended Reading: Should You Try To Get Your Ex Back?
So will my ex come back if they have too much pride?
Honestly, no one can say for sure. But I can tell you that a lot of exes, who claimed to have too much pride and who claimed to never go back on their decisions …. did indeed come back.
But not all of them stayed together. A lot of times, a prideful ex comes back, only to repeat the same patterns again and leave. Some times, a prideful and emotionally abusive ex will come back only to manipulate their partner for years and then leave again. That’s the worst outcome that can happen.
So if you are here, waiting, hoping that your ex will put their ego aside and come back to you, I want you to try to and focus on yourself and the things you can control.
You can control how you react if your ex comes back. You can choose to act with self-respect, set healthy boundaries and not let someone walk all over you if your prideful ex comes back. You can choose to accept the uncertainty of the situation and focus on healing and working on becoming a stronger version of yourself instead of just waiting for your ex.
You can choose to believe that you deserve a healthy and happy relationship. You can choose to believe that you will find that relationship sooner or later, even if it is with your ex. You can choose to believe that you will not settle for anything less than a healthy secure relationship which will help you grow as a person rather than make you afraid.
And lastly, if you have taken enough time, healed, and truly accepted the breakup; and if you still feel your ex is worth giving a shot; then you can just reach out to them instead of waiting for them to reach out first. I teach how to do that in this article.
Note – You can download my bonus guide that contains 5 Sample Texts To Send After No Contact. These are the best texts I have come across in my 13 years of experience as a breakup coach.
