If you want your ex back, is your plan to wait weeks or months and hope enough time has passed that they’ll miss you and/or forgive you and want you back? Waiting weeks or months can cause you to lose your mate forever if they move on to someone else. Instead, try the following 3 step plan for getting your ex back in just days instead of months.

Step One: You’ve got to figure out why the relationship broke up. Look at it objectively. What did you do, if anything, to contribute to the split? What did they do? There may have been a triggering event, like a big fight, but was there an underlying reason or problem in the relationship?

All relationships end for one of three primary reasons. First, you did them some wrong. Could be that you were too controlling or you committed infidelity. The second main reason is the reverse – they wronged you and you kicked them out. Third, you drifted apart, they lost their passion for you.

As best you can, you have to understand what went wrong. You won’t be able to address the issue and repair the damage if you don’t understand the underlying reason for the rift.

Step Two is to have a reconnect conversation with them where you discuss honestly how you feel about what went wrong, and you get them to open up about how they feel about what went wrong. In this reconnect conversation you don’t argue or shout or fight, but you do talk ” and listen to them – about the issue. For instance, if they cheated on you and you kicked them out, you need to vent your feelings about what they did and you need to be heard and understood. (Relationship Drift requires a different second step.)

If you can both talk about your feelings about what went wrong, not get into blaming and arguing, then there is hope. The negative feelings you both have may need to be aired in a safe environment where you agree beforehand not to scream or make the other person wrong.

Step Three depends on the previous two steps. If you feel like their and your negative feelings about the cause of the break up have been vented or aired, then you can apologize or accept their apology and see about getting back together.

A critical key to the third step is not to demand or push your ex to take you back. You don’t need to require them to make some big re-commitment. Just let them know you want to see them again and then leave the ball in their court. Oftentimes, if the previous steps went well, they will have room in their hearts to want you back. There is more detail to this reconnect strategy, but just following these three steps can begin to get you back with your ex in days rather than months.