Let’s talk about a concept that some relationship coaches constantly talk about – that if you’ve had a relationship with a person previously and they broke up with you, there’s always a chance of them coming back to you in the future.

First of all, that is a lie. It’s not just a lie. It’s a disservice.

Imagine that somebody broke up with you just yesterday. The “love of your life” decided that you guys are not meant to be. So, after possibly the heaviest and longest walk or drive home, you lie on your bed (because your body feels like it weighs five tons) and pull up YouTube. You start looking for answers. “Is it really over?” “Will he/she come back?” “How long does it take for an ex to come back?” (I personally love this last one, it’s like everybody behaves the same way, right?)

I get you. Looking for answers that don’t exist is normal. We crave certainties, especially when it comes to love. After all, we can always get another job, even if the previous one was supposedly your dream job. Deep down you know that there might be another one that is just like it, or even better. This could even indicate the perfect moment for a career change. But when we lose the person we claim to be the love of our life, that’s it – it’s that person or nothing. There’s no substitute. So we start freaking out, looking for answers to soothe our souls. We look for people who will tell us that this might be (or rather, is!) temporary and that everything will be okay in the end. We just have to keep the faith and maybe follow this or that step given to us through our screen.

But here’s the problem: no, there’s not always a chance of them coming back. No, if you guys shared this type of connection previously, you will not be connected forever. It takes two to tango. The other person might have unplugged your connection to them already, maybe that was even done a while ago and you just did not notice. They might have even gotten a pair of gigantic symbolic shears to cut the connection cord.

When a relationship coach tells you that the connection will be there forever, it keeps you stuck waiting for that person to come back. It’s what you want to hear, but not what you need to hear. You just won’t move on with your life. Why would you, anyway? If you believe that you have this almost magical connection between you guys, why would you even waste your time moving on? Just sit there, and wait for the love of your life to come back. Why try something with someone else, and be at risk of your ex seeing you with this new person and not approaching you because you are “taken”? No, let’s make ourselves completely available for the next week, month, year… maybe decade. Maybe more than a decade? I mean, when the time is right your ex will come back… right? And so, this Disney-type of delusion keeps on feeding itself. Let alone the new delusion that might fall right onto your lap, like a gift from hell: “They will see how long I’ve been waiting for them and how much I suffer, so they will come back.”

All of this, albeit tremendously damaging to one’s life, is not even the worst-case scenario.

Let’s now consider an abusive person seeing these same videos when the ex-partner finally breaks free.

Abusive partners get into whirlpools of romantic delusions too. This type of message being sent by our dear coach makes the situation for the person who has finally broken the chains a lot more complicated. It definitely feeds stalking behavior and unwanted messages. It also feeds the idea that the ex is theirs, no matter what. This type of thought is already common among abusers, but hearing that from someone else definitely gives it a boost; it basically confirms what they think.

With all that being said, this idea that “the love we shared will bond us forever”, “there’s always a chance with an ex”, “they will always think about you, you belong to their life story” or even things like “they blocked you because they can’t handle their feelings for you” only makes heartbroken people stuck in life. Unable to go on despite the suffering, and make disturbed people even more insane and perhaps (more) dangerous.

Lastly, to those who are looking for these borderline esoteric messages and trying to decrypt “codes” from an ex in the hopes that they are crying at night thinking of you, please, try to move on. I’m not saying that ex-partners never come back, but you cannot depend on this. Don’t be delusional. Your life is not a Hallmark movie. You have to move on thinking that they won’t come back, even if every single cell of your body wishes the contrary. If they eventually come back, and the time is right for YOU, fantastic. If the time is bad, it’s their loss. And, hell, after a while, you might even realize that that person was not “the one” after all.