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.

Admitting what went wrong is an important first step. You can’t repair the relationship if you aren’t clear about what got broken.

Step Two is critical and often overlooked. Without this step you will have little chance of getting back together. You need to set up a special kind of conversation with them where you ask them not to argue or blame or explain but to listen to you and you’ll listen to them. Then you both talk about your feelings about what went wrong. So if you wronged them by cheating on them, you need to make it safe for them to talk and vent about how they feel about what happened. (You need to do something different instead of this step if they just aren’t that into you anymore.)

The key is for both of you to discuss your feelings about what went wrong. Not to prove who’s right or wrong. The negative emotions filling your mate’s heart may need to be vented and released. You do this by listening to them, not arguing with them. Once they are aired out, you start to have some room for more positive feelings about each other again.

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.