Although he may not say or know exactly how he feels, his actions are a pretty clear indicator. Let’s look at how your communication has been, how much hurt he may have experienced and if those feelings can be rekindled. Remember, relationships are learning opportunities and everything happens for a reason.

We can empower ourselves when we see how our words and actions affect another person. It’s important to try to remove yourself from the emotions and think about why the break started in the first place to be able to see if there’s a chance now.

All different things can require a break, whether it’s needing space to work on yourself, maybe you had codependency issues, maybe you were arguing a lot, maybe you just were feeling unsure. Whatever it is, it’s important that you look at it closely to understand why the break was necessary.

If there was any form of verbal and physical abuse, I do not recommend getting back together with that person as that is a sign of an unhealthy relationship and requires individual therapy.

Have the issues been resolved?

One of the first questions to ask yourself is if you truly believe the issues you were having have been resolved. Was the source of the break mostly you or him? Have both of you done work to make it better? Time doesn’t always heal things if there isn’t serious work done.

If one person had a concern that wasn’t truly addressed, getting back togetherprobably won’t be a consideration for the other person.

Let’s use alcoholism as an example. Let’s say you and your man decided to take a break because one person’s drinking was getting out of hand and causing arguments. Has that person now been sober for a significant amount of time and addressed the issue? If it’s still a problem, it will probably come back up and the other person will be reluctant to get back into a relationship.

If you were contributing to your arguments, what can you say you have done to make sure you change your behaviors? Proof is a valid way to link what you say to your actions. For our example, going to AA meetings and starting a new hobby would be actions to back up the promises made.

Did you try to change or are you still blaming him?

Now it’s very important to ask yourself if you did the work that was necessary on yourself or if you’re still blaming everything on him. Relationships are a two way street and things are never just one person’s fault. If you did no work on yourself and just expected it all to come from him, chances are your relationship is not going to be much better if you do get back together.

This is actually empowering because often what we are projecting as a problem outside of ourselves is something we need to fix within ourselves. That doesn’t include being abused verbally or physically though ladies, let’s be clear about that.

Who decided to take the break?

For your situation, you should think back to who decided to take a break. Of course, this goes back to the first question, which is what issues were you having as well. If you decided to take a break, he may be waiting with bated breath for you to let him back into your life and we will ask some more questions in a moment to see if he is.

If he decided the break was necessary, you will need to check in with him and ask him how he is feeling.

Is he hurting?

When you decided to take a break, did it really crush him? Maybe he’s a little gun shy now and not sure he can trust you. If you feel like he’s hurt but not mad, you might want to work on building trust. Of course, you don’t want to push anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. But following through with what you say, being reliable and accountable can help to rebuild trust.

If he’s not being mean but he’s keeping a distance and just seems unsure, he’s probably hurt. Try to put yourself in his shoes and feel what he is going through. Making nice gestures to cheer him up and showing him you still care can help.

How did my actions affect him?

This is another very important question to consider. Not only may he be hurting, he may have been actually affected in other ways, for instance, if you lived together and he needed to go stay somewhere else, how did that affect him? Was it hard for him to change his life when you were on a break? Maybe you have mutual friends and it made things awkward? Maybe it’s been hard for him to explain to his family why you’re on a break.

Think about why you went on a break and if he may have been confused by it. The more clear and kind you can be in your communication, the better. Try to be sensitive to his feelings.

If you can, be vulnerable and tell him you are sorry and you would like to make it work, try to spend some time listening to what he’s been going through on your break. Showing sympathy may help him realize how much you care.