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Are you still holding onto your exes?

February 21, 2026

Are you still holding onto your exes

A reader recently reached out about this topic. She was passionate about it because of what she’s seen with men and their former relationships.

So let’s talk about you and your exes.

If you are engaged in any way with the women from past relationships, there is something that’s not working in your current relationship.

Now if they’re the mother of your children, that’s something completely different. But whatever you’re getting from one or many of those past relationships, you’re not getting from the woman you’re with now.

That’s what you need to understand.

The Back Door

I talk about this in my book, Hold On to Your N.U.T.s​

In order to have a successful long-term committed relationship, you have to close the back doors. That means porn, online chatting, paying for this, paying for that.

In this case we’re talking about your former relationships.

If you have these women around you and you are putting energy into these various relationships, whether they’re flirtatious, sexual, or whatever they may be—it’s going to keep you from being fully available to the woman that you want to have a committed relationship with.

Maybe you don’t know how to get that thing you want in your current relationship, and a former lover or girlfriend is satisfying that need on some level.

I guarantee you from the experiences I’ve had coaching men for over 30 years, this is the back door you need to shut.

What It’s Costing You

If it’s not showing up in your life yet, or if your current woman is not feeling the effects of this, I assure you if you stay in that relationship it’s going to come up.

It’s going to become an issue.

One of the things we all want, men and women, is to be connected. We want to be close. Even in relationships where couples are going at each other, what they really want is to come together.

But they’re doing things that are going to push each other apart. What they’re fighting about is that lack of intimacy.

And if you’re not having that intimate relationship with the woman you’re with, you will oftentimes blame her. Blame her for not getting what you need, and it’s usually not her fault. Although she is a participant, when we figure out what we’re doing to push intimacy away, it can have a huge effect.

It’s often enough to create the intimacy to draw our woman back in and build the life you want to have with her.

But you can’t build that if you’re still holding onto exes.

The Familiar Trap

If you’re blaming her and you’re not having that intimacy, you’re going to go to something that’s familiar.

And that’s where the exes come in. In your mind, you feel that she gets you, that you can talk to her about anything. All of that energy, all of that connection that is happening there, is never going to happen in your current relationship.

Eventually there will be a cumulative effect and your current relationship will suffer the consequences.

Your woman will feel it.

And likely it will either be an unhappy relationship or you’ll end up with no relationship at all.

Take Off the Rose-Colored Glasses

Maybe your ex gets you.

But there’s also a reason why she’s your ex. You have to take off the rose-colored glasses, get real, and stop acting like a little boy who just wants to have what he wants in the moment. Be the man in this situation.

Understand that woman had a role in your life. There was a time and a place, but now is not that time and place.

Now is the time to face what’s really going on.

Here’s one reset you can try:

Knowing that you can get what you need from the woman you’re with, why not start working on that instead?

To do that you might need a little help. You might need to see a counsellor, or get some coaching. You might need to talk to a man you trust, get into a men’s group, or whatever it is that works for you.

Find out what you can do to create that intimacy with the woman you’re with, or at least to cut off the exes so that you make yourself available to a woman who can satisfy those needs. This is the work.

The reason to let go of your exes is to make the most out of your current relationship.

If you’re not getting what you want from her right now, then there’s the work that you can start doing today.

This doesn’t mean you’re supposed to get everything that you need in life from the woman you’re with, but she certainly ought to be able to satisfy what you need from a woman in a relationship. And that can’t happen with exes still around.

So get rid of them, shut the back door, and take some time to think about this: if you were the man you want to be right now in your long-term relationship, what would you do?

Would it include saying goodbye to your exes?

I think you already know the answer.

Wayne Levine
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