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Trying to make an ex jealous in an attempt to gain deeper affection is a common playing hard-to-get tactic advocated by some “experts" and practiced by many.

I know many men and women who’ve used this tactic and it’s worked in the short term, and many more who have used it and it back fired big time. Here is why?

1. First of all, it’s counter productive to want or even try to hurt someone who you love. What you’re doing by making him/her see you with someone else is trying to make him/her feel insecure and unvalued. And most men and women are already insecure and lacking in self-worth without you even trying. All this does is make them withdraw even further into themselves or find someone else who makes them feel better about themselves. Those who are secure and have a strong sense of self-worth usually don’t want second-hand stuff, used merchandize or leftovers. They’ll be too proud to take you back.

2. Secondly, the flow of attention and affection which should be directed towards making someone feel affection and desire is disturbed by such a maneuver. Dividing your affection and directing your attention towards more than one person makes you unable to give enough to one or the other, nor take enough from either. You often end up alone.

3. Thirdly, a persistent man or woman will no doubt fight his or her battle for your affection and attention and will overcome his or her real or supposed rival. But after winning the battle, the flow of his or her affection and desire will be weakened and he or she will be exhausted by the battle to beat a rival. Most relationships get strained, sometimes so strained that either party knows at any moment the thread holding the relationship together can break or wear through.

There is another more powerful and effective way to make someone miss you so much that they want you back.

We all seem to come equipped with a nostalgia gene: especially when we remember positive emotional experiences. When we look back on these experiences, something inside of us feels a sense of loss - whether it is a relationship with a parent, the homeland you left behind or the childhood friends you’ve lost contact with. Usually we tend to remember these emotionally positive experiences more clearly, warmly and longingly. We know that we may never get to experience them again, but part of us wishes we could. And we smile just thinking of the possibility.

In my culture we have rituals -- more like group therapy -- where a whole village or family sits down and (loosely translated) “sings themselves back to existence". Most families, clans and villages have "songs" that are meant to create a sense of shared identity. By singing these songs, the group invokes that feeling of togetherness or oneness. The ritual is used mostly in times of crisis or when one member feels/acts in ways that threaten that sense of shared identity. The goals is not to get stuck in the past but to move forward --together. People usually tend to value their relationships -- and shared experiences -- even more.

In my family, being so far away from home, we use this ritual to reaffirm "who we are, where we came from and why we're where we're are". No matter how many times we do it, we end up crying together, laughing together, hugging and sometimes just fall asleep wherever we are -- together. We often feel stronger, revitalized and determined to achieve our goals -- together.

Using the basics of this ritual and some of my training in Experimental Existential Psychology, I’ve been teaching my clients (couples and singles) how to use the “singing yourselves back to existence" ritual as away of making someone miss them so much that they want them back.

If you are still friends with your ex and you talk with him/her on a regular basis, you can make him/her miss you enough to want you back by “singing yourselves back to existence".

1. Bring up really wonderful feelings and experiences that happened in the past when you were together. Talk about fun times, the emotional moments, and the silly/embarrassing incidences that made both of you laugh/cry together and feel closer to each other.

2. Ask him/her if he/she remembers -- television shows, songs, food, events and remembered images and encounters, what he/she remembers and why he/she remembers them. This will gently pull him/her back into that state of mind that unites the realities of the present and past, the longing between yesterday and tomorrow. Pieces of the everyday create the sense of unity. Little trivial things make the strongest bonds.

3. Talk about your times together not with regret or giving the impression of wanting to go back in the past but with the goal of making him/her feel that those were the best times of your life. The real secret is not in looking back to what it was nor forward to what might have been but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. When the only continuity possible in life is NOW, there is in the NOW fluidity, freedom, active engagement, growth and the sense of being “unburdened" or put in a modern hip way -- no stress.

4. Use ‘we" instead of “I’ or “you". Your goal should be to redefine the meaning of “we" and why it is much better than “you" and “I". Don’t’ idealize it -- no falsity, no pretence, no disillusionment just appreciation.

The ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work depends on is merely preparation. It does not work to say, "Let's be nostalgic for a moment" and expect the two of you to suddenly fall into that wonderful state of mind. To share nostalgia, you need a time that is ripe for unfolding your hearts and memories. It doesn’t work if the other person is preoccupied reading today's newspapers, busy talking on the phone or trying to wiggle him/herself out of the conversation.

My people have a saying “you can not have a face if you don’t have the back of the head." You can not undo the past but you can use the past to bring the future into existence.  Just ask a couple who've been together a very long time how they did ut and they'll tell you "WE'VE BEEN THROUGH MANY THINGS -- GOOD AND BAD --  BUT THROUGH IT ALL WE STUCK TOGETHER."

Make it work for you, too!