Saw My Ex Again Then Nothing
Why getting back with an ex is so compelling
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You broke up, for adept reasons. So why do and so many one-time couples reunite further downwards the line?
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Earlier this summer, 17 years after they dissever, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got back together – and triggered an internet avalanche of early 2000s nostalgia, glamorous celebrity intrigue and cultural analyses. They're a power couple, and tabloids and Twitter users alike can't look abroad.
Just maybe the nigh relatable reason regular people are and so fascinated by what's otherwise a celebrity-gossip story is that exes found love over again.
For many, navigating ex-partners is a reality of romance. That reality can be negative – one filled with cautionary tales and former partners who tin't take a hint. But rebuilding a relationship can too be a tempting venture and even a goal for some people, specially when the success stories sound like something out of a fairy tale. Plus, research suggests the corporeality of couples who intermission up and get back together is as high as 50%.
The pandemic has fifty-fifty accelerated this process for some: amid a global health crisis and lonely, sexless lockdowns, many people constitute themselves reaching out to an ex, hoping to observe that old spark.
Experts say that, if both quondam partners are interested, pulling a 'Bennifer' of your own can yield positive benefits – if yous're willing to put in a lot of piece of work, and have an open up listen.
What draws people to exes
One of the biggest upsides of re-inbound a onetime relationship is that you mostly know what you're getting into. "At that place can exist some real advantages to actually knowing a partner well earlier giving a long-term relationship a endeavour over again," says Michael McNulty, a couples therapist in Chicago and trainer at the Gottman Institute, an organisation that studies relationships and offers counseling.
McNulty says every romantic human relationship has "perpetual differences". These are points of possible disharmonize, like navigating a shared living infinite, money, sex, kids, friends, family and more than. Even happy couples have them, since a relationship is always fundamentally ii different people with different personalities and worldviews.
Getting back together with an ex tin pb to a fairy-tale happy catastrophe, but just if both partners seriously revisit what went wrong before, experts say (Credit: Getty Images)
McNulty says, according to Gottman Institute research, these perpetual differences make up 69% of the problems nearly couples confront in a relationship. Long-lasting, slow-burning bug are the real relationship poison – not big, explosive, single events or confrontations. "Near marriages or relationships terminate by ice instead of fire," says McNulty. Some couples "discover it too hard to talk about or work on differences effectually key problems. They often grow more distant, and [become] more like roommates than they are spouses or lovers."
That's why some people may want to get back together with an old partner, or to attempt and stick information technology out with their current one. Because while we oft go into a new human relationship expecting it'll be better than the last, McNulty urges some circumspection: "If you're in a relationship and yous're thinking about leaving, be careful, because you lot're basically trading 69% of perpetual differences with one partner with 69% of perpetual differences for another."
So if you get back with an ex, you at least already know what those perpetual differences are going to be. Getting into the groove of the relationship could feel like less hassle than coming together someone new and starting from scratch.
"Y'all're picking upwards where y'all left off," says Judith Kuriansky, relationship and sexual practice therapist, and adjunct professor of psychology and educational activity at Teachers College, Columbia Academy, in New York Metropolis. For some people, it feels "better to go dorsum to someone that you kind of know something about, than someone you don't know anything about".
Celebrating what'due south changed
Another benefit to getting dorsum with an ex is awareness of what's changed in the time you lot've spent apart. You may exist disadvantaged when dating someone brand new, because y'all're not aware of how they might have grown and changed in a positive way over time. With an ex, y'all get more than of a before-and-afterwards snapshot. Kuriansky says one of the most common reasons for exes rebooting their romance is "feeling like they've grown and matured".
Violette de Ayala is the Miami-based CEO of a women's networking organization called FemCity, who'due south spoken publicly about how she remarried her ex-married man of 20 years in 2019. "When we started to date over again, it was nice because we knew each other, only certain elements of us had changed," she says. "We both worked on areas nosotros needed to work on while apart, and we were in many ways 'new' to ane another."
"The elements of ourselves that evolved made reconnecting a cute process while working through some of the pain from the break-up," adds de Ayala. "He no longer took our relationship for granted. He started to become me thoughtful gifts, and volition now terminate randomly and share his love for me and appreciation. That didn't exist the commencement time around."
Conversely, if you've spent a long fourth dimension away from someone, get back together and notice that you fall into the aforementioned toxic patterns as before with that person, that knowledge tin can be advantageous, too. Sensing that y'all're going to run across the same headaches all over once again could give you the foresight to avoid the same disaster twice.
"Sometimes, with the wisdom of years and experiences in other relationships, people feel like, 'oh gosh, maybe I tin work through that gridlock upshot nosotros had'," says McNulty. Just he stresses the key is "people need to know what their irreconcilable issues were before, and actually take an honest look at whether or not everything's different now".
Rekindling an old romance is definitely not for everyone, relationship experts say, but the familiarity that exists can atomic number 82 to possible benefits (Credit: Getty Images)
'Apocalyptic love and sex'
Before you commencement sliding into your ex's DMs, ask yourself why you're doing it – because enough can go incorrect.
While one of the joys of getting back with an ex is the comfort or familiarity, Kuriansky says that longing for comfort can exist misplaced, specially lately every bit we seem to live amid constant chaos. Last May, when lockdowns were rolling out, research from Indiana Academy's Kinsey Institute, which studies sex and relationships, suggested that as many equally one in five people were texting their exes while in isolation.
"I call it 'apocalyptic love and sexual activity'," she says. "Which is, 'there ain't no tomorrow, so I better settle'." Kuriansky has studied romance during periods of disaster and terrorism, and says it's common for people to reconnect with by lovers due to "the sense there could not exist a tomorrow – now with Afghanistan, natural disasters everywhere, [people feel like] they're living in a country of Armageddon", so they want to go back to a person who at i fourth dimension provided dearest and security.
Take a hard look at why you lot're reaching out to an old flame. Is it considering yous're trying to quiet anxiety from scary news headlines past seeking comfort from an erstwhile flame, and non considering you actually miss the relationship and are willing to go through the very real effort of making it work? If it's the latter, take that every bit a red flag.
Kuriansky too advises soliciting the feedback of friends and family unit before pursuing an ex. Many may react negatively, specially if the relationship concluded badly. But the purpose of this practise isn't to invite judgment from loved ones; rather, they tin bring you dorsum down to Earth and remind you lot why the relationship was problematic.
"Exist prepared for other people'southward opinions. Most people volition say, 'What? You lot're getting back together? Are you kidding? Why?' They're going to bring up all those memories, so how are you going to deal with that?" says Kuriansky.
Be ready to confront those memories – non merely with yourself and with your loved ones, simply with your ex themselves, which can exist the hardest role. "That is ane piece that was rather challenging and we had to work through. Leaving the by in the past," says de Ayala. "There is and then much history that tin can be dragged upwards, but there has to be a mutual understanding that from here forward, forgiveness, communication and the feeling of [starting] anew" is what will carry the relationship further into the futurity, she says.
Many of us may find ourselves longing for a lost love. If we go about it in a realistic, salubrious way, it could, possibly, work out – if both people are on the aforementioned folio.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210830-why-getting-back-with-an-ex-is-so-compelling