I Just Broke Up but I Feel Like I Should See Him Again

Why getting back with an ex is then compelling

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You broke up, for practiced reasons. So why do so many sometime couples reunite further down the line?

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Earlier this summertime, 17 years after they split, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got dorsum together – and triggered an internet barrage of early 2000s nostalgia, glamorous celebrity intrigue and cultural analyses. They're a power couple, and tabloids and Twitter users alike can't await away.

But peradventure the near relatable reason regular people are so fascinated by what's otherwise a celebrity-gossip story is that exes found love again.

For many, navigating ex-partners is a reality of romance. That reality can be negative – i filled with cautionary tales and former partners who can't take a hint. Just rebuilding a relationship can likewise be a tempting venture and even a goal for some people, particularly when the success stories audio like something out of a fairy tale. Plus, research suggests the corporeality of couples who intermission upwards and get back together is as high equally 50%.

The pandemic has even accelerated this process for some: amidst a global health crunch and lonely, sexless lockdowns, many people found themselves reaching out to an ex, hoping to find that old spark.

Experts say that, if both former partners are interested, pulling a 'Bennifer' of your ain can yield positive benefits – if you lot're willing to put in a lot of work, and take an open mind.

What draws people to exes

I of the biggest upsides of re-entering a former relationship is that you by and large know what you're getting into. "There can be some existent advantages to really knowing a partner well earlier giving a long-term human relationship a effort 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 relationship has "perpetual differences". These are points of possible conflict, like navigating a shared living space, money, sex, kids, friends, family and more. Even happy couples have them, since a relationship is ever fundamentally two unlike people with unlike personalities and worldviews.

Getting back together with an ex can lead to a fairy-tale happy ending, but just if both partners seriously revisit what went wrong before, experts say (Credit: Getty Images)

McNulty says, according to Gottman Establish research, these perpetual differences make up 69% of the issues most couples confront in a relationship. Long-lasting, tedious-burning issues are the real human relationship poison – not large, explosive, single events or confrontations. "Nigh marriages or relationships end past ice instead of burn," says McNulty. Some couples "find it too hard to talk near or work on differences around key bug. They often grow more afar, and [become] more than like roommates than they are spouses or lovers."

That's why some people may want to get back together with an erstwhile partner, or to try and stick information technology out with their current 1. Because while we often go into a new relationship expecting information technology'll exist better than the last, McNulty urges some circumspection: "If you're in a human relationship and you're thinking about leaving, be careful, because yous'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 lot at to the lowest degree already know what those perpetual differences are going to be. Getting into the groove of the human relationship could feel like less hassle than meeting someone new and starting from scratch.

"You're picking upward where you lot left off," says Judith Kuriansky, relationship and sex therapist, and adjunct professor of psychology and didactics at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. For some people, information technology feels "better to become back to someone that you kind of know something most, than someone you don't know anything about".

Jubilant what's inverse

Another benefit to getting back with an ex is sensation of what'south inverse in the fourth dimension you've spent apart. You may be disadvantaged when dating someone make new, considering you lot're not enlightened of how they might accept 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 ane of the nearly mutual 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 organisation chosen FemCity, who'southward spoken publicly nigh how she remarried her ex-husband of 20 years in 2019. "When we started to date again, it was nice because nosotros knew each other, merely certain elements of us had changed," she says. "We both worked on areas we needed to work on while apart, and we were in many ways 'new' to one another."

"The elements of ourselves that evolved made reconnecting a beautiful process while working through some of the hurting from the pause-upwards," adds de Ayala. "He no longer took our relationship for granted. He started to get me thoughtful gifts, and will now end randomly and share his beloved for me and appreciation. That didn't exist the first fourth dimension around."

Conversely, if y'all've spent a long fourth dimension away from someone, become back together and discover that yous fall into the same toxic patterns as earlier with that person, that knowledge can be advantageous, too. Sensing that you're going to run into the same headaches all over again could give y'all the foresight to avoid the same disaster twice.

"Sometimes, with the wisdom of years and experiences in other relationships, people feel like, 'oh gosh, mayhap I can work through that gridlock result we had'," says McNulty. But he stresses the cardinal is "people demand to know what their irreconcilable issues were before, and really take an honest await at whether or non everything's different now".

Rekindling an old romance is definitely not for everyone, human relationship experts say, but the familiarity that exists tin can pb to possible benefits (Credit: Getty Images)

'Apocalyptic love and sexual practice'

Before you start sliding into your ex'due south DMs, ask yourself why y'all're doing it – because plenty can go wrong.

While i of the joys of getting dorsum with an ex is the comfort or familiarity, Kuriansky says that longing for comfort tin can be misplaced, especially lately every bit we seem to live amid abiding chaos. Last May, when lockdowns were rolling out, research from Indiana University's Kinsey Found, which studies sex and relationships, suggested that as many as one in five people were texting their exes while in isolation.

"I call it 'apocalyptic dearest and sex'," she says. "Which is, 'in that location own'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 past lovers due to "the sense there could not be 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 time provided love and security.

Take a hard expect at why you lot're reaching out to an sometime flame. Is it because y'all're trying to quiet anxiety from scary news headlines by seeking comfort from an quondam flame, and not because you lot really miss the relationship and are willing to go through the very real effort of making it work? If it'southward the latter, take that equally a red flag.

Kuriansky besides advises soliciting the feedback of friends and family before pursuing an ex. Many may react negatively, especially if the relationship ended badly. But the purpose of this exercise isn't to invite judgment from loved ones; rather, they tin can bring you lot dorsum down to Earth and remind yous why the relationship was problematic.

"Be prepared for other people's opinions. Most people volition say, 'What? You're getting back together? Are you kidding? Why?' They're going to bring upwards all those memories, then how are you going to deal with that?" says Kuriansky.

Be set to confront those memories – non just with yourself and with your loved ones, but with your ex themselves, which can be the hardest part. "That is one slice that was rather challenging and we had to work through. Leaving the by in the past," says de Ayala. "There is then much history that can be dragged up, but there has to be a mutual agreement that from here forward, forgiveness, communication and the feeling of [starting] anew" is what will comport the relationship farther into the future, she says.

Many of usa may find ourselves longing for a lost love. If we become virtually information technology in a realistic, healthy manner, it could, possibly, work out – if both people are on the same page.

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Source: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210830-why-getting-back-with-an-ex-is-so-compelling

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