I Like My Ex Again but I Broke Up With Him

Why getting back with an ex is and then compelling

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You broke up, for good reasons. So why do then many former couples reunite further down the line?

Eastward

Earlier this summer, 17 years subsequently they divide, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got back together – and triggered an net barrage of early 2000s nostalgia, glamorous celebrity intrigue and cultural analyses. They're a power couple, and tabloids and Twitter users alike tin can't look away.

Merely perhaps the nigh relatable reason regular people are so fascinated by what's otherwise a celebrity-gossip story is that exes establish love again.

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

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

Experts say that, if both former partners are interested, pulling a 'Bennifer' of your own can yield positive benefits – if y'all're willing to put in a lot of work, and have an open heed.

What draws people to exes

I of the biggest upsides of re-entering a former relationship is that you mostly know what y'all're getting into. "There tin be some real advantages to actually knowing a partner well before giving a long-term human relationship a try 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 relationship has "perpetual differences". These are points of possible disharmonize, like navigating a shared living infinite, coin, sex activity, kids, friends, family and more. Fifty-fifty happy couples take them, since a relationship is ever fundamentally 2 different people with unlike personalities and worldviews.

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

McNulty says, according to Gottman Found inquiry, these perpetual differences make upwards 69% of the issues almost couples confront in a human relationship. Long-lasting, tedious-called-for issues are the real relationship poison – not big, explosive, single events or confrontations. "Nearly marriages or relationships finish by ice instead of fire," says McNulty. Some couples "notice information technology as well difficult to talk about or work on differences around primal problems. They often grow more distant, and [become] more than like roommates than they are spouses or lovers."

That's why some people may desire to get back together with an old partner, or to try and stick information technology out with their electric current one. Considering while nosotros often go into a new relationship expecting it'll be ameliorate than the last, McNulty urges some circumspection: "If yous're in a relationship and yous're thinking about leaving, be careful, considering you'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 least already know what those perpetual differences are going to exist. Getting into the groove of the human relationship could experience like less hassle than meeting someone new and starting from scratch.

"You're picking up where you left off," says Judith Kuriansky, relationship and sex therapist, and offshoot professor of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. For some people, it feels "better to get back to someone that you kind of know something about, than someone you don't know annihilation nearly".

Jubilant what's changed

Another benefit to getting dorsum with an ex is sensation of what's changed in the time you lot've spent autonomously. You may be disadvantaged when dating someone brand new, considering you're not aware of how they might have grown and changed in a positive way over time. With an ex, you get more than of a before-and-after 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 arrangement chosen FemCity, who's spoken publicly about how she remarried her ex-husband of 20 years in 2019. "When we started to date again, information technology was dainty because nosotros knew each other, but 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 fabricated reconnecting a beautiful process while working through some of the hurting from the break-up," adds de Ayala. "He no longer took our relationship for granted. He started to get me thoughtful gifts, and will now cease randomly and share his honey for me and appreciation. That didn't exist the commencement time effectually."

Conversely, if you've spent a long time abroad from someone, get back together and notice that you autumn into the aforementioned toxic patterns as before with that person, that knowledge can be advantageous, as well. Sensing that you're going to see the same headaches all over once more could give you the foresight to avert the aforementioned disaster twice.

"Sometimes, with the wisdom of years and experiences in other relationships, people experience like, 'oh gosh, perhaps I tin work through that gridlock issue we had'," says McNulty. But he stresses the central is "people need to know what their irreconcilable issues were earlier, and really have an honest await at whether or not everything'south different at present".

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

'Apocalyptic love and sexual practice'

Before you start sliding into your ex's DMs, ask yourself why you're doing it – considering enough can go wrong.

While one of the joys of getting back with an ex is the comfort or familiarity, Kuriansky says that longing for comfort tin be misplaced, especially lately equally we seem to live amid constant chaos. Terminal May, when lockdowns were rolling out, research from Indiana University's Kinsey Institute, which studies sexual activity and relationships, suggested that as many equally ane in five people were texting their exes while in isolation.

"I phone call it 'apocalyptic love and sex'," she says. "Which is, 'there ain't no tomorrow, so I improve 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 in that location could not exist a tomorrow – at present with Afghanistan, natural disasters everywhere, [people feel like] they're living in a state of Armageddon", and so they want to go back to a person who at one fourth dimension provided dearest and security.

Have a difficult look at why you're reaching out to an old flame. Is it because y'all're trying to quiet anxiety from scary news headlines by seeking comfort from an onetime flame, and non because y'all actually miss the human relationship and are willing to go through the very real effort of making it work? If information technology's the latter, have that every bit a red flag.

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

"Be prepared for other people's opinions. Nearly people will say, 'What? You're getting back together? Are you kidding? Why?' They're going to bring up all those memories, so how are you going to bargain with that?" says Kuriansky.

Be prepare to confront those memories – not merely with yourself and with your loved ones, but with your ex themselves, which can be the hardest role. "That is one piece that was rather challenging and we had to work through. Leaving the past in the past," says de Ayala. "There is so much history that can be dragged upwardly, but there has to be a mutual agreement that from here forward, forgiveness, communication and the feeling of [starting] afresh" is what will carry the relationship further into the futurity, she says.

Many of us may observe ourselves longing for a lost love. If we go virtually information technology in a realistic, healthy way, it could, possibly, piece of 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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