Ex Convincing Me to Try Again

Why getting back with an ex is so compelling

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You broke up, for good reasons. And then why do so many onetime couples reunite further down the line?

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Earlier this summer, 17 years later they carve up, 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 ability couple, and tabloids and Twitter users alike tin can't expect abroad.

But mayhap the most relatable reason regular people are and 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 – one filled with cautionary tales and quondam partners who tin't have a hint. But rebuilding a relationship can too be a tempting venture and even a goal for some people, especially when the success stories sound like something out of a fairy tale. Plus, research suggests the amount of couples who suspension up and get dorsum together is as loftier as fifty%.

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

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

What draws people to exes

One of the biggest upsides of re-entering a old relationship is that you mostly know what you're getting into. "There tin can be some real advantages to really knowing a partner well before giving a long-term relationship a try 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. Fifty-fifty happy couples have them, since a relationship is e'er fundamentally two different people with dissimilar personalities and worldviews.

Getting back together with an ex can atomic number 82 to a fairy-tale happy ending, but only 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 upward 69% of the problems almost couples face in a relationship. Long-lasting, deadening-called-for issues are the real human relationship poison – not large, explosive, single events or confrontations. "Near marriages or relationships end by ice instead of burn," says McNulty. Some couples "find it too hard to talk about or work on differences effectually primal bug. They often grow more distant, and [go] 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 it out with their electric current one. Because while nosotros oftentimes go into a new relationship expecting information technology'll be meliorate than the last, McNulty urges some caution: "If yous're in a relationship and you're thinking near leaving, exist careful, because y'all're basically trading 69% of perpetual differences with one partner with 69% of perpetual differences for another."

And so if you get back with an ex, yous at to the lowest degree already know what those perpetual differences are going to exist. Getting into the groove of the human relationship could feel similar less hassle than meeting someone new and starting from scratch.

"You're picking upward where y'all left off," says Judith Kuriansky, relationship and sexual practice therapist, and adjunct 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 y'all kind of know something near, than someone you don't know anything virtually".

Celebrating what's changed

Another do good to getting back with an ex is awareness of what's changed in the fourth dimension you've spent apart. You may be disadvantaged when dating someone brand new, because you lot're not aware of how they might have grown and changed in a positive way over time. With an ex, you go more of a before-and-after snapshot. Kuriansky says one of the near 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 called FemCity, who's spoken publicly about how she remarried her ex-hubby of 20 years in 2019. "When we started to engagement again, it was overnice considering we knew each other, but certain elements of us had changed," she says. "We both worked on areas we needed to work on while autonomously, and we were in many ways 'new' to one another."

"The elements of ourselves that evolved made reconnecting a beautiful procedure while working through some of the pain from the suspension-upwardly," adds de Ayala. "He no longer took our relationship for granted. He started to become me thoughtful gifts, and volition now stop randomly and share his love for me and appreciation. That didn't be the beginning time around."

Conversely, if you've spent a long time abroad from someone, get back together and find that you fall into the same toxic patterns as before with that person, that knowledge can be advantageous, too. Sensing that you lot're going to meet the same headaches all over again could requite 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, peradventure I can work through that gridlock issue we had'," says McNulty. But he stresses the primal is "people need to know what their irreconcilable issues were before, and really take an honest look at whether or not everything's unlike now".

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

'Apocalyptic dear and sex'

Before you lot kickoff sliding into your ex's DMs, ask yourself why you're doing it – because enough tin go wrong.

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

"I call it 'apocalyptic love and sexual activity'," she says. "Which is, 'in that location ain't no tomorrow, so I better settle'." Kuriansky has studied romance during periods of disaster and terrorism, and says information technology's common for people to reconnect with by lovers due to "the sense at that place could non exist a tomorrow – now with Afghanistan, natural disasters everywhere, [people experience like] they're living in a land of Armageddon", then they want to go back to a person who at one time provided beloved and security.

Take a hard expect at why you're reaching out to an one-time flame. Is it considering you're trying to quiet anxiety from scary news headlines by seeking comfort from an sometime flame, and non because yous actually miss the relationship and are willing to go through the very real try of making information technology piece of work? If it'southward the latter, have that equally a crimson flag.

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

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

Be ready to face those memories – not but with yourself and with your loved ones, merely with your ex themselves, which can exist the hardest role. "That is one piece that was rather challenging and we had to piece of work through. Leaving the past in the by," says de Ayala. "In that location is and then much history that can be dragged upwardly, just there has to be a common agreement that from here forrad, forgiveness, communication and the feeling of [starting] anew" is what will carry the relationship further into the futurity, she says.

Many of u.s. may find ourselves longing for a lost honey. If we go about it in a realistic, healthy way, information technology 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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