The past has a powerful draw. Our politicians look back on the good ol’ days as if they were perfect. Our parents imagine their childhoods were idyllic.
Sometimes that’s how we treat our exes, too. We look back on an old relationship, and we think about all the good times but not the bad.
Also read: How To Tell If A Girl Likes You and How To Ask Out A Friend
So, a lot of people end up asking themselves, “Should I get back together with my ex?”
It’s a complicated question, but this article is here to help you out. You’ll learn things like-
We’ll take you step by step through the process so you can figure out if it’s a good idea to get back with her.
For some people, getting back with your ex has a bad rep. It feels like going backward when everyone is telling you to move forward.
| But it’s really common to want to get back together with your ex. According to the Independent, 54% of Brits who have been through a breakup in the last five years end up back with their ex. That’s more than half! |
The same goes for Americans, too. According to Bustle, an online survey run by EliteSingles of 1,200 Americans says that 60% would be willing to get back together with an ex.
That’s SIX ZERO percent!
Wow.
So, It’s not just you. More than half of breakups end up with someone who wants to get back together with an ex.
If you’re thinking about getting back with your ex, don’t beat yourself up; everyone’s doing it.
The question is this: Should you? Let’s take a look.
Let’s face it. Breakups suck no matter what happens.
When you’re in a relationship, especially a long-term relationship, you have an automatic social life. Go out or stay in, she’s always there with you. She’s your comfort zone, like the fave hoodie that goes on after the tie comes off.
But then it’s over.
Suddenly, you don’t have someone waiting to hang out with you.
A huge piece of your social life is gone.
It can get lonely.
You have to ask the question.
Do you miss her or do you just miss being in a relationship?
Sometimes a relationship, even a bad one, distracts you from yourself. If you have someone around all the time, you have an excuse not to deal with your own problems.
When a relationship ends, you have to spend time with yourself. When you examine yourself, you might not like what you find.
The time after a relationship can be a gift, if you know how to receive it. It gives you space to see who you are when you’re alone. Take that time to assess yourself to see who you really are.
It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now
Said I wouldn't call but I lost all control and I need you now. —Lady Antebellum
Lots of people fall into ex sex. You’re out late, and you’re drunk. The text goes out, and there you are.
Don’t do it.
Ex sex stops you both from achieving the distance you need to examine yourselves and the relationship.
Worse, it adds problems to your already fraught past. On top of all the old wounds, you have to deal with the fallout from the tryst.
It’s too complicated, and it can ruin your chances at getting back together.
When a relationship ends, you lose a piece of yourself. So much of your identity was wrapped up in the relationship, especially if it was long term.
Spend some time with your friends. Reconnect with people who drifted out of your life while you focused on your relationship. Recover your sense of self, and work on who you are.
Women like guys who have their lives together. Not just women, if you do this, you’ll like yourself better, too.
Before you try to get her back, make sure that you really miss her. You don’t want to chase her because she’s the one that got away or because you just can’t be alone.
That’s a way to dodge the real problem, and you’ll end up in the same place eventually.
| So, give yourself at least thirty days before you contact her, and use that time to rediscover and develop yourself. |
Once you’ve decided that you actually miss her, it’s time to look at the problems that ended the relationship. You need to know what went wrong so you can know whether you can fix it.
I know what you’re thinking. You’d rather rub Jalapenos in your eyes than dig through the still painful wounds of your old relationship. But it can be really good for you even if you don’t get back together with your ex.
Researchers at the University of Arizona found that people who reflected on their breakup repeatedly recovered from it faster. Over nine weeks, they asked people to use several tools to examine the old relationship, and those behaviors helped individuals recover their sense of self.
If nothing else, assessing the breakup will make it easier to be yourself.
There are a lot of ways to assess the breakup, but we think these questions can get you started.
I remember when we broke up, the first time. Saying, "This is it, I've had enough". 'Cause like we hadn't seen each other in a month. When you, said you, needed space (what?). Then you come around again and say "Baby, I miss you and I swear I'm gonna change, trust me". Remember how that lasted for a day? I say, I hate you, we break up, you call me, I love you —Taylor Swift
Bad breakups need a special section of their own. It’s one thing if you parted on good terms, but It’s another if you had a six month blowout because someone cheated.
Can you get your ex back after a bad breakup?
In Friends, Ross and Rachel go through the classic blowout breakup with all the screaming and cheating (They were on a break) that comes with it.
If you remember the show, Ross and Rachel tried to get back together in the next season. But they go about it the wrong way.
Rachel wants Ross to take all the blame for everything that went wrong in their relationship. Ross doesn’t want to own up to the fact that he slept with a girl only a few short hours while they were on a break.
Neither was ready to start over, to work past the pain. To rebuild a relationship over the smoking ruins of the previous one, both people need to commit to a fresh start.
At this point, there’s only two questions. Can you swallow your pride and start over? Is the relationship worth it?
We accept the love we think we deserve. ―Stephen Chbosky
It’s a kick in the gut when your girlfriend or wife leaves to be with someone else. Not only does she not want to be with you, but she wants that other guy/gal more! Should you ever get back with her?
Some guys think they don’t deserve a good relationship. They are willing to accept a manipulative, cheating partner, because they’re terrified that no one else could ever love them.
Staying in an unhealthy relationship that robs you of peace of mind, is not being loyal. It is choosing to hurt yourself mentally, emotionally and sometimes, physically. ―Kemi Sogunle, Beyond the Pain
The next step: Make the decision if it’s worth it.
A lot of advice goes something like this: Listen to your heart. It knows what you want.
Your heart sucks at making decisions. Your heart tells you to eat too much candy and skip leg day. Your heart tells you to drink until three and sleep through work.
Calmly think about whether the relationship can be fixed and whether it’s worth it. It might sound cliche, even silly, but a pros and cons list can really help. Write out all the reasons to get back together and all the reasons to stay apart.
Gone are the summer days and my mind along with them. No longer will I indulge in hopes of getting you back. It is hope that makes these chains heavier and autumnal nights longer. I will merely serve as a memory to you: the lover that recited love poems. I must go now and I urge you not to look back. ―Kamand Kojouri
To help you make the decisions, we have a checklist. If you can’t answer, “yes,” to all these questions, don’t get back together.
GPS has saved countless relationships because us men do not like to ask or directions. Now if women could only come with relationship GPS we would be one step closer to world peace. ―Ken Poirot
So, you’ve made the decision to do it. You know that you’re willing to do the work, and you think that she might be, too.
What happens next?
You need to ask her to get back together, of course!
Yeah…It’s not that simple, is it? You could do everything before this on your own, but now you have to talk to her. What should you do?
First, you need to get the timing right. That has two parts. The timing has to be right for you, and the timing has to be right for her.
Double check all your thinking.
Don’t worry if it’s not the right time for you. Wait until you’re ready to give it a real shot, or you risk blowing the whole thing up.
Make sure the timing is right for her, too. Give her enough time and space to cool down from the relationship. You had to do a lot of work to be ready for this, and she will, too.
Once you have the timing right, you gotta make a plan. That plan starts with a place to meet.
Yeah. I said meet. Don’t do it by text or by email. Don’t ask Suzie from grade three to pass her a note.
Meet her, face-to-face.
The setting is important. The site needs to be a place where she can talk to you about the relationship without pressure and without feeling like a date.
A coffee shop is a public space with lots of people and without a “date” atmosphere. Unlike going out for a meal, she won’t feel pressured to stay longer than she wants. If she gets uncomfortable, she can easily walk away.
You’ve done all the work. You’ve carefully chosen a place to meet up. Now it’s time to actually do it.
While you can’t make your ex want to get back together with you, you can present yourself in the best way to pique her interest. Here are a few suggestions:
Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take. —Anthony Robbins
She said, “Yes!” Awesome! Take a moment to rejoice.
But this is when the real work starts. Yeah…It’s hard work to get this right.
When you start back up, you need to take things slooow.
In the show, Scrubs, the main character, J. T., meets a girl, and she gets pregnant on their first date. They try to make a go of the relationship, but she freaks out. She lies and says that she had a miscarrage.
Later in the season, J.T. sees her at a conference, and she is very, very pregnant. You can imagine how he felt! She apologizes, and he forgives her.
They agree to try again. J.T. promises that he will take it slow, but he doesn’t. In one episode, he convinces her to move into town, get a job where he works, and move in with him.
That’s the temptation: to slip right back into the old relationship as if nothing happened. Remember, the old relationship was broken, and you are trying to fix it. If you jump back into it, you’ll miss the opportunity to do it right.
Back to J.T. Everything works out great for him until he realizes that he doesn’t know how he feels about his girl. They hadn’t known each other very long, and their headlong leap into the relationship went over the foundation they needed.
J. T. realizes that he doesn’t know if he can commit the rest of his life to her just as she’s giving birth. She sees that, and she freaks out. The relationship is over, because they never gave it a real chance.
Take it slow. This is relationship 2.0, and you need time to create positive patterns of behavior without rushing past the foundational steps to get there.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. ―C.G. Jung
Once you start dating again, pay attention to the relationship. There’s a bonus to trying relationship 2.0: You’ve already run the beta testing and found some bugs. If you know where they are, you can watch out for them in the future.
When a relationship fails, poor communication is always part of the problem. Talk about how you communicated in the past, and agree on ways to improve.
Watch out for old patterns of behavior. It’s so easy to mindlessly slip into our habits, and it’s really hard to break bad ones. You’ll need to be vigilant to give the new relationship a chance.
Yeah, I know. It’s communication, again, but this is really important.
Talk about rebuilding trust. When you are working through a brand new relationship, both people constantly have feelers out to see how it’s progressing.
With someone you know well, that’s harder to do. Talk about the trust you are trying to build. Make sure both of you are on the same page.
Forgiveness is tough. But it’s also the only way to move past the old pain and keep the new relationship going.
In fact, I think it’s a good idea to be explicit about forgiveness. When you make a bonehead move, apologize and say, “please forgive me.” Why?
Many people respond to an apology with “that’s ok.” But it’s not “ok.” That’s like saying that nothing bad actually happened, so don’t worry about it.
When I say, “please forgive me,” I admit that I did something wrong. If you respond, “I forgive you,” that doesn’t minimize how much I suck. It shows the grace you have to overlook my guilt.
That does powerful things in a relationship.
WE WERE ON A BREAK! ―Ross Geller
Guys like to win, especially when we know that we’re right. But a relationship isn’t a sport. If you try to score goals on each other, you might win, but the relationship won’t.
So, swallow your pride, and do what’s best for both of you. That’s what men in a strong relationship do.
If you had been with your ex for a long time, you should consider counselling to help you reconcile. After long years together, it’s really hard to change patterns.
A counsellor can help the two of you learn to communicate and to change your behavior for the good of the relationship.
Should I get back together with my ex? It’s a big question, one that shouldn’t be answered lightly. There is a reason that the old relationship didn’t work.
It takes a lot of work and time to repair a broken relationship, but the girl you love can be worth it.
So, take your time to work through the decision. Analyze your old relationship. Make a plan to fix it, and work with your ex so those old patterns don’t come back again.
It can turn into a great relationship.
If you’re not willing to put in all that work? Well, looks like you already have your answer.
Written by C&W's STAFF WRITER
