Reasons Why People Don’t Want You to Get Back With Your Ex

With the divorce rate in America sitting at 50% for first marriages (it reads 67% for second marriages and almost 75% for third marriages), it makes perfect sense that accepting a break-up is not always the “right” long-term solution for sour or stale relationships. Sometimes, putting up a bit of a fight to get back with your ex makes perfect sense even when trusted friends and family encourage you to move on and find another mate. But let’s not blame friends and family wihtout understanding their point of view first.

When was the last time you have approached your friends and relatives and sought their advice and they told you that it makes perfect sense for you to get back with your ex? This happens rarely (unless it is a longer-term marriage involving children). In fact, your trusted allies will usually bring up some forgiven problem from the past, hug you, and say things happen for a reason. Some might even suggest they saw the end coming. There is an abundance of reasons for their response. First off, it’s much easier to suggest the path of least resistance. Secondly and more importantly, they remember the last fight, the last time you had your heart broken and weren’t thinking clearly. Thirdly, and equally important, is that nobody wants to see you return to a situation where you are vulnerable to further heartbreak. They give their “things happen for a reason” response because they love you.

Just as people are more likely to complain about bad service than they are to talk about great service, we are more likely to complain about the bad aspects of our relationships. It seldom happens that we commend our partner’s attentiveness and our superior treatment in everyday conversations with friends. The reason is that most of us do not like to brag about how perfect our relationships are. Additionally, we often come to expect appreciation and above-average treatment from our partner, so when things happen as they should, we don’t discuss them. Plus, arguments have far greater entertainment value, but as a result our friends typically only hear about the bad things (even if they see how well we interact on a regular basis, our “confessions” of the arguments get ingrained in their memories). So when a break-up happens, we cannot really fault our friends and family for encouraging us to move on, can we?

As an aside: Ever notice how everyone will complain about the high divorce rates quoted in the opening paragraph? Of course, nobody likes to see such a national problem, yet why are we often urged to move on and forget rather than fight to get back with an ex? It’s nearly paradoxical…

Equipped with a general foundation for why friends and family might support a break-up rather than backing you in your attempts to get back with an ex, you should start to realize that their advice is often misguided. Does that make them bad sounding boards and/or terrible friends and relatives? To the contrary, it makes them great friends and relatives because it proves just how much they care for you. But you should be cautious when taking their advice. Often, they dismiss your feelings for wanting to get back with your ex (actually for good reason, although it is outside the scope of this article) even though these feelings are not only legitimate, but your desire to get back with your ex is justifiable on so many levels (provided, of course, there was no abuse, cheating, lying, etc., etc.). In fact, if the problem leading up to the break-up was one of misunderstanding, then it is extremely likely that the long-term strength of your relationship will increase.

The most common type of misunderstandings that lead to break-ups are financial arguments and other value misalignments like agreeing to do something and then consistently failing to do it. These misunderstandings are easy to identify as trivial and minor when they are happening to someone else, but in real-life relationships they cause a great deal of tension and therapists often cite them as the reason for the break-up in the first place. Use this same type of third-party distance with your own misunderstandings and you will see that with a bit of accommodation and compromise, they can be easily resolved.

It should come as no surprise that a break-up is rarely a permanent solution in a relationship. Often, it is a temporary test period that provides each partner with space to re-evaluate their goals and feelings. Therefore, you can easily get back with an ex if you incorporate patience and compromise in your new approach, as well as a greater understanding of what the break-up really means. At the end of the day, your friends and family hate to see you heartbroken. They would rather see you live without the person you love than to see you upset again. Whether you should get back with an ex or move on is really a decision only you can make for yourself; trust your heart and other sense when making this decision.

Tagged with: break up • Dating • divorce • get back with an ex • get back with ex • get back with your ex • how-to • Marriage • relationships

Filed under: Marriage

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