Questions to ask prior to reconciling

[SA2000]

I am currently reading a book on reconciling with exs and how a successful reconciliation works. The book comments on premature reconciliation and how people get back together too soon too often. Two people who cared deeply about each other miss each other a great deal and decide to try to work through things without taking the time to address the original problems. After a short "Honeymoon" period or trial period the two people go right back to where they left off which causes the same issues to arise as they were not properly addressed during the separation period.

 

The questions to ask initially are of yourself. The time away from an ex is critical in deciding if reconciliation is even a good idea for you individually or not. First you must ask yourself what your values are. Once you identify your values you have to honestly decide how far you are or are not willing to bend on these values. I think that we all have had to test our values at one point or another during this time.

 

The values that are identified are Personal, Security, Relationship, Family, Work, and Spiritual. The idea is to evaluate where your ex stands in respect to what will actually make you happy long term in regards to what is most important to you or if you are better suited to find someone else that has values similar to your own. Over time our values change as far as what we are looking for in a partner. You may have been open to salary or decision making values in the past but this could have changed. You have to figure out what you truly value to know if reconciliation is not only possible but if your new relationship would be sustainable.

 

Another point is that many people rush back too soon. I know I have been guilty of this. We reconciled but it was doomed to fail as the wounds from the breakup had not healed. I had not taken enough time to look inward to fix my issues. Instead we continued to get into a finger pointing match that led to additional stress. I was still too hurt to begin to soul search and see what I needed to change to allow for a new and fresh relationship. You need to get to a point where you are happy alone before you are ready to get into any relationship. Have you reached a point where you are happy without needing someone else? Other people cannot make you happy. They can only add to your happiness. Do you know what your purpose is as an individual? Do you have your own identity? To be successful in getting back together we cannot expect to make someone else responsible for our own happiness. Have you regained the balance needed to successfully get back together? Without balance the relationship will continue to be out of line and cannot be successful. The book strongly enforces not getting back into a relationship because you are lonely. If you still miss your ex with every thread of your being then you are not ready.

 

 

I am about half way through this book but it raises some interesting questions. People change over time. Are you truly ready to reconcile? Do you know what your needs are and what your exs are? These are all great questions to ask before jumping back in to a relationship with someone. I will add to this thread as I continue to read through "Getting Back Together" by Goetz and Youngs. The remaining chapters address what to do once you have reached the point where reconciliation is a possibility and how to avoid negative patterns that lead to continued failure. I now know that I am not ready to get back together and have a lot of work to do. Hopefully this information can help us all when looking at our previous relationship from a distance and access what needs to be done for us to be happy going forward no matter what the decision is.

[IsThisIt]

two things:

 

1) If the relationship got serious enough at its high point that one party feels absolutely devastated, it really broke up for a reason. Its one thing to get back together after a day or two apart, but when weeks turn into months, it just isn't going to happen, and if it does, it will not be good. The dumper's motivation to do so is going to be largely determined by guilt rather than attraction.

 

2) Even in the best of situations, if the break-up hurts so badly that you start ruminating about getting back together as a defense mechanism to keep you from accepting the situation, you will never be able to get over the hurt that your ex inflicted on you. I'm sure in these situations, reconciliation rates are low, but I bet *permanent* reconciliation rates are basically zero. Maybe if kids or something are in the picture, people can make themselves stick it out, but the relationship will be forever haunted by the emotional violence that one of you inflicted on the other.

[Halflife]

but I bet *permanent* reconciliation rates are basically zero.

I suggest you read 'Make Up, Don't Break Up'. You'll learn that breaking up is often the required event for a serious relationship to move to the next level of maturity. Even when the break up is due to betrayal of trust that causes severe emotional pain. The author is considered America's best relationship therapist and has an incredible success rate of bringing couples back together for good!

[SA2000]

I disagree with you on this one IsThisIt? If you cannot move forward then yes. It will be doomed. I am not a person who gets stuck in the past easily and am able to let go. I have a cousin who broke up with her bf, moved hundreds of miles away, and started dating someone else. The guy she broke up with is now her husband and the father of her children. I actually know of quite a few stories like this. If the relationship was long term and one or both people are really hurt by the break up I think the chances of them getting back together after months is a lot higher because you already have history.

 

I have personally gotten back together with an ex after 6 months of being split up. We broke up again because she had not addressed the issues that split us up in the first place but that was not for around another year. I am sure there are TONS of stories of people who split up and got back together after realizing they truly cared for one another. The attraction is actually what brought us back together. I was still as attracted to her as I was when I first met her.

 

The point here is not to give people false hope. It is to say yes it is possible but that you need to let go and get back to who you were before the relationship took a dive. Will you get back together? Who knows? But if it is going to happen and be successful you need to have the right mindset.

 

Relationships begin with attraction. I have never gone back to someone or even considered it out of guilt. If anything guilt kept me away. Seeing them as I saw them prior to our relationship is what attracted me back.

[gallop30]

isThisIt,that's the reason you might need a lengthy breakup to heal the wounds and get over the emotional hurt so you can start fresh again if both parties are willing to.

 

if you had a long term relationship,there was something right there if both stayed together for 2+ years. the reason for failure were the problems that were ignored and never addressed and they just build up to a point of no return,a point when a break up is inevitable at that time. it's not that love wasn't there,it's that sometimes some forces are stronger and love cannot overcome all.

[faithful14]

I don't agree with the statement that the longer you are apart, the less of chance you have of reconciling. If you look at the posts in the "Getting back together really does happen", a lot of couples that successfully reunited and went on to get married and have kids were seperated anywhere from 3 months -2 years.

 

There really is no magic formula or specific timeline for people getting back together.

[The_Seeker]

I don't agree with the statement that the longer you are apart, the less of chance you have of reconciling. If you look at the posts in the "Getting back together really does happen", a lot of couples that successfully reunited and went on to get married and have kids were seperated anywhere from 3 months -2 years.

 

There really is no magic formula or specific timeline for people getting back together.

 

A perfect an example would be "The Notebook." Someone posted how her ex wanted to get back with her. It was 10 years ago.

[faithful14]

I love that movie; it's my all time favorite : )

[gallop30]

there is no formula or specific time line,that's true. the 3 months-2 years is the time line when people get together and stay that way because they had plenty of time to evaluate and try to fix themselves before anything else.

it's not that complicated,we just like to make it this way

[blueberrypie]

It's funny how I was reading the two books mentioned here ("Getting back together" and "Make Up, Don't Break Up") right after the breakup. I stopped reading them because I started to hope too much about the reconciliation that it stopped my healing process. Maybe I should pick them up again. Thank you for posting this SA2000.

[GotMyLifeBack]

I'm stating the obvious... reconciliation can only happen when both people are interested in doing it. Many of us on here, at least at this point, have exes who don't/won't communicate, or are with someone else, or have otherwise disappeared. I think it's incredibly exciting when two people rediscover each other - that is a situation with major promise. And then, as SA2000 is saying, there's the matter of timing and how to actually go about reconciling so that it's successful. Those are details, but important ones. But nothing happens unless you've got two people signing up.

[CrapAtNC]

I think the most important question to ask is "Did you have a sex change while we were apart?" Or maybe I'm just being old-fashioned.

[SA2000]

Crap - I hate when exs do that. It's so selfish.

[CrapAtNC]

They ask you that a lot?

[IsThisIt]

I suggest you read 'Make Up, Don't Break Up'. You'll learn that breaking up is often the required event for a serious relationship to move to the next level of maturity. Even when the break up is due to betrayal of trust that causes severe emotional pain. The author is considered America's best relationship therapist and has an incredible success rate of bringing couples back together for good!

 

Eh. Maybe. I'd like to see some verifiable statistics -- the plural of anecdote is not data. Not to mention that the author has a very clear incentive to encourage people to believe those claims.

 

I'm a social scientist. My empirical research is primarily in the field of social psychology. I've also been through several break-ups, and seen even more among my friends and colleagues. I have never once seen a successful reconciliation, with one exception in which the break-up lasted less than 24 hours and was over something totally stupid. The factors that are essential to a happy committed relationship simply don't exist when a great loving relationship deteriorates to the point that one party determines that the benefits of breaking up outweigh the pain that their partner will feel.

 

It really isn't responsible to help people lie to themselves. False hope hurts people.

 

As for this nonsense about how sometimes a relationship needs a break-up... maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds delusional. I've seen countless good relationships that never even came close to a break-up. Do you really want to encourage people to get themselves involved in the kind of relationship that requires a break-up in order to succeed? I understand the good intentions here, but the opportunity cost is a great relationship (one that doesn't 'require' a break-up -- and frankly I'm dubious about the claim that this is a relatively common kind of relationship, especially if you limit the set to those that eventually result in happiness) that they could be on the road to finding.

 

I've been there so many times, I know how impossible it is to let go of that feeling that your relationship was so great at one point that it could weather a thing like this. Those feelings are irrational. When you determine whether or not to believe in such a proposition, ask yourself if you are purely interested in the truth or if your reasoning may be clouded by your hopes. You have a strong incentive to tell yourself that there's still hope -- it allows you to avoid for a little while the pain entailed in accepting that it is over forever. Given that incentive, why should you trust yourself to think clearly about the subject?

[thekid55]

I think the most important question to ask is "Did you have a sex change while we were apart?" Or maybe I'm just being old-fashioned.

 

I'm confused?

[IsThisIt]

isThisIt,that's the reason you might need a lengthy breakup to heal the wounds and get over the emotional hurt so you can start fresh again if both parties are willing to.

 

Yeah, or you could start fresh again with someone who hasn't broken your heart. Why wouldn't that be better?

[SA2000]

Haha. No I hate when THEY get sex changes. It's a great way to get over them quickly tho.

[CrapAtNC]

I knew that. I was laughing when I typed my response.

[SA2000]

I see where you are going with this but as someone who works with statistics one could argue that MOST relationships fail. I've been in many. At what point is it considered a "successful" reconciliation? I'm not married and have been in 4 long term relationships with 3 having a recon at some point. Does that mean that in my life 100% of all relationships are "unsuccessful" because I'm not married? If I were swayed by statistics I would believe that it's not possible for me to have a successful relationship right? Although you can argue that "most times" reconciliation doesn't work I think that is a defeatist attitude. Statistics can provide any information you want them to. Of course authors want to sell books and people sell books that offer hope but if everyone had the attitude that what they hoped could not be realized we would be living in a cold dark world. Literally.

[IsThisIt]

You are right that the correct way to quantify the data here is not to look at the overall set of relationships and compare the failure rate of different types of relationships. The vast majority of relationships fail. Instead, you could analyze the set of successful relationships. What percentage of successful relationships would you guess involved a serious breakup lasting for several weeks or more?

 

Now, we might disagree about the answer to that question, and neither of us have data so its all just conjecture. But I think we can all agree that the vast majority of successful relationships -- relationships that a. last and b. are happy and fulfilling for both partners -- do not involve a breakup in the past. So even if these sorts of broken-but-repaired relationships do exist, they are almost certainly rare-- indeed, rarer than a person who wants to believe in them might think. After adjusting for your cognitive biases, the number must be tiny. Why adopt a likely losing strategy instead of adopting a strategy with a much better chance of success? It's just self-defeating behavior, ultimately.

 

If you can agree to stipulate to that premise, why would you want to encourage people to spend their efforts trying to repair broken relationships instead of trying to start new relationships that are free of pain, hurt, guilt, frustration, disappointment, and unhappiness? I can understand why someone might be inclined to try to repair what they lost, but can you honestly say that that is the most rational course of action? What is gained? How is it possible that the [magnitude of the possible rewards of getting back together] multiplied by the [probability of getting back together in such a way that both partners are happy] is larger than the magnitude X probability of finding a better relationship with someone else that doesn't involve a history of pain?

[CrapAtNC]

Maybe a bad relationship or one that's not what it should be can benefit from a break-up.

[IsThisIt]

Maybe a bad relationship or one that's not what it should be can benefit from a break-up.

 

Wouldn't you rather be in a good relationship than a bad one? I agree that when there's a bad relationship, there are benefits from breaking up--- but for the two individuals themselves, not for the relationship.

 

I mean seriously, there are so many people out there with whom you can have a fantastic relationship that won't involve this sort of serious agonizing pain. It's easy to convince yourself that for whatever reason your broken relationship is still your longterm best option... but you can't tell me that that is rational, can you?

[The_Seeker]

Wouldn't you rather be in a good relationship than a bad one? I agree that when there's a bad relationship, there are benefits from breaking up--- but for the two individuals themselves, not for the relationship.

 

I mean seriously, there are so many people out there with whom you can have a fantastic relationship that won't involve this sort of serious agonizing pain. It's easy to convince yourself that for whatever reason your broken relationship is still your longterm best option... but you can't tell me that that is rational, can you?

 

;] Someone needs to ask my parents. LOL I bet a majority of ENAers will tell my parents they need to break up. Hahaha!

[gallop30]

i personally would start new.

with the ex there's the advantage that you know the person already,so let's say they're 60% perfect and 40% they're not,so if they use the time to better themselves(fix the problems they're dealing with emotionally to be a better person in general) then you might have a 87% perfect match.

 

for example: you have a car that you love a lot,but it needs some fixing. what would you prefer do do? fix the car that you love or buy the exact same car from somewhere else without knowing what problems you might get down the road?

of course people are not to be compared to cars ,it's just the same idea