Should You be Getting Back Together With the Ex?

Break­ing up can be hard to do, but once done it can be incred­i­bly lib­er­at­ing and pos­i­tive.  There are times when you look back and won­der if it was the right deci­sion – sec­ond guess­ing your judg­ment.  Then there are times when you talk your­self into rekin­dling the romance.
Rekin­dling a romance is tricky.  What’s the rea­son for giv­ing it a sec­ond try, and is it even a legit­i­mate sec­ond try?  Is it you don’t want to be alone?  Are you set­tling and think­ing although the rela­tion­ship isn’t per­fect it isn’t all bad either?  Or are you gen­uinely think­ing this per­son could be “the one” and you want to explore a sec­ond shot?
I’m not say­ing the last sce­nario couldn’t be it, but in my per­sonal expe­ri­ences and in watch­ing my friends, we often hope and roman­ti­cize a rela­tion­ship.  I’ll admit to some­times not want­ing to be alone and also to set­tling.  Some­times the known is less scary than the unknown even if it leaves you want­ing some­thing more.
Also, good sex doesn’t mean it’s a good rela­tion­ship.  (Good sex may dis­tract you for a bit, but even­tu­ally it won’t be enough.)

Lis­ten To Your Inner Voice
I was dat­ing a guy who was nice in many ways but was really very self-​​centered emo­tion­ally.  On paper he sounded great, but the “live and in color” expe­ri­ences raised a lot of con­cerns and dis­con­nect.  On paper he was suc­cess­ful, active in the com­mu­nity, enjoyed explor­ing Seat­tle, intel­li­gent and funny.  Spend­ing time with him uncov­ered a lot of dif­fer­ences in char­ac­ter, moral val­ues and per­son­al­ity.
We went out to eat a lot, but didn’t do much else other than an occa­sional movie.  He paid for most things we did and rarely accepted my offer to pay or even split the bill.  I tried to con­vince myself this was his way of show­ing he cared for me.  (Now I think it was his way to ensure he had com­pany or even a drink­ing buddy.)
I told him open­ing a door for me was a small ges­ture I val­ued – he laughed and said women were just as capa­ble of open­ing their own doors as he was.  When I came home from work one evening so frus­trated I was almost in tears he told me to stop and made us both a drink – no ques­tions ask­ing why I was upset or if I was okay.
In per­son, he would ref­er­ence “The Game”, a set of dat­ing rules and tac­tics for men.  He even said once that he will pur­posely dis­tance him­self at times just so women then have to pur­sue him because he was the catch in the rela­tion­ship.
Even­tu­ally, we both started to date other peo­ple and our dates fiz­zled out.  Then out of the blue he invited me to a base­ball game with him and another friend.  We didn’t end on bad terms so I accepted the invi­ta­tion.  This led to us hang­ing out more and then even­tu­ally falling back into a pat­tern of dat­ing.
It was the same sit­u­a­tion as before only I knew I wanted some­thing dif­fer­ent.  There was a short period of time when I hoped it would be dif­fer­ent – be bet­ter.  I real­ized how dif­fer­ent we were as indi­vid­u­als and even a sub­tle power game within the rela­tion­ship.
We would go out and have fun together and laugh, but a deeper con­nec­tion was miss­ing.  Sex wasn’t as enjoy­able because I really wasn’t into this guy any more – my mind an emo­tions had dis­con­nected from the rela­tion­ship.  I had fallen out of inter­est with this guy when we were first dat­ing and sim­ply blinded myself when we started hang­ing out again.  In many ways it was con­ve­nient.  I had a +1 to do things with only I didn’t enjoy doing things with him like I used to.
It wasn’t fair to him or to me.  Our sec­ond break-​​up was non-​​eventful and we remain friends.  I am care­ful about when and where we hang out.  I don’t want to cross the line into dat­ing or sex.  (Hon­estly, it would fall more into the sex cat­e­gory than dat­ing.)
Move On
One of my favorite dat­ing mantras is “he is a nice guy, just not my guy.”  This is so very true in this instance.  I should have lis­tened to my inner voice way early on, but I don’t always trust my judg­ment.  (It’s bag­gage from pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ships I am try­ing to lose.  I bet most peo­ple who jump back into dat­ing an ex are also strug­gling with emo­tional bag­gage from pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ships.)
It’s impor­tant to remind your­self why you broke up or ended the rela­tion­ship.  If it didn’t work the first time, it most likely won’t work the sec­ond time.  Peo­ple can change, but only when they want to change.  Make your­self a pri­or­ity and in these con­tained instances, it is okay to be a bit self­ish and put you first.  If there was any vio­lence or anger man­age­ment issues, for­get the rela­tion­ship com­pletely and con­tinue walk­ing away.
I have a small trick I use to remind myself not to revert back into a rela­tion­ship with some­one I dated, or even toxic friends.  I add “DO NOT CALL” before their first name in my con­tact list.  When they call I know to ignore the call or keep the con­ver­sa­tion super­fi­cial.  It also gives me a brief pause dur­ing those lonely moments to col­lect my thoughts and move on with­out calling.

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