Taking them back is the worst thing you can do
Our exes are exes for a reason. Don’t take people that aren’t meant for you. Learn how to stand strong on your own.
by: E.B. Johnson
Love can force us to do many strange and wondrous things, but it can force us to make poor and toxic choices for ourselves as well. Among these toxic choices is returning to our exes, even a massive and heart-wrenching relationship breakdown. Even when we know they’re the wrong person, many of us make the conscious decision to take our former partners back. Why? The reasons are as varied and complex as our relationships themselves.
Taking back someone who hurt you is rarely an excellent choice. Though we all make mistakes, some mistakes and some behavioral patterns are too grave to accept or ignore. Our exes are exes for a reason, and we have to focus on those reasons to avoid running back to places we no longer belong. Don’t rebuild your life around someone who has already proven that they don’t deserve to be in it. Stand strong and learn how to stand on your own.
Our exes are exes for a reason.
When our relationships collapse, there’s always a reason. Whether we both made mistakes, or one person holds the brunt of the blame — we often discover through these breaking points the various limitations in our dreams and life intentions. Though we might love the other person deeply, it does not mean we are meant to be together. The ending of a relationship is often the best thing that can happen to us, but it’s hard to see through rose-tinted glasses and a broken heart.
There seem to be many who think that the pattern of makeup-breakup will somehow fix their relationships. They end things in a show of drama and get back together in passionate of energy and dismissal. But how often does this “getting back together” work? Well, according to science — only about 15% of couples who makeup stay made up. So, the odds aren’t in your favor.
You have to learn how to stand strong and leave your exes in the past where they belong. By focusing on building up your self-confidence (while learning to be more realistic about what your partnership really was) you can free yourself of that desperate pull that keeps bringing you back to the same destructive pattern. Drop your fear of being alone. Drop the insecurities that tell you that you’ll never do better, and get excited about your future again.
Why we take them back (when we know we shouldn’t).
While some relationships can certainly be rekindled — many cannot. This is because the differences in what we want for ourselves and our lives are too great. And, often, the people we fell in love with ended up being much different than we expected. Knowing why we take them back is tantamount to preventing it in the future. After all, we want to build futures with people who love us and value us.
Rose-tinted glasses
A rose-tinted point of view is usually the most common reason we allow our exes to come back into the picture. We have to cultivate a more realistic perspective if we want to thrive in the wake of a major relationship breakdown. Once you have some space between yourself and your ex, you start to see things are being better than they actually were. This is because you dwell on the happy memories — a far easier thing to do, rather than assessing all the wrong that was done on both sides.
Fear of being alone
Are you terrified of being alone in this life? Do you believe that having a partner makes you safer? Or somehow more valid? These toxic beliefs can force you into returning to relationships that undermine your happiness and your self-esteem. Rather than standing up for yourself and staying strong in your independence, you go running back to a toxic partner out of fear and desperation. Willing to settle before putting in the world to protect your own self-interests.
Pesky brain chemicals
Our relationships aren’t just an affair of the heart. They’re an affair of the brain as well. Our brains are heavily involved when it comes to falling in love and staying in love. When we have good interactions with our exes, we get dopamine hits to the brain which make us feel good, warm, and fuzzy. This warps our perspective of them, reinforces our rose-tinted point-of-view, and leaves us addicted to a person who we know is not good for us.
Failing to cut the cord
When you fail to sufficiently cut the cord between yourself and your partner, you leave room for them to re-enter and complicate your healing. If you are maintaining a close physical relationship, or failing to put enough space between yourself, your ex and your mutual lives — you’ll find yourself confronted with those same complex feelings that leave you running back to them time and time again.
Hooked on drama
Some people love the drama of a makeup-breakup relationship. They love the thrill of the emotion, and they love the attention that they get from their family and their friends. When you get hooked on this drama, you can find yourself falling into a corrosive pattern that leaves you lonely, confused, and looking for light in an increasingly bleak world. You lose out on meeting new people, and limit the opportunities you find yourself with by chaining yourself to a toxic person and a toxic habit that tears apart your future.
Mounting insecurities
Do you have a low opinion of yourself? Or, are you obsessed with the idea that you can’t (or won’t) be able to do any better than your ex? The longer you hold on to these beliefs, the more you will come to invest in their truth by setting yourself up to fail. When it comes to our exes, this means bringing them back into our lives despite their toxic behaviors and abusive demeanors. We have to banish our insecurities and focus on building our self-esteem if we want to break free of this makeup-breakup cycle.
Shifted circumstances
When we breakup, circumstances change, so we can come to believe that our exes have changed too — which is a dangerous mistake to make. People don’t change because the world around them changes (just look at American conservatives). They change because they want to change and because they themselves take action to do so; something which requires making a conscious decision to be better than we were. While circumstances might help perpetuate this change, they can’t guarantee it. Make sure you know exactly who you’re dealing with.
Signs you can’t bring them back into your life.
Taking back the wrong person is one of the worst things you can do for yourself and your wellbeing. No matter how much we might love someone, we can’t change them and we can’t make them fit who we are and what we want. If you’re considering taking back your ex, look for these crucial signs in order to protect yourself and your heart.
Feeling forced
If you feel forced to get back together with someone, you should take that as a massive red flag. We can’t be forced to love someone, and we can’t force ourselves to change the way we feel about them. An ex who still treats your relationship like it never ended, or makes comments like “we’ll get back together”, is someone who isn’t living in or respecting your reality. Nor are they making any attempt to give you a chance at a better life. They’re indicating someone who can’t take no for an answer, and who is determined to get their way.
Many essential differences
Do you and your ex disagree on the core fundamentals of what you want for your futures? This can manifest as a clash in family expectations, and can range all the way into disagreements over living location and career choice. Some issues in this life are too big to compromise on. We have to want the same things from our futures. If your differences are too great and too numerous, it’s a bad decision to try to force things to work out. Down this path, you’re looking at heartache and conflict as a way of life.
One too many breakups
A toxic pattern of making up and breaking up is one of the biggest indications that you can’t take them back into your life. Not only does this indicate two people who’d rather walk away than work things out, it also indicates two people who are critically misaligned at their core. One too many breakups is absolutely something that should be considered when looking back at your ex. If you’re always splitting up, what makes you think this time will be any better? (Do you really think you’re in the top 15% of all couples?)
All about them
Is your ex self-centered, self-obsessed, or otherwise controlling and manipulative? If it’s all about them, their comfort and their needs — it’s not going to be any different when you get back together. This doesn’t always look like the macho alpha-douche. Sometimes, it’s the partner that makes threats against themselves or others. They might also resort to extreme clinginess in order to bring you back into the fold. However, they do it, their intentions are only to appease their own discomfort and their own desires.
Focused on fixing
If you just want to get back with your ex in order to “fix” them — you’re barking up the wrong tree. We can’t fix other people, we can only fix ourselves. We’re not responsible for changing our exes or making them better. That power lies only within ourselves, for ourselves. Falling back into a partnership because you’re focused on fixing them, or they’re focused on fixing you, is going to guarantee disappointment. As you both struggle in frustration, the resentment and disillusionment only grows.
Abusive in nature
Though this might come as a bit of a surprise, an abusive partner is never okay to return to. Abusers are abusers. Although they can change, they often don’t. Whether they mentally abuse us or physically abuse us — it makes no difference. We can’t go back to places where our mental and physical safety is in danger, at the cost of our warped ideas on love. We’re responsible for ensuring a happy life for ourselves, and that starts by standing up for ourselves and cutting out the people that hurt us.
Refusal to take responsibility
A person who can’t take responsibility for their actions is going to be a guaranteed upset and distraction in your life. Everything that goes wrong will be your fault. Everything that goes right will be theirs. You’ll find yourself holding the blame for all the hiccups and mistakes they make with very little payoff for yourself. Don’t downplay what you deserve by settling for someone who always makes you shoulder the hardship in your relationship.
Intuition into overdrive
Sometimes, there is no sign more important than our intuition when it comes to getting back with our exes. Even though everything might look great on paper, we have to learn to listen to our gut and address the concerns that plague us. If you sense that something is wrong, or that going back is a bad idea — listen to yourself, even if they’ve done all the convincing that they can. Our intuition is important and is the link between our subconscious realizations and our conscious knowledge. Heed your gut and know when going back is a bad idea.
How to stand strong and avoid reconciling with your ex.
Stop running back to a partner who can’t see you for who you are, or appreciate you for all you have yet to become. Build up your self-confidence and find power in cutting the cord and standing strong on your own two feet.
1. Cut every single cord you can
Once you’ve committed to cutting your ex out of your life, you can get serious about cutting the remaining cords that tie you. If you don’t share a child or a career together, this process becomes much easier — but it’s no less necessary if your lives are extremely entangled. You have to create enough space between yourself and the past to develop a new perspective. This only happens when we find the courage to cut the cord.
Begin small, by removing your ex from social media and ensuring they no longer have (known) access to your online social domains. Limit your access to them as well, and make sure you resist the urge to check up on them and the progression of their own life and journey. Find a way to limit also the amount of face-to-face exposure you’re going to have with them.
If you share mutual friends, ask for a rain check when they’re going to bringing you all together in a tense social situation. Likewise, if you share custody of children — try to create as much space as you can between any exchange of custody. Get grandparents and friends involved if you can. There’s no right or wrong way to go about things. Be creative, but also ensure you’re doing everything in your power to limit their reach in your life.
2. Get into a realistic perspective
You have to shift your perspective if you want to find a way to move past the emotional bond you still share with your ex. Too often we look backward at the good times and forget to focus on all the things that went wrong. This optimistic over-focus creates a rose-tinted perspective that can leave us running back to people who never had our best interests at heart. When we get into a more realistic perspective, we empower ourselves to move on.
Start with your friends and your family. Sit down with them and encourage them to open up. Ask them what their perspective is, and if they ever avoided sharing concerns with you because of your love for your ex. You might be surprised about what they share with you, and how it impacts your own perspective by looking backward.
Getting this more realistic perspective is crucial and enables us to see ourselves more honestly (and our relationships too). Take some time every day to look back — but don’t linger. Just remind yourself of how bad or limiting things really were, and use that to fend off thoughts of cuddles, kisses, and honeymoons in the summer. Those things are in the past, and they aren’t a full representation of what was. If you’re going to look back, look at the entire picture…warts and all.
3. Figure out your own needs
Focusing on our own needs can provide a great distraction when it comes to preventing a reconciliation with our ex. This means getting down and dirty with what we really need and want in this life, then taking action to fulfill those things. Invest in some self-care and empower yourself to move on by simply taking care of yourself first for a change.
If you’re leaving behind a toxic partnership that sucked up all your energy and willpower, get back into your personal peace by developing a regular self-care routine. Far more than bubble baths and massages, make sure carving out time each day that help you to reflect on what you want from life and how you can get there.
Fall into fitness routines that help you reclaim your physical body. Develop a daily mediation routine that helps you get back to the center of your heart and mind. The more fulfilled you become — and the more you alone provide that fulfillment to yourself — the more independent and confident you will become. Figure out your own needs and focus on them to avoid running back to someone who’s a poor fit.
4. Casually check out other options
A really simple way to shift focus from your ex is to casually check out what better options you might be able to pursue. This is isn’t to say you have to jump into a rebound, or push yourself into any uncomfortable places. It simply means having a look and allowing yourself to get excited about what perfect replacements you might find out there to fill your life.
Don’t rush to put yourself out there, but don’t hesitate to see what the new menu looks like either. You can avoid pining for someone who was, by looking forward to all the new opportunities that are open to you. Put yourself on a dating app and have a casual scroll through. Check out where your options lie now that you’ve cut loose the dead weight.
You don’t have to feel pressured into talking to anyone, and you don’t have to feel pressured into jumping into a new person’s arms. As a matter of fact, a rebound is the last thing you want to do in the wake of a fresh breakup. There’s nothing wrong with looking, though, and there’s nothing wrong with encouraging yourself through some casual inspiration. Have a little fun and don’t be afraid to get your friends involved too. New love is exciting. Let yourself get excited.
5. Focus on becoming a better you
Our exes represent our pasts in some very real and very literal ways. They represent who we were within a window of time, and they also represent where we’ve come from. They don’t define us, though, and they don’t make us who we are. We can break free of this dependence we feel on their love by getting focused on becoming the best possible version of ourselves.
Put the past in the past (where it belongs) and get focused on a future that is wide open and entirely yours. When you don’t have to answer to anyone else, you can literally do anything and everything you want — without compromise.
Go after that career you want. Get your revenge body. Adopt that dog. Or start planning for that big solo trip across the world. Become the best and most fulfilled version of yourself that you can be; independent of anyone else, or their opinions. Follow your passions and get re-engaged with life and all the new possibilities that are stretching out before you. This life is the only one you get. Define it on your own terms and pursue your dreams every day.
Putting it all together…
Some of us know all too well the painful dance of makeup-breakup. There are many in this life that run back to their exes faster than they run after their own dreams — in pursuit of both love and support. Going back to people who are a poor fit, however, is one of the worst things we can do when trying to build futures that are filled with love, light and happiness. You have to make the conscious decision to leave your ex in the past, and double-down with action.
You have to cut every single cord that you can and make it harder for them to reclaim space in your life. If you don’t share a child, a workplace, or a ton of friends — cut your ex out of your life and create enough space for you both to heal. Shift your perspective and use your family and friends to get there. Start seeing things for what they truly were, and use that truth to save yourself the pain of running back. Focus on your own needs. Rebuild yourself from the ground up and get back in touch with your social circles, your pastimes, and the experiences in this life which bring you fulfillment. If you need to casually browse your other options and allow your excitement over your new future to build. Become the best version of yourself that you can be and use this to build the confidence you need to stand strong on your own.
