To love each other… a second time

“One night I was awakened by a phone call,” says 35-year-old Olesya. The ex-husband called. He said that he had been thinking about me for several weeks and asked me to come. My heart beat terribly. I didn’t even expect such a reaction from myself: we lived together for five years, parted, but I didn’t have longing for our relationship.

I decided to go. We walked for a long time, talked — about us, about our daughter. They did not come together right away — for some time they met in the apartment that Pavel rented, but then they decided to live together again. It’s been three years. I could not imagine that our family life could be so exciting, although it cannot be said that it comes easily to us.

Those who start a new life with former lovers are sure: this time everything will work out. Does this mean that the breakup was a mistake?

There are no mistakes in relationships.

Everyone has crises and problems, they are inherent in human relations. But today, married couples, unable or unwilling to resolve the crisis, especially quickly come to a break.

“People feel unhappy but do nothing to change the situation. It’s easier for many to conclude: I chose the wrong person, ”comments family psychotherapist Alexander Chernikov. — Very young people often get divorced after a serious quarrel. And they are driven by the desire to take revenge on the partner for the offense.

After a divorce, spouses often quickly create new families, and many years later they meet already mature people and realize that their act was meaningless. Such plots underlie the scripts of many films — both dramas and comedies.

Alexey and Yulia got married in the first year, divorced in the fourth. After parting, the relationship was not maintained. After graduating from university, both went into the book business and met by chance at a fair. They had not seen each other for about six years — and it was as if something had pushed them towards each other. Two years later, after a chance meeting, a second wedding took place.

A couple that reunites should not consider their divorce a mistake.

“I don’t think that there can be mistakes in the process of relationships, this is not a mathematical problem,” says family therapist Anna Varga. Relationships are always wrong in some way and always right.

Perhaps at the time of the divorce, these people had no choice: they believed that the only way to solve the accumulated problems was in this way, and they did what seemed right to them. Then these people can connect again and do the right thing again.”

Why do we meet again

Growing up, a person becomes more tolerant: he is ready to accept the shortcomings of a partner and does not seek to get everything from marriage at once.

“When we are young, we often get married to get recognition, respect, to feel that someone needs you,” says Anna Varga. — But then children are born, and the feeling of being needed is realized, we make a career — and self-respect appears. And when we meet again with a former partner, there is a desire not to take, but to give, take care, create joint comfort.

“It was I who initiated the divorce after fifteen years of marriage and the birth of three children,” says 50-year-old Elena. — Ten years we lived apart, and quite successfully — both professionally and personally, although I never married, and he did not marry.

We met at the wedding of our eldest son, talked about something insignificant, but I understood more and more clearly that he was still interesting to me. After thinking everything over, I sent him a letter, wrote that we should get to know each other again. He answered right away. We met, talked and decided to live together again.

Now we have a completely different family. We used to behave like selfish children. Today we are rediscovering each other, including sexually. It’s like forgiveness: it’s like all the partners we had connected us and we looked at each other in a new way.»

After a divorce, it often seems that the former spouse has the most unpleasant qualities. But when new partners appear, the comparison with the former spouse often turns out to be in his favor, especially if a lot of time has passed since the divorce.

“Starting relationships with others, people sometimes realize that new partners are even worse than the ones they had,” says Anna Varga. — And during the separation, the former spouses forgive each other, they have no anger, only warm memories remain. When they meet again, they usually say to each other, “I didn’t appreciate you. I’ve never had anything like it with you.»

It happens that life does not work out in a new couple because the relationship with the former partner is not perceived as completed: the divorce occurred in a fit of feelings, and the spouses did not discuss its reasons. According to Alexander Chernikov, “a feeling of incompleteness can bring a person back to their former partner, and such options are often successful.”

They return to the former spouse even when the need for stormy feelings is replaced by the need for support, understanding and real, full-fledged communication. Psychoanalyst Stanislav Raevsky confirms: “Over time, love can develop into friendship, a deep, stable feeling, to which a person returns.”

Express new words

Those couples who managed to become happy a second time have in common — a different scheme of personal communication, which they build instead of the one that once led them to a divorce. To start all over again, you need to understand why nothing worked the first time.

“Before you start living together, you need to find out what the phrases “We fell out of love with each other” and “We fell in love with each other again” mean to you, advises Stanislav Raevsky. — They parted because friendship was impoverished, sexual interest was gone, there was no mutual understanding? And what exactly attracted you the second time? Answering questions will help build new relationships.”

“When Igor and I realized that living separately was boring for us, we finally started to really talk to each other,” says 33-year-old Katya. — Previously, my husband reproached me for being not only his wife, but also his sister, mother and even a child! Now he understands that each of us, playing different roles in turn, reveals his fantasies — and the relationship becomes more interesting.

When we openly and in detail talk about our feelings, we understand each other better, discover the unexpected in a partner whom we seem to have seen through. “Communicating for real, you can understand that the partner is still a mystery to us,” continues Stanislav Raevsky. “Therefore, there will be both joyful and sad days in the relationship.”

Deal with the past, move into the future

Parting rarely happens calmly and benevolently.

“When we started living together again, everyone thought we were crazy,” says Fedor, 38. — We had a terrible relationship: we publicly shouted at each other, fought. Before getting together, we asked each other for forgiveness. Both had to admit that each behaved incorrectly.

It is necessary to make sure that new relationships are not destroyed by old problems. Forgiveness helps to focus not on past suffering, but on the positive aspects of living together and building a happy future on this basis. “If people haven’t learned to find compromises since the break, the same negative situation can develop in their family as before,” warns Anna Varga.

It won’t be like before

The hope that it will be possible to recreate the same couple that you were before the divorce is a big delusion. Crises change relationships, and breakups even more so. And this must be recognized in order not to try to revive what will never be. “In the process of divorce, each of the partners has already seen both the shortcomings of the other and their own,” says French psychoanalyst Yves Prijean. “Such a test allows you to understand that love relationships are not a generous relationship between mother and child, but the connection of two inner lonelinesses.”

But it is not worth building a family as a union of two renewed people: we return to partners with all their habits, problems and shortcomings. It is not necessary to expect that the ex-husband or wife has changed radically during the separation. “The idea that people change over time is destructive,” explains Anna Varga. — People who decide to unite again remain the same — older, aged, but the same.

Therefore, it is better to perceive a person as the former, but relationships as new. ”

Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting

It takes courage to start a new life together. It is necessary to reconsider the past, not be afraid to hear the truth about yourself, accept the characteristics of a partner and agree that they can give happiness, not suffering.

Only after this work has been done, can you allow yourself to dream that you will be able to enter the same river twice. And this time the water in the river will be a little warmer.