Twice in the same river: is it worth restoring relations

Let’s be honest: the desire to part in most cases is not mutual. We do not go as close friends to celebrate with a glass of prosecco, thanking for the best that we gave each other. In reality, one of the partners decides that it is time for everyone to go their own way. As a rule, it is not immediately possible for the other party to agree with this.

The one who is left must go through all the stages of psychological recovery. Their sequence is conditional, but, as a rule, it is denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and only then – acceptance of the situation and readiness to step further. At one of the stages, an unexpected and, it seems, a joyful surprise may await – the former offers to try everything from the beginning.

“From now on, everything will be different,” an inner voice encourages, not allowing to understand why a person who has recently decided to leave is changing his intentions.

What is most likely to await us in reality? It largely depends on the motives for returning.

Return as a phase of farewell

“The last years of our marriage can hardly be called happy, but when we parted, it didn’t get any easier,” Vadim admits. – I literally crossed out everything that reminded me of my former life, I even stopped communicating with mutual acquaintances. However, the feeling of inner emptiness intensified. In the end, I realized that I could no longer forbid myself to return my thoughts to the past. We started dating again, but it became obvious: between us there is no attraction with which the relationship began. The decision to break up a second time was not so painful.

“Rationally, we want to start all over again, but unconsciously we are driven by a completely different desire,” explains Jungian analyst Lev Khegai. – Often this happens if the relationship was perceived as a difficult experience and, having parted, we tried to quickly oust it from our memories, but the child was also thrown out with water. It becomes unbearable for us that we devalue part of our life and thereby deny ourselves. Therefore, we return not so much to a partner as to ourselves, to that part of our personality that has the right to different feelings and mistakes.

After living with a partner for some more time, we understand that the decision to leave was the right one. The return turns out to be only a phase of farewell. After all, in order to move forward, we must calmly and meaningfully look into the past.

Lack of intimacy with a new partner

Getting over a breakup takes time, and there is a time limit for everyone. However, studies show that most of us look for a new partner and start a relationship less than a year later, and some immediately leave for someone they dated secretly. The “wedge by wedge” method usually does not work well. If we are ready to share something with a partner, then only a feeling of emptiness, which we strive to displace. Needless to say, no most loving person will save us from ourselves?

Without giving ourselves the trouble to honestly go through the experience of experiencing and accepting what happened, we transfer previous problems into new relationships. And then we turn around and look at the lost love in a new light. We sort through the memory of a scattering of beautiful moments that were not appreciated. It seems to us that the failure with a new partner helped to rethink everything that we had lost. In fact, we are trying to use familiar relationships as a psychological crutch that supports us during a difficult period. And we run the risk of returning to the previous feeling very soon: everything that we are trying to restore is collapsing.

Loss of comfort zone

Often the reason for parting is the desire to shift responsibility for one’s own dissatisfaction with life to the partner. It seems that when we leave a relationship, we magically elude problems. However, a meeting with reality can only aggravate the state of inner loss. Then we decide to return, not so much willingly taking responsibility for the crisis of our union, but rather trying to restore a sense of security.

“A rudimentary fear awakens in us, which we used to call inexplicable, although, if you look at it, its nature is quite understandable,” recalls Lev Khegay. – No matter how enviable social heights we have reached, the structures of the brain remind us of our origin from mammals tuned by evolution to survival. The crisis of parting is interpreted by the unconscious as an imminent threat to well-being, and internal panic pushes you to return to your partner.

The first time after parting, we really are in a state of euphoria. Just as Truman Capote’s character Holly Golightly believed that while she was having breakfast at Tiffany’s, nothing bad would happen in her life, so we regain a sense of security by being next to a person whom we seem to know everything about. And even quarrels and mutual accusations are known in advance.

Needless to say, if we have not resolved our own problems, the relationship crisis will repeat itself, leading to an endless series of breakups and returns.

Return for the children

“I didn’t think that a seven-year-old son would be so hard on our parting with his father,” says Marina. – He withdrew into himself, lost interest in playing hockey, which he used to love, and returned from meetings with his dad in tears. It was hard for us to see this, and I suggested that the ex try to start over. Now we still live in the same house, we have an even relationship, but this does not make either of us happy.”

“Such decisions confuse the situation even more, giving rise to the illusion that the child has the power to decide whether the parents stay together or not,” says gestalt therapist Natalia Artsybasheva. “This responsibility is unbearable for children.”

“Adults have their own needs – for support, sex, acceptance, general interesting leisure. For the most part, they are not limited to performing only parental functions, says Gestalt therapist Maria Lekareva-Bozenenkova. – In addition, sometimes children are implicitly expected to be grateful in one form or another – from good grades to subordinating themselves to the interests of the family. If only one of the partners has cooled down, and the second dreamed of reunion, then returning for the sake of the children makes the second feel unnecessary.

So is it worth trying to start all over again?

“Sometimes a fiasco in a new relationship makes you reconsider priorities and take a different look at the merits of your former partner,” notes Maria Lekareva-Bozenkova. – A homebody husband from a bore will become a safe haven after a holiday man and a gulena. The careerist husband will turn from indifferent to the family into a person who provides freedom to communicate with friends and choose a hobby – against the backdrop of a jealous house builder.

“Only if we give ourselves the work and time to go through the crisis, rethinking a lot, do we have hope to start everything from scratch,” says Natalia Artsybasheva. “However, it is also important to be prepared for unexpected twists and turns. In a new relationship scenario, partners can switch places. The abandoned one, having gone through parting, acquires independence and a taste for greater freedom, self-realization and independence than before. The returnee is not very ready for this.”

The more balanced and deliberate the decision to leave was, the more difficult it is for us to decide to return – and the less likely it is that, upon returning, we will again begin to think about leaving a partner. Reunification is possible only for people who are mature enough to admit that both have made mistakes.