Do your exes try to come back? Some of mine do, and some don’t. This is my history, ending with some advice for how to deal with an ex who returns, and how to attempt a return yourself.
At one time I thought it was only the narcissitically challenged ones that attempt returns using renewed love bombing. But that theory hasn’t proven true.
The one man who isn’t a narcissist made a clean break after our divorce. I’m okay with that. I would have preferred to remain friends, but our journey to the end was extremely complicated.
One who is, simply kept a low-key flirtation/inspirational type thing going. The other cut me out entirely. Of course, that may be his fear of the hot-headed woman he married after me. She did wreck his office once when they were seeing each other while we were still married.
I recently blocked my first husband whom I married when I was nineteen. It only took 45 years. Our communication was on-and-off during most of that time, with only occasional texts the last few years. Until I realized he’d been lying by omission and was in a “committed-for-him” relationship. That’s when I blocked him.
I’ve tried to go back to people before. My first husband — the one I recently blocked — and I dated briefly again nearly twenty years ago. It didn’t take long before he was leading me on while seeing someone else. History does repeat itself. Or at least he repeats history.
A few years ago — maybe 15— I reached out to two or three men I had loved and left, or we had never really tried a relationship for any number of reasons. One said no. He loves me and wants to stay friends, but wasn’t in a space to be with me. Our entire history — also over forty years — has been a comedy of errors in timing.
Now he says he doesn’t remember or understand why he said no, and has invited me to visit him in Panama where he moved for retirement. I’ll go. However, I can’t see how our dynamic will have changed. Even if it hasn’t, he’s a good and loyal friend. And I’ve never been to Panama. So there’s that.
I don’t remember any others I reached out to, but presumably they were in relationships or had also moved far away. I remember feeling sad and rejected at first, but I’m a realist about love after so many experiences of its variations.
I also have deep, strong love for myself that I came to through emotional labor, a lot of therapy, Inner Child work, and mindfulness. My relationship with myself is the most powerful one I’ve had in life. I treasure it.
So my feelings of rejection were fleeting. I didn’t need to return to any of my past loves or lovers, I simply thought with the changes I’d made in me, and that maybe they had made, that we could give it another go and see what happened. I like the idea of a life partner, if we can make it work.
I’m not perfect, of course. I still have times of anger when my hurt Inner Child is triggered. Or when I want to defend the little girl inside me. But my temper fits are way fewer and much farther between, especially when I’m in healthy connection with someone.
I also have deep, strong love for myself that I came to through emotional labor, a lot of therapy, Inner Child work, and mindfulness. My relationship with myself is the most powerful one I’ve had in life. I treasure it.
My anger flared up almost two years ago in a relationship because I had kept my anger at him for things he’d said to me inside too long. Actually, I had told him, and he repeated what he said in different words. So my reaction was intense.
The relationship was long-distance, so I didn’t want to ruin our times together with confrontation. The times together were short, if frequent, and made it harder to have the difficult conversations.
My guess is that it would have ended before it did if we had lived closer, and were able to confront issues as they came up. Or possibly we could have worked through the issues. Who knows?
I also think we were both victims of new love mentality. Neither of us wanted to bring up real problems. In spite of our age and experience, or maybe because of it, each of us was hoping for an easy transition into a peaceful relationship.
Some people, who’ve had less traumatic childhoods, or who have worked through all their traumas can possibly slide easily into love.
Many of you — and I — can’t have that easy transition. Why? Because we’ve come this far in our lives, and we’ve experienced love and losses of love, so we know love will take work.
Love can’t blossom in a setting where people don’t look inside themselves, acknowledge their traumas, talk about them with one another, and take action to heal from them.
I’m a therapist — so I know I must discover a potential lover’s childhood and later traumas. Moreover, I need to know what they’ve done to heal, if they’re continuing to face their trauma and heal, or if they’ve done any healing work at all. Unhealed traumas shows up in anger and reaction to the other person. It may also appear as put-downs and negativity toward a partner if that’s how you were raised, or other destructive interactions.
I am aware, after the last two potential committed relationships ended, that I have more work to do. I’ve had ten years of consistent therapy, and see a therapist as needed now. The initial therapy didn’t focus much, and certainly not enough, on my father. There were issues I didn’t know to work on at the time. Now I know more. His love, while present, felt emotionally unavailable. Yes, that’s complicated.
I always thought I was dating and marrying men with my mother’s characteristics. Dynamic, charismatic, demanding. Now I know my pattern has been men with some of my father’s deep issues.
So I’ve now, at this late stage, gone back to my current therapist to deal with those issues. I hope that a future partner, or anyone who tries to reignite a flame with me, will do the same with his own issues.
Otherwise, I have a truly rich, varied, and happy life, even without a life partner. If you want to step up, bring self-awareness, openness, and your own healthy self-love — that isn’t arrogance or false confidence — then we can meet half-way.
If someone from your past is wanting to come back to you, I recommend you check out these things in yourself and with the other person:
Are you healed from your childhood and later traumas, or in the process of doing so?
Are they also working on, healed or healing from their traumas?
Are you happy and confident and have a balanced life on your own?
Are they happy and confident and have a balanced life on their own?
Have they, or will they, show you the behavioral changes they’ve made that caused the relationship to end in the first place?
Are you prepared to do the same?
. . .
Carol Lennox is a writer and psychotherapist in private practice for over twenty years. Incongruently, she writes a lot of humor. She’s also done a lot of dating, both online and in real life. Subscribe to her email list below to experience the intersectionality of her writing.
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This post was previously published on New Choices.
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