Hadley’s Intro: You may save months of couples counseling
if you explore these questions before you reunite
with a former love. The final tip takes the pressure
off a reunion. Enjoy this guest post courtesy of NYTimes
Written by Catherine Pearson
When the superstars Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck
married in 2022, decades after calling off their
initial engagement, it seemed like the stuff of a
romantic Hollywood blockbuster.
“Love is beautiful,” Ms. Lopez wrote after the
couple’s Las Vegas nuptials. “Love is kind.
And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years
patient.”
But Ms. Lopez filed for divorce from Mr. Affleck
on Tuesday after two years of marriage, ending
months of frenzied media speculation about their
shaky union, and highlighting a decidedly
unromantic truth: Reuniting with an ex-partner
does not guarantee a happy ending.
“I have certainly seen people who are in
long-term happy relationships who got back
together after having broken up,” said Elizabeth
Earnshaw, a licensed marriage and family therapist
in Philadelphia. “I would say that is the
exception to the rule.”
Many couples counselors said they recommended
taking an almost clinical approach to reuniting
with an ex — even (or especially) if you are
swept up in the thrill of rediscovering old
passions. Here are four questions therapists
recommend asking.
- Do we both understand why we broke up?
That is a “laughably obvious” question to
start with, admitted Lisa Marie Bobby, a licensed
marriage and family therapist in Denver and the
founder of Growing Self, a counseling and coaching
service. But if you and your partner cannot both
articulate a clear answer without defensiveness or
tension, that is a red flag, she said.
What patterns hurt your relationship? What deeper
issues led one or both of you to see it as
unsustainable?
“It can be very hard to get visibility onto the
real ‘why,’” Dr. Bobby said. She often
recommends seeking therapy individually or as a
couple to gain insight.
- Am I just lonely? Are you?
Loneliness can bring on feelings of longing and
wistfulness, said Anthony Chambers, a
board-certified couples and family psychologist
and the chief academic officer at the Family
Institute at Northwestern University. It can also
cause people to take on an especially rosy view of
past relationships,
he said.
If you recognize that your desire to reconnect is
rooted in loneliness, you might benefit from
dating. Or you might want to think about
strategies for finding connection that have
nothing to do with romantic love — perhaps by
focusing on strengthening your ties with friends,
family and your community.
And if you find yourself swept up in nostalgia for
an old love, grab a piece of paper and jot down
some of the challenges you faced in the
relationship, Dr. Chambers said. The idea isn’t
to dwell on them but to be clearheaded about the
past. Think of it as due diligence, he said,
noting that it can also help foster conversations
with your ex as you’re trying to decide if you
should give the relationship another chance.
- What has changed this time around?
Start by asking yourself whether you might do
things differently this time around, Ms. Earnshaw
said. You could ask questions like “Have I
changed what I’m expecting in a relationship?”
she said. “Have I changed the way I communicate?
Have I changed the way I regulate my emotions?”
Then consider: What has changed about your
partner? Most of the couples Ms. Earnshaw knows
who have successfully reunited have clear answers
to those questions.
“They’re able to say, ‘Well, we’ve grown
up. We’ve gotten jobs. We’ve matured. We’ve
gone to therapy. We’ve thought ourselves
through, and we’ve had other
relationships,’” Ms. Earnshaw said.
Even if your life circumstances, or your
partner’s, have remained pretty much the same,
you each may have grown emotionally, Dr. Bobby
said. For instance, your partner might have gone
to therapy or done a lot of personal reflection,
she said. And that new information may have helped
the partner understand problematic decision-making
in past relationships.
- How will we know if this is working?
Before diving back into anything, come up with
some benchmarks that will help you, or both of
you, figure out if things are better this time,
Dr. Bobby recommended. One could be as simple as a
regular gut check that you are not falling into
old patterns.
“Too many people waste years in these
relationships, going to the same rodeo over and
over again,” Dr. Bobby said. “It’s easy to
get stuck.”
Ms. Earnshaw said it could help to ask yourself
something along the lines of: Do I trust that if
the same issues or problems arise again I will
navigate them differently? Will I speak up this
time and put clearer boundaries in place? Will I
leave early on rather than dragging things out?
Dr. Chambers has worked with some couples who have
found it helpful to set a timeline in place when
reuniting — though he admitted that this
approach was not for everyone.
They “think of it like a lease,” he explained.
“‘We’re going to try this for six months.
And at six months we’ll see if we want to
renew.’” Sometimes they do. And sometimes, he
said, they realize, “Even with our best efforts,
we seem to be running into the same problems
again.”
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These questions identify the personal growth
each of you has made since your separation.
Remember, relationships are our classroom.
It’s all about growth for each of you.
Creating happy, sexy love that lasts,
Hadley Finch
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