Youth Incorporated Magazine

Do you still think about a certain person and wonder if things would be different this time around? Nisha JamVwal explores the possibilities of a re-united relationship

“He wants me back, should I risk it?” asked my school friend Monisha, on getting back after a bad break up and rather a public one too. “I’m thinking of getting back with him.”

Getting back with someone you were in a bitter battle some years ago is not something I’ve ever thought easy. Of course, you have the famous Hollywood couple Liz Taylor with Richard Burton. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton came together after devastating their celebrated marriages only to have such a tempestuous marriage that they divorced and then came back to remarry because they couldn’t live without each other. Only to repeat their history of volatile warring that delighted the paparazzi and sold film magazines but drove each other to alcoholic binges of hurt and rage. They had married each other twice, and when Liz grew older she had said that had Richard lived, she was sure they would have married again.

Having personally seen a rebounding or two I set about finding if there are indeed possibilities on making the second time around quite a winner. “I didn’t learn from my mistake, he’s broken my faith again, after promising and promising it won’t happen again” I’ve heard that often from my girlfriends. It is said that promises are made to be broken. It is likely to be true in defective relationships. People never change, may to some extent be true.

In my mind, there are two simplistic ways of looking at getting back after a broken relationship with your ex. One is that if the bitterness and temper is the cause, the pattern is not easy to change. The second view for the cause is that once you have made mistakes, parted and lost each other you may then become more careful about being hurtful and be consciously caring about each other so that you avoid doing things that created the parting in the first place.

THE BARRIERS TO SUCCESS ARE SELF-IMPOSED

First of all, a separation is a grave step that is taken as perhaps the last resort, then getting back together is an even more serious consideration. Certainly a brave step and not for the faint-hearted, but then if there’s a wish then there needs to be a will. Ideally, it sounds like all’s well that ends well for many reasons, but one needs deep thought and perhaps help from all around you. The familiarity between partners works both ways, conducive to greater success the second time around after the earlier mistakes and aberrations, or disaster-prone from rancorous earlier memories that will not go away.

It’s not “one size fits all” with cases of successful reunions and not. If one is very forgiving it is workable, however, if one clings to the bitterness and rancour that brought about the divide and the “you did this and you did that” syndrome then it’s not a workable relationship and it is better to go your separate ways. It could also be that one got back out of loneliness, not for the correct reasons, or then the hurt or betrayal was too painful and runs too deep. Where there are pain and past angst unable to be swept away with love and affection it is often better to move on and make a new start.

Only when you close one door can you allow others to open. Yet statistics suggest that when a couple that has broken up comes back there is approximately a sixty-seven per cent success rate. Reuniting with the help of a counsellor is advisable as you are both then equipped with guidance and some mental rulebook to make it work. You came together to make it work after all, especially if there is a long term relationship on the cards.

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DIFFERENTLY

The success rate of reunited relationships is also for reasons like ‘the absence which made the heart fonder’ to quote a cliché. Secondly, you went your separate ways and found that the grass on the other side of the hedge is not really better. You had created the right fit with your boyfriend, lover or spouse and yet you let it go because you took each other for granted. Also the second time you have more care and respect because you realize that the factor beyond the attraction, the physical aspects, even the companionship, that will stand the test of endurance, in the long run, is mutual respect. Keeping in mind the “different strokes for different folks” idea, reuniting with your estranged partner works out to be a great comfort zone if the couple is open to each other’s views, to listening, to empathising, understanding and most of all, making it work.

A formal or informal contract of resolutions and most importantly a large-hearted endeavour to forgive and forget works well. Having separated, getting back together is idealistically a good idea often because of your friends and family involved and so much past investment that endures and makes things conducive to new beginnings. The priority has to be harmony at almost all costs.

Also, sometimes a couple may be hasty and be caught in their decisions or maybe over concerned advisers take sides and urge a separation. Then, when things take on a more reasonable perspective, and extraneous influences are put aside, maybe reuniting is a great idea.

It is ultimately not about whose fault it is, (which may not be totally one-sided) but how much mature sincerity the partners bring to making it work. Sensitivity to the other, which is very different from the counterproductive oversensitivity, addressing the reasons for the breakup and a will to try and bring mutual understanding that can make a happy and permanent relationship.