Relationships: Should you get back with your Ex?

Last year, Maria* from Toronto rekindled a romance with her high school sweetheart after having been apart for more than 12 years. When asked to explain why they reunited, she said: “When we broke up, we both had a lot of growing up to do. Now, we’re both in a different place. It just feels right.” A year and a half later, Maria and her beau are happily married and have a baby boy.

These fairytale endings are few and far between in relationships, but they do happen. It is possible for couples to break up, get back together and stay together. Somewhere between hearing one of these stories and watching Love Actually for the 60th time, many of us have had a moment where we think of an ex and ponder “What if?”.

If you are toying with the idea of getting back together with an ex, here are five things you should ask yourself before you take the plunge:

1. Do you miss them or just the idea of them?
Being in a relationship with someone comes with a lot of great perks: you never have to worry about sitting in a movie theatre alone and there’s always someone to eat brunch with on Sunday morning. When you spend time dating someone you develop routines. Regardless of who ended the relationship, when you break up, the absence of this other person leaves a gap in your social life. This is a good time to evaluate whether you miss the person – their personality, the conversations you had, the way they made you feel – or, do you just miss the feeling of not being lonely?

2. Are you idealizing the relationship?
The further you get from the relationship and the ugliness of the subsequent break-up, the easier it becomes to idealize the positive aspects of your time together. It’s so much more fun to daydream about the butterflies you had when you first met than it is to remember times you weren’t happy or fulfilled. Take a moment to acknowledge the good times but also make a list of the bad. Once you have all the facts in front of you, it will be easier to see whether the positive outweighs the negative or vice versa.

Are you still hung up on HIS Ex? Find out here.

More questions to ask before rekindling a relationship on the next page ...