It’s a valid question.
Who wants to waste more time on a repeat of the last go ‘round?
Should you give your ex another chance: How do you know?
So how do you know for sure?
You don’t.
I’d say that if you want to be 100% sure things will be different for you, don’t get back together. 🙅🏻♀️
Ok, so what if you are willing to gamble?🎲
Here is what I would offer you: there is a reason things are where they are right now.
👉🏻There are lessons in this for both of you.
Have you learned yours?
Figure out the lessons
Before you open your door to this person again, it would be worth it for you to take a step back and figure out the lessons of this relationship.
✔What is being shown to you?
✔Why are you accepting less than what you want?
✔What exactly is so attractive about this person (and I’m not talking about physically)?
✔What is triggering about this relationship and why?
Relationships are ALWAYS a two way street.
💥If you have it in your brain that your partner is ‘doing this to you’, or that s/he is the one that needs to change, I would invite you to explore this victim-y feeling.
You have a part to play.
How are YOU contributing to the current relationship dynamics?
Can you trust your partner has changed?
Yes, your partner could have ‘seen the light’ and realized the ways that s/he contributed to the negative relationship dynamics.
But it is also highly likely that s/he has not understood the WHOLE pattern.
And therefore WILL repeat it – at least to some degree.
An Example:
I will give you an example of this from my own life. 👇🏻
I met my second fiancé at work.
My gut told me ‘no’ but he was cute and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.
We dated and during the first year or so he really kept me at a distance.
Didn’t fully include me in his life, lied about who he really was, didn’t fully communicate with me and was pretty secretive about his former life and family.
When I’d had enough and pushed back, he changed his tune, sort of.
I took him back and he included me more (still not 100% but I thought what he gave was great!), and he stayed connected to me when he traveled.
Eventually he even asked me to marry him.
All seemed great…until I wanted to plan the wedding. He canceled the first plans (causing me to lose a lot of money in deposits).
Then when I tried to plan a second time, he drug his heels and refused to front deposits.
So I broke it off and moved out.
If I was honest with myself, I still didn’t have the level of inclusion and communication that I wanted when he came back.
But by comparison, it was SO much better than what I got at the beginning.
The SAME things were going on, just at a much more subtle level. But by comparison, it felt like a victory to me.
Not until I tried to get that final commitment did I realize it had all been an illusion.
Neither one of us had done the work.
🔥The only thing that happened was he gave me ‘enough’ of what I wanted to keep me on the hook. And I didn’t realize that until I hit the wall of what he was willing to give.
More than likely, (you and) your partner will be doing the same unless s/he has taken some time to really understand the pattern and work to heal it.
P.S. If you are interested in doing your own work around your attachment pattern in relationships, then I want to invite you to a chat with me to see how we can work together. In this free 60 minute session we’ll dive into exactly what is keeping you in a pattern of unsatisfying relationships and develop a plan for you to shift it. If you decide you want support in doing this work, we will can talk about what that will look like.
Schedule your free session here: https://jenyoungquist.com/schedule-appointment
