Do Guys Go Back To Their First Love?

Guys never completely forget their first love. Sometimes, they stay in love after the breakup, and other times, they even redevelop feelings months or years later when they get an opportunity to do so.

What happens depends on how strong their connection was, how well they got along, and most importantly, what they do and how successful their next relationships are. 

If they date someone who fulfills their every need and makes them happy, they typically don’t see a reason to go back to their first love as they’ve found someone different and more compatible.

They go back only if they’re not as happy as they’d hoped to be and think their first love could resolve their problems and/or bring more happiness to their life than the life they’d chosen.

When they want more happiness than they currently have, they become nostalgic and regretful and miss the person they had their first serious relationship with.

Bear in mind that guys don’t go back to their first love just because that person was their first. They may remember their ex more vividly and feel drawn toward her because they went all in on that relationship, but that doesn’t make them hung up on their ex forever.

When they get over their ex, they detach and process their feelings just like they would with any other person. They essentially move on and look forward to dating other people.

First love is special not for its positives but for its negatives as in the first relationship, couples lack relationship knowledge and experience. They typically make more relationship mistakes, love naively, lack self-esteem, have high egos, and expect unrealistic things from their partners.

All these factors combined make individuals more attached and vulnerable in their first relationships than in the following ones. In other words, first-love relationships make them think they’ll be with their partner forever and that they should accept that and invest wholeheartedly.

Although there’s nothing wrong with investing (it’s necessary for a relationship to function and last), first-time partners often overinvest and love each other with the expectation of feeling validated and needed. This makes them highly dependent on each other and less dependent on themselves. 

That’s why it’s important for ex-couples to understand that the level of emotional attachment they feel towards their subsequent partners may not be as strong as it was towards their first. They will of course feel love, but it may not be to the extent that they feel emotionally dependent on their partner.

Emotional dependence isn’t love. It’s a craving for respect, validation, help, and stability. It’s something that gives first relationships unhealthy reasons to exist. Emotionally dependent couples fall in love with the idea of being in a perfect relationship and develop unrealistic expectations that their level of maturity isn’t able to accomplish.

I’m telling you this so you know that some guys could miss the mayhem or unrealism from the first relationship and confuse it for love. They could think their relationship deserves another chance because they never felt as attached as they did when they were with their first love.

Such guys lack relationship knowledge and prioritize their feelings over their rational thoughts. They’re convinced that a relationship that didn’t work but made them feel anxious and strong emotions in general may be worth exploring again.

Although not every first relationship is unhealthy, the truth is it often gives the impression that it needs to be revisited for the wrong reasons. It makes ex-couples remember that they needed each other to feel loved and that getting back together could make them feel the emotions they felt in the past.

Such emotions and cravings could bring them back together provided they don’t learn and improve after the relationship.

If they get back together with their first love just to feel strong emotions, they typically don’t make the relationship work because they soon learn that nothing’s changed and that they came back for the wrong reasons.

Those guys who come back for the right reasons and make their relationship last usually do the necessary work. They understand the relationship had some problems but that they’ve identified and resolved those problems.

As a result, they’re better prepared for relationship challenges and believe the relationship can work as long as they both take it seriously and continue to work on themselves and the relationship.

In today’s post, we discuss whether guys go back to their first love. We talk about when they’re the most likely to go back and when they may not.

Why do guys go back to their first love?

Guys usually go back to their first love for 2 main reasons.

1. Because they don’t grow and understand what love is.
2. Or because they fail to find someone who accepts them fully and makes them feel supported and loved.

If you expect your ex to return just because you were better than all the people he dated after you, you need to know it’s unlikely that his first love (you) will be his happiest relationship. I don’t doubt you as a person, but I do think that couples tend to be quite immature and impulsive in their first relationships.

They don’t know how to communicate and maintain their relationships, so they often bicker and demonstrate they’re incapable of expressing emotions respectfully. Their lack of ability to express themselves, resolve problems, and learn from their mistakes makes them fight and gradually become resentful.

And when they become resentful, it’s only a matter of time before they fall out of love, break up, and focus on the negative aspects of the relationship.

How they remember the relationship depends on the reasons their relationship ended. If someone cheated, they typically think of the cheater as an immoral human being and stay away from him or her for as long as they need to.

They want nothing to do with the cheater because he or she betrayed their trust and love.

First-love couples with the highest chances of success are those who’ve built relationships on love, trust, and respect. They may not have the highest chances of getting back together (unhealthy couples get back together more often), but they’re typically capable of reflecting and changing in ways they need to.

They can address their issues and have better relationships because of it.

So bear in mind that in first relationships, couples love naively and unconditionally. They may not have the healthiest relationships, but they do feel the strongest mixtures of emotions. If they break up and miss those emotions, they could prioritize them over peace and stability and come back to once again experience the ups and downs of the past.

On the other hand, they could also return if their relationship was healthy, balanced, and loving. But for that to happen, they typically need to date someone or some people who take them for granted and hurt them.

Basically, they need to learn the hard way that their first relationship had a future but that they took it for granted and chased the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

Sadly, first-love reconciliations are essentially cravings for love hormones. They’re desires to feel the way they felt when they encountered problems and fixed them. Fixing problems made them feel valued and needed and empowered them with addicting love hormones.

Therefore, the more emotional (not the healthier) the relationship with your ex was, the higher the chance that your ex will miss it and want to re-experience it. 

The biggest challenge for your ex is that your ex will have to forget about the problems that made him abandon the relationship. By forgetting the problems, he can disassociate negativity from you and crave only the highs.

He might be able to do that if he encounters problems he can’t resolve without your help.

So if you want to know, “Do guys go back to their first love,” know that it depends on many things, such as whether your ex was attached to you, what kind of attachment he had, what kind of problems he encounters, how he chooses to deal with problems, and whether he’s capable of disassociating negativity from you and perceiving you as a person who can ease his pain and make him happy.

Some exes, unfortunately, never let go of their resentment. They stop feeling angry months or years later, but they don’t change their opinion of their ex. They like to think of their ex as someone who hurt them and left them with no choice but to leave and self-prioritize.

Such dumpers don’t come back regardless of whether you were their first or last love. They don’t become sentimental because they laser focus on the negative things and think of themselves as victims. 

To come back, they need to completely change their thinking patterns and realize they weren’t perfect and that they made mistakes too.

So don’t think that exes never get over their first love. You will remember your first love the most (especially if you dated dozens of people), but you won’t stay broken-hearted and desperate for his love forever.

When you learn what love is and that there are plenty of people in this world who can love you more and make you feel better feelings than your first love did, you’ll take your ex off the pedestal and be glad the relationship ended.

It’s only difficult to take your mind off your ex right now because you’re still recovering from the abandonment.

But the moment you detach and meet someone you’re compatible with, you’ll see that people, regardless of gender get over their first love and that they have better relationships with the people they meet afterward. If a person is open to growth, every subsequent relationship should be better than the previous one.

This is because he or she picks more mature people, improves as a romantic partner, and encourages his or her partner to grow as well.

That said, here’s why guys go back to their first love.

How to make/prevent guys from going back to their first love?

If you want to reconcile with your first love, there’s nothing you can say and do that will make your ex want to be with you. First relationship/love or not, you can’t make your ex feel nostalgic and want to be with you just by talking to him and proving you can be trusted and useful.

Your ex has to see your worth and want to reconcile on his own. He’s the one who lost feelings and left, so naturally, he has to improve the way he thinks about you. And he can do that if the situation allows him or forces him to do it.

There are only two ways. He can either willingly think about you and the relationship he had with you or he can do it forcefully by hitting a snag. Usually, men need to suffer in order to lower their ego and pride and start to value the person they left. 

They need to experience some kind of failure that tells them they’re not happy and won’t be happy unless they choose a different path. One that looks and feels safe and fulfilling.

Coincidentally, the path their ex is on often looks promising, especially when their ex avoids making breakup mistakes and depicts strength and high self-esteem.

A confident ex-partner they haven’t heard from in a while can trigger their longings for the past provided they learned their lessons, processed the breakup, let go of negative feelings, and developed healthier perceptions of their ex.

However, if you are in a relationship with a guy who you suspect may return to his former lover, it’s important to understand that if he goes back to his ex, it’s not because you weren’t good enough but because he didn’t stop loving his ex or redeveloped feelings for her.

He chose his ex because he craved feelings from the past and wasn’t ready for a new relationship. Some guys date other people even though they would leave them in a heartbeat the moment their ex asks for another chance.

The best thing you can do is accept that you can’t force a guy to love you and be with you. All you can do is stay on your best behavior and hope that he values you as much as you value him.

Tell yourself that you’ll be okay even if he leaves and that in the worst-case scenario, you’ll eventually find someone who deserves you and wants you. That will keep your mind busy and stop you from believing in fairytales in which there’s only one person who can make you happy.

What do you think about this? Do guys go back to their first love? What compels them to come running back? Comment below and let us know.

Conversely, if you’d like to discuss this or any breakup or relationship topic privately, go to our coaching page and check out our coaching packages.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.