Dating Someone Who Just Got Out Of A Long-term Relationship

If you’re thinking of dating or you’re already dating someone who just got out of a long-term relationship, you need to know that there are some risks involved.

The man or woman you like may not be ready for a new emotional connection because he or she is still craving the connection with an ex. He or she may appear very affectionate and clingy—and everything may seem perfect on the surface, but deep inside, this person may not be clinging to you because of love.

He or she may be so loving because of post-breakup pain and a strong wish to be loved and deemed as important. Even though you can feel that the relationship is written in the stars, therefore, you could be this person’s pain reliever.

No matter what your gut instinct tells you, you must be careful about dating someone who’s not over his or her ex yet. If this person’s ex changes his or her mind and wants your boyfriend or girlfriend back, chances are that your partner won’t hesitate to go back.

Your partner could take the first chance to go back to his/her ex because reconciliation would take his/her pain away, boost his or her self-esteem, and provide shelter.

And this is something that could make you feel rejected and put you in the same position your partner is in right now.

So if you’re contemplating dating someone who just got out of a long-term relationship, my advice is to think things through. Keep in mind that breakups take 8 months on average to get over and that you could get badly hurt if your partner betrays you and leaves you.

Of course, the person in question may never leave you and his or her ex may never come back to play with his or her feelings. But regardless of that, you should be prepared and know that many dumpees struggle to connect with someone new after the breakup because they aren’t ready for a new connection that quickly.

They’re ready to bond with their ex because they’re dependent on their ex for happiness, but they aren’t ready to bond with a person whose main purpose is to bandage their emotional wounds and serve as a distraction.

It’s extremely hard to connect with someone new when you still crave an old flame. For most people (and I stress most), it’s a very difficult task because the new person and the dumpee both have different expectations in the relationship.

The person who’s ready for the relationship is excited and wants the relationship to move in a certain direction whereas the dumpee’s goal is to heal first and only then invest in the relationship. By default, they are emotionally incompatible and likely to stay emotionally incompatible until they’ve dealt with their differences.

Only couples who are self-aware, patient, and understanding of each other’s different emotional states and needs can work together and stay together So the question it all comes down to is are you and your partner willing to work as a couple through the good and (especially) the bad?

If you are because you have the determination to do so, then perhaps you can push through the heartbreak together and grow as a couple. But if one of you isn’t ready for all the ups and downs and the challenges that come with emotional unavailability, then you’re probably going to have a hard time staying connected.

I’m not saying that a dumpee can’t have a successful relationship with someone who’s ready for a relationship, but it does take two very mature mindsets to make it work.

The person who’s ready for a new relationship must not push the dumpee to open up quickly and give more than he or she can give and the dumpee must understand that he or she is still grieving over the previous relationship and that he or she shouldn’t connect that grief with the new person and give up too quickly.

In this post, we’ll talk about whether you should date someone who just got out of a long-term relationship. We’ll also talk about a dumpee dating a dumpee and what it takes for the dumpee to commit to the new relationship.

Dating someone who just got out of a long-term relationship

Dating a guy or a girl who just got out of a long-term relationship takes a lot of work. Not only does it require understanding, but it also requires some serious relationship knowledge and a lot of self-awareness. If you don’t have these skills, you can inadvertently pressure your partner into doing more than he or she is capable of doing and force him or her to rebound with you.

Your partner, on the other hand, needs a different set of skills. He or she needs patience and perseverance and a strong belief that the relationship can and will work no matter the difficulties he or she encounters.

Both you and the person who was recently dumped have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and treat each other with the utmost respect. You have to do it even if you’re anxious and unsure about the relationship as this kind of relationship is very fragile.

It can easily break when someone feels wronged, pressured, or over-relied on.

As a person who’s ready to invest in this relationship, you have to be rationally and emotionally prepared to understand your partner’s emotional struggles. Your partner as a dumpee, however, must be rationally ready (mature enough to successfully deal with the breakup pain, ex-cravings, and occasional setbacks).

Dating a heartbroken person isn’t easy because that person still fantasizes about the previous relationship. Even if his or her relationship was toxic and/or abusive, a part of him or her still misses the connection and wonders what it’d be like if that relationship got another chance.

These fantasies and reminders of the past can affect the dumpee so much that he or she loses faith in the new relationship and goes back to obsessing about the previous one.

That’s why you need to be careful about this and keep in mind that dumpees usually don’t get over the breakup right away. They tend to stay emotionally dependent on their ex-partner for a while because they’re in pain and hope that their ex-partner will realize their worth and boost their self-esteem (help them improve the way they see themselves).

So if you just started dating someone who got out of a long-term relationship, my advice is to discern how broken-hearted this person is. If he or she is extremely broken-hearted and visibly in a lot of pain, dating this person may not be a very good idea.

There’s a decent chance that this person won’t be able to establish a healthy bond with you and that he or she will knowingly or unknowingly rely on you for the lack of love and affection he or she receives from the person who means to most to him or her.

Red flags to look out for when dating a dumpee

There are many things you should look out for when you’re dating someone who just came out of a long-term relationship. You should especially be careful if that person is a dumpee because dumpees tend to seek new relationships to make themselves feel better.

Many of them claim to love the person they’re with, but this love is often just a desperate need for recognition rather than actual love. For the person you’re with to truly love you, he or she needs to get to know you first and not just love-bomb you and promise you nice things.

That’s not what makes a relationship great.

Anyone can say that they love their partner, but not everyone actually means what they say. Some dumpees merely project their need for love (or rather self-love) onto their partner because they wish to be loved and healed.

What they actually mean is that they like their partner and that they wish to obtain reassurance and feel safe in a relationship with him or her.

I noticed that many dumpees profess their love very early on. They say they’re lucky to have met their partner and that they feel so good when they’re with him or her. Such dumpees normally feel “the love” when the relationship is new and exciting.

But when the relationship gets through the love stage, they realize that love has left their system and that their partner smothers them with his or her “unrealistic” expectations and demands.

There are many red flags you should look out for when you’re dating a dumpee. Below are just a few of the more common ones.

The two most important types of behavior you should pay attention to are love-bombing and promises that are said early on in the relationship seemingly for no reason. These behaviors indicate infatuation and a fairytale-like imagination.

And a strong imagination, accompanied by love sparks doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re twin flames who were destined to meet each other.

Instead, it often indicates that someone is impatient and unwilling to get to know the other person slowly and thoroughly. Usually, this happens because someone is hurting and unable to let go of the past.

Dumpees often profess their love with the intention to receive love. It’s a basic psychological technique they use to get love from their partner and mend their broken hearts.

Just how sad or depressed people often start love-bombing their partner, so do dumpees who are in pain and lack control over their healing process.

To recap, you need to look out for signs of emotional unavailability. The more signs you find and the bigger these signs are, the less likely it is that your relationship will develop into a strong, long-lasting relationship.

Should you date someone who just got out of a long-term relationship?

Personally, I wouldn’t risk dating someone emotionally unavailable (not over his or her ex) and not ready for a serious romantic relationship. Although a relationship with a broken-hearted person in it can work (I’ve seen it happen a few times before), it’s not a very secure and stress-free relationship to be in.

Since your partner just got out of a serious relationship, his or her old relationship is still very close to him/her. Your partner thinks about that relationship, is hurt because of it, and may even be involved in some kind of post-breakup drama.

And that’s the kind of drama you don’t want in your life. You want to be with someone who’s focused on you and not his/her ex.

If your partner is the dumper, he or she might occasionally reject his or her ex, feel empowered from the rejection, and expect you to be the opposite of his or her ex. Your partner could grow resentful of the traits that his or her ex displayed throughout the relationship and get upset when you display some of those traits.

But if your partner is the dumpee, then the situation could be reversed. Your partner could still talk to the dumper and have high hopes that the relationship with him or her will work out one day.

Before you decide whether dating an emotionally unavailable person is a good idea, you need to understand that it could take a very long time for your partner to detach and fall in love with you for the reasons that you want your partner to love you.

It could take a long time and nothing good could come out of it in the end. It might just leave you with a broken heart and unnecessary separation anxiety. The decision is yours to make.

Does dumpee dating another dumpee work?

I’ve seen this work a few times as well. It seems to me as if dumpees confide in each other about their relationships and find closure in mutual understanding. In a way, we could say that they are on the same page and that they bond through pain and suffering.

As they say, misery loves company. And a dumpee dating another dumpee does seem to work to some degree. At least initially because they feel that they understand each other.

The problem with this kind of relationship though is that two dumpees don’t always love each other. Sometimes they’re with each other just to have someone help them cope with pain and anxiety. That’s why couples in this kind of relationship don’t always create a healthy romantic bond. They create an excessive emotional reliance which tends to break when they process their breakups and become emotionally healthier.

The relationship itself is based on problem-solving rather than enjoying themselves and bonding through love and positivity.

For this kind of relationship to work, both dumpees must have bigger goals in mind. They must both want to be with each other, have respect for each other, and most of all, develop selfless, give-take dynamics.

Dumpees can do that by listening to each other and respecting each other’s boundaries. They’re both still attached to their exes, so they mustn’t push each other to commit and do too much at once. Again, they must have similar, healthy expectations and maintain their relationship with near-perfect communication.

If communication and expectations aren’t synchronized, chances are that their willingness to invest in the relationship isn’t either and that they’ll break up when they realize they’re too fundamentally from each other.

It’s important what stage of a breakup these dumpees are in and how fast they can get through the rest of the stages. For example, if they’re in the first stage (in denial), it could be too emotionally draining for them to invest in each other and stay together. Stress could engulf them and cause them to become impatient with each other.

But if they’re in the acceptance or recovery stage, then it’s much easier for them to work together and talk about their problems without overwhelming each other and making each other feel that they want to go back to their exes.

All in all, the chances for a dumpee-dumpee relationship to succeed are very low. For them to work out in the end, they have to be mature, understanding of each other’s emotional capabilities, and willing to help each other deal with the breakup after effects.

Are you dating someone who just got out of a long-term relationship and you’re waiting to see if your relationship can work? Share your thoughts with other readers below.

Or if you prefer to talk to us privately, you can find out how to do that here.

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.