Couples have different abilities to endure a breakup and the challenges that accompany it. Some couples break up 5 times and get back together whereas others break up once and never reconcile. How many times they can break up and get back together depends mainly on their attachment to each other.
If they need each other to feel happy and fulfilled, they tend to get back together many times. They do so as long as they believe they have more to gain from the relationship than they have to lose. Every time they get back together, they get rid of their fears of being single and feel secure and goal-oriented.
The relationship gives them assurance and enables them to get various benefits from it—benefits such as companionship, love, validation, purpose, and support.
Unfortunately, with each subsequent breakup, the relationship becomes more strained and difficult to maintain. It makes couples take each other for granted and less determined to work on themselves and the relationship.
Those who break up twice or more usually keep breaking up.
Their instincts tell them to repeat old patterns and run away from complications just as they did in the past. As a result, they keep breaking up until they become emotionally depleted, resentful, and love-deprived. There’s only so much discontent, unhealthy behavior, and space a relationship can withstand.
If no solution is found (and quickly), it’s often only a matter of time before a couple has a final breakup and leaves the damaged relationship behind. At some point, the relationship gets to a point where it becomes too painful to stay in it.
That’s when a couple disconnects completely and leaves the relationship permanently.
Don’t think that a couple will keep getting back together forever. Even if they love each other dearly, love won’t survive unresolved problems and constant ups and downs. Issues will likely keep piling up, making it more tempting for a couple to quit and look for happiness elsewhere.
If you’re wondering how many times you can break up and get back together, you can do it as long as your happiness, goals, and meaning depend on your (ex)partner. As long as you feel a connection and want to achieve your relationship goals with the person you love, you can continue to get back together.
You can do so even if the relationship isn’t the healthiest and the most meaningful.
How good the relationship is doesn’t matter if you can’t even imagine not being with this person. Hence, the most important factor when it comes to getting back together again and again is how badly you want or need your ex.
If you depend or overdepend on him or her for emotional support, self-love, finances, or shelter, you’ll probably stick with him or her through many breakups. Each time you break up, you’ll feel empty, scared, and suicidal and want your ex to help you deal with your hardships.
That doesn’t mean your ex will take you back, though. Your ex will also need a good incentive to be with you. You won’t be able to get back together just because you want another chance. Reconciliations depend mainly on the dumper and his or her motives for wanting to be with the dumpee.
If your ex has a negative opinion of you—and that opinion doesn’t change with time, nothing you say or do will inspire him or her to get back with you. Your endeavors will only make you look desperate and unattractive and deter your ex from wanting to be with you again.
So bear in mind that desperation isn’t a trait you want to show to someone who dumped you. You especially don’t want to show it if your ex left you because you were too clingy, needy, demanding, and unambitious. You want your ex to think you’re stronger and more self-reliant than he or she thought.
And you can make your ex think that by staying away from him or her and focusing on your wants and needs. Self-focus won’t necessarily re-attract your ex, but it will prevent your ex from thinking even worse of you. It will let you preserve your worth as a dumpee and encourage your ex to wonder about you.
If your ex gets scared of losing you and comes back like before, you’ll need to make sure this is the last time you break up and reconcile. Multiple breakups are a sign of a poor relationship mentality and a lack of determination.
Your ex would have improved these things by now if he or she could.
In today’s post, we discuss how many times you can break up and get back together before a relationship ends for good.
How many times can you break up and get back together?
Although you can break up and get back together an unlimited number of times, most couples only break up once or twice. They don’t get numerous chances because breakups destroy their determination and commitment and hinder them from seeing each other’s worth and redeveloping romantic feelings.
When they break up, they (dumpers) think they got less than they deserved and that they’re happier now that they’re single and in control of their life. Because of such convictions, they develop a belief that they can be happy alone and that their ex isn’t as important as they thought.
Breakups make them extremely doubtful about their ex’s importance, so they focus on their ex’s bad traits and their newfound happiness.
If they don’t miss their ex romantically, they don’t return to their ex. It doesn’t matter how many times they broke up and got back together because they’re convinced the breakup freed them and made them feel good.
When they break up, they experience immense relief and a desire to try new things. Going back to their ex isn’t a viable option for them unless they can’t detach and find happiness without their ex.
So how many times can you break up and get back together? Most people break up only once. They only need one breakup to learn and improve from their mistakes and recommit to the relationship. If they don’t make the necessary changes after their first breakup, they tend to stay doubtful and break up again (or multiple times).
By doing so, they put immense strain on the relationship and struggle to break their relationship-destructive patterns.
How many times a couple can break up depends entirely on them. If they can forgive each other, discover their reasons for needing each other, fall back in love, and not meet anyone new, they can keep getting back together forever.
The problem though is that people these days have limited patience and perseverance. They have a tipping point where they get tired of fighting an endless uphill battle and decide to end their on-and-off relationship.
They just need to gather the strength to paint a negative picture of their ex and stay away from their ex.
Usually, one person initiates most if not all the breakups. He or she has significantly more power than the other person and as a result, takes the relationship for granted. A lack of patience and gratitude causes him or her to get overwhelmed or annoyed and brings an end to the long-term relationship.
Keep in mind that a relationship can’t thrive when a couple constantly feels that the only way to be happy is to break up. It can only stagnate and get worse.
A breakup indicates that a couple is having trouble communicating and/or bonding and that they will disconnect if they don’t soon do anything about it.
They may not break up right away, but they certainly shouldn’t expect better results when their mentalities and behavior stay the same. They should expect their problems to recur and get worse.
Even though some couples stay together for another year or longer before they break up again, they don’t do anything to improve their relationship mentality, behavior, or perception of their ex. They address some of their problems but not the main problems that led to the breakup.
In other words, they merely put a bandaid on the relationship and focus on feeling loved.
A couple who breaks up must get to the root cause of their problems. They must spend some time apart to reflect on their issues and find the determination to work on issues together. If they rush back together every time they break up, they seldom make enough positive changes to give the relationship what it needs to work.
The more times they break up, the less likely it is that one of their breakups will scare them enough to make some serious changes.
That’s why couples should break up only 1 time. Preferably, they should avoid breaking up altogether. But if they must break up and get back together, they better address their differences right away. If they ignore the need to evolve, they won’t outgrow themselves, avoid making the same mistakes, and stay in love.
If you’re wondering how many times can you break up and get back together, you should ask yourself how many times you and your ex can tolerate the same mistakes and differences before one of you gets fed up and leaves. How strong is your commitment to each other and what do your backup plans look like?
If you’re already talking to other people, the relationship will probably end when one of you develops a connection with someone else. That’s when you’ll stop thinking about reconciling and start feeling infatuated with the new person.
That being said, here’s how many times you can break up and get back together.
A breakup is a sign that something major is wrong with the relationship. Someone’s mentality is preventing the relationship from flourishing and existing.
Multiple breakups are even worse. They’re an indication of recurring problems and that couples haven’t been able to find or correct their flaws and differences.
Even though they had many chances to become better versions of themselves, they got too comfortable or reversed back to their old selves before they permanently changed for the better.
Regardless of why they broke up multiple times, breakups impacted their ability to resolve problems and prevented them from appreciating each other and wanting to make the relationship work. They got complacent and let their relationship fail.
That’s why you should do your best on your first try. Don’t neglect yourself and the relationship and expect your relationship to overcome a breakup or multiple breakups. You don’t know if it will overcome a single breakup. Your ex could associate stress and pain with you and ditch you for months or years.
I don’t know what your ex will do, but if your ex falls out of love and holds you responsible for his or her pain and unhappiness, your ex will keep you at a distance. Your ex will stay away from you and treat you like a stranger or worse.
Consider yourself lucky if your ex comes back once, let alone multiple times. An ex who comes back (especially within days) normally does so because he still loves you and wants you to change your behavior.
Someone who comes back after weeks or months, on the other hand, returns because he can’t find a (suitable) partner, keep a relationship, or find happiness elsewhere. He sees you as a backup plan – as someone he can fall back on when his main goals become unattainable.
Should I take back someone who left me many times?
Whether you take back an ex who broke up with you multiple times is up to you. But I’d be extremely careful with a person like that. I’d keep in mind that he has left me multiple times and that he’ll likely leave again when similar problems emerge.
People show us, not tell us who they are. They reveal their emotional investment, attitude, and readiness for a relationship over a long period. That’s why all we have to do is wait for something difficult to happen to them and wait for them to respond.
Their response tells us everything we need to know, starting with what they’re like as people and how they think of us.
Even though everyone can make a mistake, leaving you more than once wasn’t a mistake. It’s a recurring problem that hasn’t improved and likely won’t improve in the future.
If it was going to improve, you wouldn’t be in this situation today. You’d have found common ground and functioned better as a couple.
It’s more than fair to think negatively of someone who has left you multiple times due to his own issues. It’s okay to think of him as a quitter who gave you hope and wasted your time.
You got dumped and hurt multiple times because he didn’t or couldn’t change what he needed to change.
I would personally be very skeptical about an ex coming back just once. I’ve seen enough reconciliations to know that some dumpers come back for themselves and lose interest shortly after. They have no intention of working on themselves and finding ways to avoid breaking up.
If someone broke up with me many times, I would lose trust in that person and go no contact. I’d cut my ex off and refuse to get back together if she had a change of heart. This is, of course, easier said than done.
Unlike you, I’m not withdrawing from my ex and rebuilding my self-esteem. I’m doing okay, so I can only tell you what I’d do rationally.
Emotionally, I’d likely feel tempted to talk to my ex and get back together. I’d check my phone obsessively and wonder if she thinks about me too. My thoughts and feelings would change multiple times daily, depending on my self-esteem and attachment to my ex.
All in all, you can get back with your ex hundreds of times if you want to. But keep in mind that every time you take your ex back, it becomes easier for your ex to leave. If you don’t do anything about it, your ex will eventually lose interest and feelings and leave for good.
You can avoid that by forcing your ex to change or by staying broken up.
If you decide to give the relationship another chance, make sure you’re giving your ex a chance (not the other way around). Make sure you’re in control of the breakup. You don’t want your ex to take you for granted again and leave when it becomes convenient for him or her.
What’s your opinion on this topic? How many times can you break up and get back together? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
And if you’re looking for help with your relationship or breakup, sign up for coaching here.
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. Learn more about me or get in touch today.
