Is It Normal For Couples To Break Up And Get Back Together?

Although it’s common for couples to break up and get back together, I wouldn’t call it normal. A breakup is a sign that something is seriously wrong with the relationship and that couples will likely break up if they get back together.

They’ll repeat the same mistakes and sooner than later have another fallout. This is because, for most couples, unhealthy thoughts and emotions get worse (not better) over time. Eventually, they get so bad that couples can’t ignore them anymore and decide to break up for good.

That’s when you can notice resentment, contempt, and irritation on one side and anxiety, nostalgia, fear, and depression on the other.

Mind you that getting back together the next day can hardly be called a breakup. I call it a fakeup – a disagreement and power flexing. When a real breakup happens, the dumper disconnects from the dumpee entirely and doesn’t want the dumpee around anymore.

He or she is not only emotionally exhausted from the unfulfilling relationship but also feels smothered and uncomfortable in the dumpee’s presence. The dumper needs months and months of space to process these feelings and improve his or her perception of the dumpee.

If couples break up and get back together shortly after (let’s say within a week), that’s usually not enough time for them to improve their shortcomings, discard their unhealthy emotions, and settle their differences. The moment they get back together, they stop hurting and lose the desire to self-reflect and improve themselves.

That explains why reconciled couples who get back together soon after breaking up usually continue the old relationship rather than start a new one. They don’t give each other enough space to discover their flaws and do things differently.

If a week of space sufficed and it was so easy to change their perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors, all reconciled ex-couples would stay together. They’d forgive each other, get rid of their abandonment fears or fears of uncertainty, snap out of depression, learn to trust each other again, and be the people they want each other to be.

But unfortunately, it’s not that easy to change internally. In fact, many exes don’t change much if at all. Instead of taking the breakup seriously, they view themselves as victims and blame each other. We could say they procrastinate and get back together mainly due to pain (dumpees) and nostalgia or fear (dumpers).

Many exes who rush back into a relationship ignore the reasons behind the breakup and soon break up again. Another breakup is almost inevitable as they follow the same patterns and expect different results.

Ex-couples who do the work typically start addressing their issues right away or a week or so after the breakup (after they’ve gotten out of denial). They know they aren’t compatible with their partner at the moment and that they need to make some healthy changes in their life.

Changes that would make them better for relationships.

Self-aware couples like that may stay together after forgiving each other and themselves. They may realize their flaws and the importance of growth. But for them to make the necessary changes, they usually need to stay broken up for a while.

How long they need depends on each person and the amount of work they need to do on themselves.

If they’re very argumentative, impulsive, prideful, and mean, they need at least a few weeks (probably months) to address those issues and get back together.

But if they don’t have serious flaws to work on (let’s say their ex cheated on them), then they just need to learn what they can from the breakup and wait for their dumper ex to fail miserably and have an epiphany.

Not all couples who break up and get back together reconcile for the right reasons, though. Some couples are so used to being with each other that they come back out of familiarity and fear of starting a relationship with someone new. Such couples attempt to settle for each other despite not making the best pair.

As a result, they soon face the same issues and break up again.

Some couples also reconcile because they can’t find a suitable partner. They look and look but get more and more frustrated and disappointed. A lack of success in their dating life makes them question themselves and opens their mind to exploring their previous relationships.

If such exes don’t quickly learn to respect and value each other, they may break up when they realize they don’t have romantic feelings for each other.

I could give thousands of examples of couples getting back together for the wrong reasons. But in this article, I’d just like you to know that the reason couples break up after getting back together is that they aren’t able to grow or grow fast enough.

If they rush back into a relationship, they don’t make any important changes. They think, feel, and behave the same way as before, and as a result, fail the same way too.

However, if they wait a year or two and still break up, then they probably haven’t worked on themselves enough or might have come back for selfish reasons.

Couples or ex-couples are emotionally compatible otherwise they wouldn’t have stayed together that long. They’d have broken up way sooner because they wouldn’t feel connected.

Therefore, it’s not emotional compatibility that’s missing in couples who keep breaking up. It’s their lack of understanding of themselves and each other.

If they understood why the breakup happened and what they can do to fix it, they could get the help they need to grow and be compatible in other ways as well. Sadly, they often choose not to do that. They prefer to hold each other accountable and as a result, not evolve.

In this article, we talk about whether it’s normal for couples to break up and get back together.

Is it normal for couples to break up and get back together?

It may be common for couples to give their previous relationship another try, but it’s far from normal or okay. The breakup is the last thing that could encourage (or rather force) couples to start thinking and working on themselves.

If they waste that chance, they won’t just fail to make the relationship work, but they’ll also stay as they are maturity-wise.

Consequently, their next relationship (with whomever it may be) won’t be much better or different. It will have the same or similar issues and fail when unresolved issues pile up.

The problem with relying on the breakup for self-improvement is that you may not get another chance to be with your ex. You may avoid all breakup mistakes, make all the right changes, and feel like a different person, but if this is a real breakup, your ex won’t change his or her mind about you.

At least not anytime soon.

Your ex will feel empowered by the breakup instead and avoid giving you a chance to explain yourself and woo him or her back.

You must understand that real breakups indicate the end of feelings and attachment. They show that the dumper has detached and that he or she finds the idea of getting back together repulsive. He or she would rather give someone new a try than go back to an ex who made (and still makes) him or her uncomfortable.

Couples can also break up due to some minor misunderstanding. In that case, they need to talk about the misunderstanding and make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future and that they don’t react so strongly.

Still, such couples reconcile very quickly. They don’t typically break up, but instead, go through a short physical (not emotional) separation phase and stay in love.

It’s up to you to determine if it’s normal for couples to break up and get back together. Sometimes fakeups happen, and couples overcome them. Other times, they keep neglecting themselves and their relationships and threatening breakups—and eventually break up for good.

When they break up for good, they become resentful and experience a permanent loss of attraction and feelings.

Perhaps my view on breaking up and getting back together will help you.

My partner and I implemented a strict no breaking up policy. We decided to put this rule in place to avoid getting tempted to break up and then sucked back into the cycle of breaking up and getting back together. If we were to break up once, nothing would stop us from breaking up again.

That’s why I suggest that couples set their relationship boundaries very high and stick to them at all costs. That’s the only guarantee that they won’t do hurtful things and ruin their relationship. Couples’ main goal should be to protect their relationship.

I suppose every person has a different understanding of whether it’s normal for couples to break up and get back together. Some couples break up multiple times and don’t give it much thought whereas others have no desire to get back together after they’ve broken up once.

If you’re not sure what to believe, it’s always best to avoid breaking up. Tell your partner you value him/her and that you’re all in or all out.

So remember. The higher your relationship standards are, the smaller the chance of falling out of love when problems and doubts arise. You’ll be able to resolve differences maturely and stay in love even if you’re going through a rough patch.

Love requires determination. Without determination, you might find it tempting to call it quits when emotions tell you to walk away and look for someone else.

With that said here are 6 reasons why I think it’s not normal for couples to break up and get back together.

Although it’s becoming more and more common for couples to break up and get back together, this isn’t a good thing. It’s a sign people have adopted a “plenty of fish in the sea” mentality and that they don’t commit easily and work on issues when they need to.

They seem to think it’s okay to break up and get back together later if they change their mind. The why do it now if you can do it later sort of thinking.

What people around you are doing doesn’t matter. They can live their life any way they want to live it. What truly matters is that you don’t normalize breaking up and getting back together.

Allowing yourself to detach, leave, and do what you want with whomever you want would lower your relationship standards and put your relationship/s at risk of breaking apart and staying that way permanently.

Most couples who break up time after time develop negative perceptions of their relationship and become resentful. That prevents them from growing as people and makes them less eager to get back together.

So if you’re going to break up and get back together for some reason, do it only once. One breakup should be enough for you and your partner to get the kick in the rear you need to realize each other’s worth and fix the issues that split you up.

But if you break up after that, then it’s probably time to call it quits. You and your partner would have broken the relationship-destructive patterns by now if you wanted to. It will be extremely difficult to improve your relationship standards after you’ve been allowed to say and do relationship-destructive things.

How many times can you break up and get back together?

There’s no limit to how many times you can break up and get back together. Some couples reunite literally 10 times. But as I’ve mentioned, every breakup decreases your chances of success significantly. It makes you get used to breaking up and forces you to conform to who you are as people and romantic partners.

In other words, multiple breakups make you give up on improving relationship standards and working on yourselves.

In turn, they destroy your faithfulness to the relationship and make you more vulnerable to relationship problems and temptations to cheat.

Yes, there are couples who break up twice or thrice and still manage to make their relationship work. But such couples oftentimes have to live with uncertainty and fear for a while. It depends on each couple, of course.

I’ve noticed that many couples who break up twice or thrice continue to break up. They’re too close to each other emotionally to not get triggered by each other and to see how their behavior and attitude make things worse.

To make real changes, they need to separate themselves for more than just a few days. They need months of time apart to gain a better perspective on the relationship and the things they need to work on.

Time and distance enable them to see things clearly (rationally) whereas a quick reconciliation forces them to perceive and treat their relationship the same way.

So if you just broke up, don’t try to rush back into a relationship with your ex. Give it some time and learn more about breakup dynamics instead. It’s important for you to understand why the breakup happened and how dumpees and dumpers should behave.

If your ex left you, your ex needs to get some space and focus on himself/herself. Your ex must feel free and capable of making his or her own decisions.

You, on the other hand, need to rebuild your self-esteem and figure out what you want. Right now, you probably want your ex back very badly. You don’t want anyone to tell you to accept the breakup and move on. Those words kill your hope.

And hope you’d rather keep. It gives you strength during this uncertain time.

But as you stay away from your ex, you should feel your rationality return and realize how important your ex is to you. You should see whether your ex is important to you or if you were just attached to your ex and wanted someone to love and be loved by.

Ideally, you should wait at least a few months before you get back with an ex who left you. During that time, you should work on your shortcomings and improve your life. Your dumper ex-partner most likely won’t do any self-work during the separation.

But that’s why you need to take your power back and force your ex-partner to reflect and grow after he or she has apologized and asked to be with you again. That’s how you can steer the relationship in a direction that is different and better from before.

Do you think it’s normal for couples to break up and get back together? How many reconciliations do you find acceptable? Let us know in the comment section.

And lastly, if you want to talk to us about it in detail, sign up for breakup coaching on this page.