Romantic breakups are rarely simple. Beyond sadness and memories, they awaken invisible mechanisms that influence our choices and our emotions. Whether through attachment or fear of loneliness, we can find ourselves trapped in a cycle where returning to an ex seems to be a solution, sometimes illusory. Discover the deeper reasons – biological, psychological and emotional – that push us to rekindle these past relationships.
Neurological patterns
When we fall in love, certain parts of the brain linked to reward, motivation and pleasure become strongly activated and release dopamine (a chemical messenger linked to pleasure, reward or learning). These surges of dopamine modify our brain circuits, making the behaviors that cause this pleasant feeling instinctive, and the habit is then formed. If your brain has learned to respond to a daily partner, you might feel a withdrawal, like an addiction to a drug, and seek to rediscover that connection with him/her. This can cause you to go back to that person, even after a breakup. It’s like a relapse, it’s almost inexplicable, since these are unconscious brain patterns linked to dopamine.
A loss of identity and landmarks
When you end a long romantic relationship, you feel like you are losing a part of yourself. This phenomenon is often harder for people with emotional dependence, or simply very dependent on their partner, because they focus a lot on their relationships and tend to adopt traits of their partner to get closer to him/her. During the duration of the relationship, it’s almost as if you become another person: you are interested in other things, you think for two… When the relationship ends, it can therefore feel like losing part of your identity. No matter your attachment style, if you often return to your ex, it may be linked to this loss of self. the unknown, facing yourself when your ex was a “safe place”: “We know the other, we already know their reactions, their gestures, their habits… It’s reassuring, it’s “easier” than the unknown of a future without him or her. Above all, it’s totally illusory: we mainly remember the good times, taking great care to forget (or rather hide) why it didn’t work!explains Amélie Boukhobza, clinical psychologist.
The comfortable habit
Most of us can’t handle the emotional pain that a breakup can bring. To avoid these feelings, we may be tempted to return to the person who, in the past, helped us soothe them. The fear of being alone also plays a big role and can push us to contact an ex again, even if we know that this relationship had its reasons for not working. This becomes even more true when trying to meet someone new, especially when those new encounters don’t go well. We can then think that returning to your ex is a solution to appease these emotions. “Coming back to your ex is seen as a good solution to deal with loneliness, the difficulty of meeting someone else or starting everything from scratch. You have to remember that if you separated, it was not by chance. There were reasons, frustrations, incompatibilities. And these same reasons risk reappearing, again and again, even if we promise ourselves changes..”, specifies our expert.
“So to avoid falling back into this vicious circle, you have to start by accepting the breakup, without trying to paint it rosy. Then, we must ask ourselves a real question: is this return motivated by a real lack of the other or just a lack in oneself? If it’s the second option that wins, perhaps it’s time to work on your needs and your wounds, and especially on what you expect from a relationship. The past is the past… it cannot be repaired, it must be overcome.”