The infamous rebound relationship; is often described as a short-lived distraction or a desperate attempt to revitalise the heart. The rebound hopes to re-capture the remains of love from a former relationship and pass it onto a new one.
Rebound relationships follow from breakups. And as far as breakups go, a plethora of emotions, from anger to sadness, hurt to perhaps betrayal, we experience everything in between. Heartbreak, depending on your experience, can be a long grieving process. This grieving can depend on how long your relationship lasted, the emotional integrity involved and the love between you.
The average relationship length lasts around three years for people in their twenties. So finding your feet after a long, arduous time of unhappiness is difficult in developing personal growth, independence and self-esteem. Questions can often begin circling, and tracing our previous steps can seem time-consuming.
Potentially stuck in a rut, crying on your fellow girlfriend's shoulder can feel too familiar. The freezer's emergency supply of Haagen-Daz's cookie and cream is falling short, with 'Friends' on repeat in the bottomless pit of Netflix. How we deal with breakups will alternate from person to person. But while there is no mathematical equation for how long it takes to get over a person or how they treated us, sometimes a little help or stimulation is handy along the way.
Lingering can seem all too familiar when missing our best friend and closest confidant. While pizza crumbs now take up the spot of your old boyfriend in bed, facing the music can be trickier than it looks. And missing those long weekends, steamy sex, and holidays together can grant a mourning period of their own.
So rebound relationships? Are they a good idea?
Rebound relationships can come with many various benefits. Finding someone so quickly to be with after your previous relationship can boost your self-esteem. Dating somebody new can also fill the gap or void (so to speak)of your past relationship.
What are the cons to rebound relationships?
Carrying on with the rebound train can potentially hurt the current partner we're with if we're not ready to forgo a relationship. Signs of us being needy, clingy or used as a 'pawn' to make our long lost love jealous. We may not present the best version of individuality or show emotional intimacy catered to not rushing. In rebound relationships, they may have even noticed us talking about our past too much - especially if their heartache was recent.
What decisions should we make moving forward?
While breakups, heartache and navigating pain are challenging, delaying our pain may be more so.
Our past relationships teach us many lessons in becoming better partners for the future teach us more about our character.
Rebound relationships arguably, put more work for us to labour through, despite taking our minds off the real problem. As even the average rebound relationship only lasts six months.
So instead, we ought to remind ourselves of newfound freedoms and the positive effects of being single. We have more time to work on ourselves, time for leisure, focus and hone in on goals and not have anyone else sway our actions.
If moving on and getting over and getting over in style fashionable as John Mayer, perhaps it's time to return the box of their old things, set the relationship to rest and look hopeful for the future ahead.
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