To Get Back Together – or Not? An Exam for Couples

News that two people who had a harrowing break-up are now trying to get back together again – a few months or years down the line – tends, among sensible people, to raise at the very least suspicion, if not outright irritation and despair. Why are these two cursed lovers heading back to the old chaos and drama? Isn’t this just a fantasy sprung from naivety, loneliness and – most probably – short-term lust? Shouldn’t they keep faith with their original choice, double down on the highs and lows of dating and – perhaps – each buy a dog?

And yet to deny ex-couples any legitimate chance to revisit their situation also feels excessively punitive and, in its way, naive. Insisting blindly that people can never change – that psychotherapy and introspection, books and conversations, time and long walks – have nothing whatsoever to teach us is as foolish as to assume that change can come readily and lightly. For every misguided attempt to resume a relationship, there must be a proportion of equally misguided refusals to countenance a new start, born not out of wisdom so much as pre-emptive fear and disbelief that people are occasionally able to learn a new thing or two.

We need – to make progress – a tool with which to strip the matter of sentiment and rationally distinguish mature from sentimental plans. 

What follows is a sequence of questions (amounting to an examination) that exes who are meeting up again after a long break should discuss with one another and as importantly with themselves before coming anywhere near to holding hands, let alone (and here we must be very definitive) going to bed. To the question, ‘should we meet up for dinner?’ the standard response should from now on be: ‘Let’s take The School of Life’s Re-Entry Exam first’.

The School of Life’s Re-entry Examination

Can you meet me for a Re-entry Examination that may take up to seven hours over five separate meetings – and involve soliciting the views of two of our good friends as well?

One of the major signs that a relationship is viable is that both parties are willing to give up an unusual, even inordinate, amount of time, to the intellectual exploration of its past flaws. The more they can stand to examine the horror, the less it need to recur. The greatest predictor of success is an advanced capacity to think, without defensiveness, pride or impatience, about all that was most terrible.

Everything that feels un-Romantic is, paradoxically, truly Romantic, in the sense of being conducive to love. Which is why the test is deliberately, provocatively framed in the most boring, hard-headed way possible. It should sound extremely forbidding and very unsexy. We concretely prove our love by being ready to discuss our feelings for hours with some of the tenacity of a lawyer and the steadiness of an accountant rather than abseiling down a clock tower with roses or making furious love in a hotel room.

Are we here because we have learnt things or because we miss one another?

This is a highly binary and leading question and there is only possible answer. Opt for the wrong one and the exam is declared void immediately. Missing someone can be very moving. But it has nothing, strictly nothing, to do with a fitness to return. One can miss someone and know – or should know – that they are absolutely not a person ever to get close to again. One can both utterly regret a partner and not in any way benefit from being with them. 

Of course, someone might tell a lie at this juncture but at least it will be clear to them that they are having to deceive in order to proceed. No one can be in any doubt as the purpose of this exam: to search out, and probe at, signs of learning, rather than signs of love. 

Have we substantially changed since we were last together?

To put it even more bluntly: the only reason two people should ever attempt to restart a relationship is because something has fundamentally changed in them. Nothing else counts: that we once got on, that we almost had a child (or have five together), that we still know each other’s nicknames, that they look really very nice sitting across the table from us… The sole and exclusive reason to be exploring once more is because one feels one has learnt some very significant things in the interregnum. 

Can we ‘say’ why we have changed – at length and in depth – not merely ‘feel’ we have changed? Can we turn warm intentions into words, a lot of words?

The cynic tends to chip in at this point to add: anyone can ‘say’ they’ve changed, but what’s hard and what counts is to ‘show’ one has changed. Actions, not words are where it’s at. To which we’d say ‘yes, of course’ but also that people who can describe at some length (we are talking a minimum of five hours of conversation) about what is going on in them and hear what is at play in the other also have a good chance of following through at the level of action. Analytically-precise words are not always cheap, it’s not a simple matter to speak clearly about one’s past emotional immaturity and idiocy – and by the time people can, it is a sign of a certain dawning wisdom which can stretch beyond mere fine intentions. At the same time, we should be very suspicious of any ex who tries to pass off their reluctance to sit an exam or their unwillingness to speak as a small matter indicating nothing other than a personal preference: ‘I’m not so good with language, words fail me, I don’t do introspection very well, I love you but I can’t always say why…’ 

We’re sorry for such a person; we also know that they plainly do not merit another chance. 

We both agree that this exam commits us to nothing whatsoever. 

It’s an exploration, nothing more or less. Both parties have to recognise that they may have to walk away with nothing, and it won’t be anyone’s ‘fault’. 

Why did we fight so much? 

We’re coming to the core of the examination. It’s a luxury of couples who will never get back together again that they can concentrate on the good sides of their story. They can listen to songs and daydream about the sweet times without any need to remember reality. But for those who are thinking of getting back together, there is no alternative but to focus with immense intent on one aspect only of the relationship: what was properly awful about it (and there would have been a lot that was, given that people don’t ever sever a tight bond lightly). The priority is to identify, and then submit to rigorous analysis, all that was most nightmarish, all that it remains extremely painful and eerie to summon. A couple’s right to resume is to be measured against their courage in exploring why they failed.

In one column of a chart, we need to write up no fewer than three arguments, though it could be twenty or more. Then, because every argument involves a clash between two people’s fervent but violated sense of justice and rightness, we should fill in two adjacent columns: what felt so important to person A, and what felt so important to person B. We need to distill overall principles from the morass of specific circumstances. We’re looking not just for what each person said, but for the underlying value or principle that they were defending and that drove the conflict on to its miserable end.

Why did I feel as impassioned as I did?

The breakup gives an opportunity for two people to explore the nature of their impassioned feelings – and in particular, the debt these may have owed to elements of their always tricky childhoods. There will – almost always – be a historical dimension to hysterical feelings. 

How would I do it differently now? What can I change about my views?

Once our impassioned positions have been identified and their origins explained, we may be readier to explore how we might surrender what we once took to be a non-negotiable part of our identities.

What can’t I change? 

But also: what coping mechanisms might we arrive at to deal with these unchangeable aspects?

We need to acknowledge that – almost certainly – we won’t be able to alter all of our personalities and this is the moment to get clear with our ex about what is and isn’t possible. Broken promises always exact a worse toll than than pre-emptively lowered expectations. What do we feel that we aren’t, despite a lot of goodwill, going to be able to overcome? And how – if at all – can these stubborn bits of our personalities be handled?

How much can we each bear of what won’t change? 

Frank answers can spare a couple decades of squabbling. What could we put up with? What remains – if we are honest with ourselves – something we would be better of never having to deal with?

What trouble do I bring into the relationship? How am I difficult to live around?

There should no bristling here. Bearable people have a good handle on their unbearable dimensions. We don’t need people to be perfect; we just need them to have a decent sense of how imperfect they are – and how much their imperfections cause the other pain.

What trouble do you bring into the relationship? How are you difficult to live around?

We need agreement on the mutual complications that are being brought to the table. Both people should write their answers down, then show the other their analyses. Can both sides agree on what is most horrible in each person? The more alignment there can be, the less future criticism has to feel like nagging; and the more it can fit into a kinder project of helping someone to change as they would (at their saner moments) wish to change.

Which bits of my anxiety and unhappiness did I discover were not after all your fault? What continued to be difficult even without you around?

It is highly tempting, when in a relationship, to assume that all the misery we face is the fault of the lover. We attribute to the main person in our lives a commanding role in determining our state of mind. But when they are gone, we may be forced to realise a more complex truth: that our low moods and neuroses have their origins in large part in us rather than in them. It can – oddly – no longer all be their fault. How did life remain hard even without them? What might they not be to blame for?

What I now appreciate more properly about you is…

We’re meant never to lose sight of what was great about them, but in reality, we need the perspective of time to get clearer about their virtues. In the long months since we were together, what sides of them did we realise we most deeply valued?

What did I learn from meeting other people? 

A truly tickly subject but as we are realising, it’s a capacity for eating humble pie that stands a restarted relationship in such good stead. What did the bad dates teach us? What did the rejections bring home to us? What did we learn from the flaws of others about the merits of the one we left behind?

What will happen when we argue next time? Define six arguments that might take place in the future – and explore what could be done differently.

Design six arguments that might occur going forward: 

— There’s another party…

— You’re busy at work again…

— You’re tired and upset that they flirted…

How will we behave differently? What could we do other than break up? How might diplomacy replace warfare?

Each person should approach one of their very good friends who lived the break up from close quarters and ask them to meet the ex in private, then provide a deep evaluation of the prospects for a successful return. Does this ex now feel safe? Should the couple do this?

It seems extremely odd to bring in a third party. We imagine that couples have all the answers to their own problems. But most people who survive a break up only do so because they have – somewhere in the background – a wise kind sceptical friend who listened to the sobbing, counselled when to text and when to block, was always on hand and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the entire trauma. It seems foolish not to benefit from this person’s experience – and inevitable degree of scepticism. They don’t want to go through another catastrophe all over again. Even better, they don’t love our ex, they won’t be going to bed with them, they only stand to face the downsides – and that is why they are so useful. They aren’t a sworn enemy (that won’t be of assistance) but nor are they any kind of indiscriminate romantic. They are a hard-headed realist who saw what the ex put their friend through and doesn’t ever want it to happen again.

They need to be brought into the discussion. They need a one-on-one meeting with the prospective partner (who should be very intimidated by the idea but go through it anyway in the name of love). If the partner can convince this battled-wearied person, true change will have occurred – and vice versa. The friend must assess the ex on the following points – and score them out of ten:

— How much do the ex understand of the problems they brought into the relationship?

— How much do they seem able to change?

— What is their level of defensiveness?

— What have they understood about themselves?

— How might they manage conflict more successfully?

— What do they appreciate about their ex?

— Assess the overall viability of a return. In short, yes or no?

We take the gravest decisions of our lives on a whim. We will properly honour love and spare ourselves cycles of dismay and pain when we learn – at last – to disregard our desires and follow instead the pedantic dictates of sober, sensible, beautifully tedious logic.