- After a breakup, all most people can think about is getting back together again. This is why "get ex back" is such a popular search trend on Google, and there are so many sites dedicated to rekindling romances.
- One site, run by Kevin Thompson, offers a free newsletter that helps people go "no contact" and work on themselves after a breakup. Only after enough time has passed to work through some of their issues does he recommend reaching out to an ex.
- Thompson conducted a survey on 3,512 people who used his site, because he wanted to know what percentage of couples actually do get back together. The results showed just 15% of people actually won their ex back, while 14% got back together just to break up again, and 70% never reconnected at all.
- But although it sounds like a small number, a few success stories showed how it is possible to work things out if you put the time and effort in.
- What many participants agreed on is that reconciliation is incredibly hard, and even if you do get back together, there's no promise of a fairy tale.
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A tweet was circulating on meme pages recently that said "if you're not dating to marry, you're dating to break up. Let that sink in." And it's usually true. Most couples do break up before they meet the person they will end up with. It's just simple logic.
But some couples defy the rule and get back together again after weeks, years, or even decades apart. Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, and even the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are just some examples of famous couples who called it quits only to get back together again.
Now, a new survey could help explain what happens to the couples who give their relationship another try.
'Get your ex back' sites are big business
After a big breakup, we forget there are millions of other people in the world that could make us happy, because it hurts so much. We don't want anyone else, we want the person we lost.
Social scientists think this has something to do with how we evolved and our brains telling us we'll die alone, starving and cold, if we're rejected from the clan.
"Get ex back" is a consistently high search term on Google Trends, falling somewhere between 80 and 100% popularity over the last 12 months. And when the heartbroken turn to the internet for guidance, they're met with hundreds of web pages to choose from.
Many of the results are "get your ex back" sites. There's Brad Browning, a coach who makes YouTube videos about rekindling the romance with an ex, and then sites like myexbackcoach.com and withmyexagain.com. Many of the sites also offer personalized counseling over email for extortionate amounts of money.
They sometimes hook customers in by offering a free e-book first, then use the old trick of saying there's a "special offer" for one-on-one advice, when in reality the discount price is always the same.
One of the top results is How To Get Your Ex Back Permanently, a free site run by Kevin Thompson, which focuses on going "no contact" after a breakup and working on your own self worth and confidence instead. It operates on the theory that begging for second chances doesn't work and in order to have a healthy relationship and attract anyone — including your ex — you have to fix yourself first.
"Winning your ex back isn't really the hard part," the homepage says. "The hard part is keeping them."
The likelihood of happily forever after
Thompson recently conducted a survey of 3,512 participants who are subscribed to his site and newsletter. He wanted to know whether couples ever do reconcile, whether they stayed together, and whether their motivations changed over time.
All the participants wanted to get back with their ex at some point in time, all couples broke up between 9 and 36 months before, and the majority came from North America and Europe.
The results showed that the majority of people (70.8%) did not get back together with their ex at all. About 14% reconciled then broke up again, and about 15% got back together and stayed together.
These were some of the other main findings of the survey
- Women are more successful at getting their ex back than men.
- 18 to 24-year-olds are most likely to break up again if they get back together.
- People in their late 20s had the lowest success rate of getting an ex back.
"We found that age makes it harder to move on," Thompson said. "Coincidentally, we also found that older couples have a better chance of getting back together and staying together."
Read more: The 11 mistakes that can make a breakup worse — and what to do instead
Although 15% sounds like such a small percentage, it means 526 people from the survey did win their ex back and keep them. Some of them shared their success stories about what they had to do.
One anonymous 44-year-old woman from Utah said she was married for eight years, but her husband, 54, cheated on her.
"I was forced to move to a different state where my parents had moved to in order to get back on my feet," she said. "He went about his life, I went about mine. Something always ended up keeping us in contact every now and then, just fate, not on purpose."
15 years later, her husband sent her a Facebook message and they started texting and talking again, only to realize they still loved each other. She said now that they're older, they're more stable and know what they want in the future.
When asked about advice for anyone going through a breakup, she said to just walk away, not matter how hard it is because "you both need time away from each other."
Rachel, 23, also got back with her ex, but it was after just a couple of months. They had been together four years but drifted apart.
"I felt like my entire world had been ripped out from under me," she said. "He told me he needed space and so that's what I did. I didn't reach out, no calls, no texts, no emails, nothing. It was the hardest thing I had ever had to do."
They ended up meeting up and talking which Rachel said was "like catching up with an old friend," and they decided to get back together if they took things slowly.
"I knew it would be a mistake to jump right in exactly where we left off so we took it slow and casually," she said. "It was exactly what we needed. It was a chance to explore a relationship with two newly independent and self possessed people who still cared for each other."
They're still together a year and a half later, which Rachel thinks is thanks to resetting their feelings and letting go of their baggage to "rediscover who we were outside of each other."
"Breakups suck big time, but they're also an opportunity to be free and figure out exactly what you want," she said. "Sometimes it's to get back together, and sometimes it's to move on."
Read more: 11 signs your old relationships are affecting your current one
Sherry, 66, took her ex, 52, back even though he'd ended things eight times during their 14-year relationship. She said he is much more caring and loving than before and has let go of much of his disrespect for women, but she's still learning to forgive.
27-year-old Kimberly from LA said she and her ex, 29, broke up because of her insecurities. After working through some of her issues and gaining confidence, she said their rekindled relationship feels brand new.
"Our relationship is a lot healthier than the one before because I am actively working on myself as a person," she said. "Our relationship is better because I know I'll be okay with him or without him."
There isn't always a happy ending
As well as the stark statistic that couples don't reconnect 70% of the time, not every story where they do get back together is a happy one.
38-year-old Kelly from Minnesota had a toxic relationship with a man for three years until they broke up and didn't speak to each other for six months.
"It was painful and it made us realize what we took advantage of," she said. "We are back together and things are never perfect. Actually, he's cheated multiple times. So ... to be continued."
As for advice, she said the best thing to do is focus on yourself and not contact the other person.
"Hurt ... hurt a lot, but keep yourself busy," she said. "It's amazing the self discovery that takes place."
The survey showed that 77% of the participants who got back together with their ex were happy, while 23% weren't. It takes a lot of work to fix a relationship that ended, and most of that has to be pretty self-reflective. Even if you do work on yourself, there's no guarantee your ex will do the same.
Pam, 36 from Sydney, got back with her younger partner, 26, thanks to them both working on their communication. But she also made sure her ex was willing to put the time into the relationship to make it work before she gave him another chance.
"When someone breaks up with you, they are saying indirectly they don't want you in their life anymore because you are not worth the time, the effort, the pain, or whatever," she said. "No one has the power to define your worth. So, if they think you are not worthy enough for them, they for sure don't deserve the benefits of your friendship, time, tears, [and] begging."
42-year-old Sarah from North Carolina agreed that reconciling is hard, but she owed it to her husband to work out their unresolved feelings for each other. But she also said if there was violence or abuse of any kind you should "run far away and don't look back."
"You owe it to your future relationships to be clear of your past emotions," she said. "Above all, try not to be too hard on yourself. Breakups suck but they don't have to break you."
Read more:
4 steps to getting over a breakup in 30 days or less
9 important things to remember to stay strong and love yourself again after a tough break-up
14 reasons you're not getting over your ex — even if they were totally wrong for you
Smart, successful women may be more likely to get 'addicted' to toxic men than others
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