If you’ve been wanting to get back with your ex, blame it on the pandemic

The pandemic of the past year has affected our physical lives, yes; but there’s no denying that it has taken a toll on our emotional landscape as well. When faced with an uncertain future, it is natural to gravitate towards situations that feel familiar—in this case, into the DMs of an ex or a former flame. The proof is in our browser history, with Google searches for ‘why am I dreaming about my ex’ rocketing up by 2,450 per cent during the first month of the lockdown.

If you’ve been battling the urge to reach out to a significant other from the past, you aren’t the only one. Celebrities have fallen under the spell of the ex factor as well, with early Aughts couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck recently making their “situationship” Instagram official. Elsewhere, Kylie Jenner was captured all smiles with her daughter Stormi and baby daddy Travis Scott at the NY Gala, marking their first major red carpet appearance together since their split.

While some couples emerge stronger the second time around, there is concern that the pandemic-induced haze might be prompting people to fall back into destructive patterns. To know the difference between the two, we got a psychologist to decode the many reasons why exes are reconnecting across the globe and how to set healthy boundaries if you do decide to give love a second chance.

Chance to introspect

If you’ve been feeling the urge to reach out to someone significant from your past, you can chalk it up to the extended periods of solitude supplied by the multiple lockdowns of the past year. “Most people have had to be isolated at some point in the pandemic, and while we’re on our own, without our regular distractions, pain which is often unresolved comes knocking at our door and we are forced to think, rethink and feel,” explains Aanchal Narang, a Mumbai-based psychologist. When given the time to introspect, we tend to look for the good in people, she believes. “As humans, we believe that people can change, giving our exes more chances, while forgetting that true change takes years of self-reflection and realisation,” she adds.

Finding comfort in the familiar

In the face of an uncertain future, it is natural for the mind to wander backwards in time to seek solace in the familiar and the known. Narang observes, “Even after breaking up, we often look at our exes as people who at some point did comfort us. When we feel low and lonely, the mind believes that our exes have the potential to make us feel better, which is what we want to go back to—the comfort of being held and supported in what used to be a safe space, hoping that it would still remain unchanged.”

This is further coupled with the fact that getting to know someone new requires additional mental legwork to know and understand them, as opposed to those whom you already share a history with. “Familiarity also ensures that there is an inherent comfort level, when compared to meeting someone new where we would have to get to know them and wonder whether they understand us and our quirks, or not. These things are already a given with our exes, which is what often draws us to repeating old patterns,” she elaborates.

Lack of newness

The itch to get back with someone from the past can also be credited to the fact that our new normal doesn’t provide much by way of dating opportunities—after all, a quick grocery dash shielded under the vigilant layers of double masking hardly serves as the ideal setting for a meet-cute. Narang believes that meeting a new person requires headspace, energy and effort, all of which are scarce during the pandemic. “With work from home, household chores, fear for our lives, restrictions and more, we’ve all had plenty to do. Meeting a new person requires a considerable amount of time and effort as we need to compute data and try to understand the new person we are talking to and see if we match as people,” she says. The seemingly easier option can often seem like an ex whom we’ve already invested that energy in before.

Dating app fatigue

The lack of new opportunities is further compounded by months of scrolling and swiping from within our homes. While the initial period of the lockdown saw a spike in users on dating apps, the fatigue has begun to creep in after months of solitude. “There is only so much that can be done online with a stranger as compared to someone with whom we already share history,” she observes. The fatigue, however, cannot be credited to lack of choice—studies have proven the opposite. The endless array of choices on a dating app can often prove overwhelming. “The uncertainty of online dating is what makes individuals go back to their exes, because when we are reaching out to a stranger, we have no idea how they are going to respond,” she adds.

Absence of physical comfort

Touch deprivation is another side-effect evolving from the pandemic, with experts expressing concern that our skin has been deprived of human touch during self-isolation. “Humans are wired to like skin-to-skin contact. Not just romantic or sensual, any kind of physical touch has a positive effect on our physical and mental health as it triggers a rush of oxytocin,” explains Narang. The skin hunger that has emerged from extended periods of isolation can also make getting back together with an ex seem like a viable option, she believes.

How to set healthy boundaries when getting back together with an ex

If you and your ex have decided to give things a second chance, it helps to establish some healthy boundaries to keep yourself from facing disappointment a little down the road. The first rule? To ensure that you can have open and honest communication with your partner. She advises, “Everyone has their reasons for a breakup and we need to ensure that these reasons have been addressed in a manner that they don’t creep up again while giving our exes another chance.” She believes that the easiest way to accomplish this is to communicate your thoughts and feelings to your exes about what went wrong with your relationship and to invite their side of the story before taking a decision about whether it can be worked out.

Narang also recommends managing expectations when attempting to make a failed relationship work again. “When we do go back to our exes, we need to be clear in our minds about whether we are approaching them for a relationship, as a friendship or as a friends-with-benefits situation. Once we are clear about their role in our life, we can maintain boundaries with them, appropriate to the relationship,” she signs off.

Also read:

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How to keep the expectations in your relationship realistic during the pandemic

How do you find love in the middle of a pandemic? One single woman weighs in