What Relationship Experts REALLY Want You To Know About Getting Back With An Ex

Though the lyrics to her song “Thank U, Next” have gone through quite a few evolutions over the years (haven’t we all?), no edit is as interesting to casual watchers and fans of Ariana Grande than the most recent change — which sparked even more rumors that the singer has rekindled a relationship with dancer and photographer Ricky Álvarez, as People reported earlier this month.

Grande’s initial line on the record about Álvarez were once fairly conclusive: “Wrote some songs about Ricky/ now I listen and laugh.”

But in the months since the star confirmed her breakup with “Wicked” co-star Ethan Slater and embarked on her “Eternal Sunshine” tour, the back half of the line has been sung as “they still really slap” (on June 26), “know he’s still got my back” (on July 7) and, most recently, “we always find our way back” (on July 13).

We’ve all had (or been) that friend who appears in the group chats that once nursed our heartbreaks, assuring them that this time things are different: “We’ve both grown and changed as people” or “Please, please, please be nice to them.”

While some people’s instinct might be to dial up the most affordable Etsy witch to write the ex’s name down and shove it in a freezer, sex and relationship therapists (who are big fans of nuance, generally) are quick to remind us that — while there definitely some critical self-reflection needed to make this kind of love work — these types of love stories aren’t always as disastrous as they’re made out to be.

Grande’s contemporary Taylor Swift wrote about this phenomenon recently too, crediting her brother with calling the behavior of “backsliding” with exes who were better left in that category as “eating out of the trash.” Sick sibling burns aside, it does capture some of the most common reactions to seeing someone make this move.

“Backsliding is returning back to old patterns, doing nothing differently and assuming the outcome will somehow be different,” Sabrina Romanoff, a clinical psychologist and relationship expert at dating app Hily, told HuffPost. “Actually reattempting to engage again means doing the internal work, giving more and changing your response to them and hopefully making those same changes and investment into the relationship as well.”

To Romanoff, the difference between “backsliding” and a more healthy “reengaging” with an old love comes down to what you bring to this new version of the relationship.

“Backsliding is trying to breathe life into that old relationship. You can perform CPR forever; it’s never coming back,” she said. “Reengaging means starting a new relationship with your ex, in a way where you both have evolved, learned from the past, and are better partners for each other.”

Todd Baratz, certified sex therapist and author of “How To Love Someone Without Losing Your Mind,” told HuffPost that getting back with an ex in a healthy way really requires “extra intention” — while doing the work to make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes or fall back into habits that didn’t serve you the first go-around.

“Not because you’re trying to guarantee you’ll never struggle again — that’s impossible — but because you’re trying to understand your dynamic well enough to make different choices,” he said. “Maybe you learn how to communicate differently. Maybe you become better at tolerating conflict instead of avoiding it. The goal isn’t to eliminate problems. It’s to respond to them differently.”

And, unsurprisingly, hurtful patterns don’t just go away — particularly ones that caused the end of the first iteration of a romance: “Most commonly, though, the dynamic that ended the relationship comes right back,” Baratz said. “That’s what triggers old wounds, resentments and familiar patterns of dysregulation.”

Baratz also told HuffPost that he doesn’t particularly love using terms like “backsliding” — because they can lead to some reductive conclusions that don’t serve either of the parties in the actual relationship.

“I don’t love these new terms. Words like ‘backsliding’ become cultural diagnoses,” Baratz said. “They carry shame, imply failure, and shut down curiosity before we’ve even understood the situation. Every relationship has its own history and context.”

That said, there’s so much that can come from prioritizing “understanding ourselves better and expressing ourselves honestly,” he said.

“That can happen by getting back together with an ex. It can happen by meeting someone new. It can happen while you’re single,” he said. “Growth isn’t determined by your relationship status. It’s determined by how honestly you’re engaging with your own experience.”

Two individuals who once had the attraction, chemistry and desire to commit to one another deciding they are willing to do that again isn’t particularly surprising. But there are some telling things that can make people feel inspired to try again.

“People are more susceptible to returning to an ex upon milestones that come with societal pressure to ‘have your life together’ or have the boxes checked,” Romanoff said. “For example, approaching a big birthday, watching someone close to you get engaged/married, or experiencing a lack of stability by losing a job, death of a loved one, financial strain or work stress.”

Feeling “unmoored by circumstances in life” can, understandably, make us want to “turn toward the people who previously helped us feel stable,” she continued.

Baratz called out some similar life moments as being particularly impactful in making someone reconsider past options: “Timing. Proximity. Major life changes. Personal growth. Loss. Having children. Missing someone.”

Even just the state of modern dating (awkward “what’s your favorite color?” questions and app-filled as it can be) is part of what might attract you to a previous partner.

“I think one of the biggest reasons is simply that people leave a relationship, enter the dating world, and realize how difficult it is. That naturally brings an ex back into the picture,” Baratz continued. “Sometimes that’s nostalgia. Sometimes it’s genuine growth. Sometimes it’s convenience. It can be any number of things. That’s why I don’t think it’s helpful to reduce it to one explanation.”

People who enter into these relationships aren’t usually doing it to piss off their friends and family or satisfy the urge for a little dramatic zest in their lives. Chances are, they’re genuinely hoping things will be different — and even work out in the long run.

For Romanoff, there’s a danger to looking at an ex “through rose-colored glasses of either compartmentalized stability they provided” or falling back on tendencies to “cherry-pick the good times we had with them instead of seeing them and the relationship more realistically.”

For people who find themselves rekindling something with an ex, both experts had some solid suggestions for checking in with yourself and making sure you’re seeing the situation clearly.

“I think the first question is actually, ‘Who is this for?’” Baratz said. “Are you reaching out because you’ve reflected, grown and genuinely want to reconnect? Or are you dysregulated, lonely and looking for relief from your own discomfort? Those are very different motivations.”

“I also think it’s worth considering whether hearing from you would be helpful or harmful to the other person,” he continued. “If you ended the relationship in a way that deeply hurt them, reaching out could reopen wounds they’re trying to heal from. On the other hand, they’re also an adult who gets to decide whether or not to respond.”

Romanoff also recommends asking yourself one major question: are you “running away from fear” or “consciously toward choosing” this ex?

“Making a fear-based decision means running away from the scarcity mindset that tells you you’ll never find their good traits in another person, or this level of connection, or intimacy again,” she said. “It also means running away from being with yourself, your life without them, and the prospect of getting back into the dating world and putting yourself in vulnerable situations to meet someone new.”

A “healthier mindset” in a reengaged dynamic instead “involves feeling secure in yourself and life without them, but intentionally seeking them because they make you a better person and your life is better with them.”

Romanoff also said that things might really be different if certain pressures have changed — Whether that’s external things like distance, unstable/precarious finances or “either one of you deciding to change a prior immovable position on a dynamic that led to the rupture of the relationship.”

“If you’re coming together with the intent of making this time different, you each could shift your approach to the other to truly learn from the lessons from the past,” she said, but warned against being “more idealistic about the prospect of getting back together than pragmatic about what internal changes and major compromises need to be made for the relationship to work.”

”Often couples who are unwilling to make big changes when they get back together have a short honeymoon period,” she warned, “followed by a catastrophic argument, which reminds them of all the reasons why they ended the relationship.”

Baratz noted that the knee-jerk impulse of “No. Never. Don’t do it” is a little too simplistic for how real humans with real feelings behave.

“People break up and get back together all the time. Friendships end and reconnect years later,” he said. “Family members become estranged and then find each other again. Human relationships are messy, and they don’t fit neatly into rules.”

For Baratz, the often extreme response people have to seeing two people attempt to reconnect after a break-up is also a sign “we’ve become incredibly rigid about how we’re supposed to think about exes.”

“We treat them like they’re toxic substances that need to be removed from our lives at all costs. But they’re not lava. They’re people. Often they’re people we loved deeply, and maybe still love in some way,” he continued. “I think we’ve become so focused on controlling grief that we’ve created endless rules: no contact, block them, never look back, don’t respond, don’t reach out.”

While healthy boundaries are important — and at times totally necessary — Baratz wonders if they are “often used as universal prescriptions instead of individual decisions.”

“I’m not suggesting people should or shouldn’t get back together. That’s not anyone else’s decision besides the couple’s,” he said. “But I do think we need to approach these situations with curiosity instead of treating exes like they’re lava.”