Can Relationships Be Recycled?
Good relationships and people we jive with are often hard to come by. Despite being single, many of us have had long term relationships before. We’ve also had partners that were good people but for some reason things didn’t work out. Many times even years later we wonder what that person is doing and how their life turned out. We also ponder what our life would have been like had we still remained a couple.
A few times in my life I’ve run into old flames from the past and have rekindled the romance. Is it ever a good idea to recycle a relationship? At first I wondered the same thing myself. The first thought that comes to mind is if the person was so fantastic back then, why did we break up? Well sometimes great people just come into our lives at a bad time. We might have something going on in our lives that prevent us from giving everything we can to keep things healthy.
When I was in my early twenties I dated someone long term. The relationship ended because our lives were going in two different directions. He wanted to go to graduate school out of state and I didn’t want to leave my hometown. I didn’t feel like it was worth it since we weren’t engaged and I didn’t know where our relationship was going. Sadly we both went our separate ways even though we got along so well otherwise. I bet if we had met up a few years later, we would have been able to reconnect.
Other times in life, we break up with someone to date someone else we think is better. Sometimes we’re right and other times we’re wrong. Our youth is especially filled with fickleness and uncertainty. We are move from relationship to relationship. There are times that we only see the stupidity of how we act in retrospect. Of course hindsight is always 20/20.
The only time I would not recommend rekindling a past love is if that person treated you poorly and/or cheated on you. I hate to sound negative but people usually don’t change. Why set yourself up for failure and disappointment again? If as a couple you bickered and argued constantly there is no point in repeating things. I guess some people go out with past mates again out of desperation and loneliness. Dating anyone for those reasons is never good.
If you are faced with the possibility of re-dating someone from your past, definitely think it over. Make sure the reasons you want to date again are the right reasons. You never want to rekindle a romance that ended on a sour note. Sometimes recycling a past relationship may work out while other times things may end up worse. You might quickly realize the things about them that you didn’t like the first time around. But it’s still worth trying. Either way you have nothing to lose.
