Are Rebound Relationships Doomed To Fail? We Asked The Experts.
Picture this: Fresh out of a long-term relationship, with emotional wounds still throbbing, you meet the perfect guy or girl. Or you come upon your dream partner, but he or she just left a marriage. Is all hope lost?
It’s easy to get lost in a rebound, hence why it is the subject of so many songs, TV shows and movies. It was a plot line on “Friends.” A plot line on “New Girl.” Even a plot line on “The Big Bang Theory.”
Jennifer Lopez sings about it in her 2024 song named — can you guess? —“Rebound.” “Ran into your arms while runnin’ from the pain/ Ran past all the signs lookin’ for somethin’ safe/ Let you take advantage, so I could fill that space,” she sings.
In Adele’s song “Someone Like You,” she laments a lost lover while seeking his clone. “Roll to Me” by Del Amitri — a great ’90s song no one remembers — was my theme when my crush rebounded into my arms immediately after she broke up with her ex.
“We can have a general idea about best ways to engage and start and be in relationships, but every relationship is unique,” said Nikki Coleman, a psychologist and relationship expert who practices in Houston. Even a relationship that begins as a fling can flourish into something different.
If you find yourself worried about being in a rebound relationship, know that it’s a common experience. We asked experts for advice on what to do if you find yourself in this boat.
Ask yourself, is it actually a rebound?
A rebound relationship is inherently reactionary, Coleman said. Instead of working through the fallout from a past relationship, you jump into a new one.
“It’s not like our brains get wiped and we forget the other people,” Coleman said. “In a real relationship, both parties have decided, ‘We were together. We were committed to each other. We had meaning for each other in some way, shape, or form.’ And when you aren’t together anymore, you carry that with you. The question is, what do you do with that information?”
If you put in the work to learn from mistakes in your past relationship and take accountability for the part you played in why things didn’t work out, it’s not actually a rebound relationship, she said.
“When I hear rebound, it’s like I learned nothing,” Coleman said. “I don’t want to deal with the hurt or discomfort of the breakup. I’m tired of being alone. I want to prove to myself or my ex that I am desirable.”
Have the tough conversations.
An important aspect of the vetting process when meeting new suitors is asking them how past relationships ended, Coleman said. When a person talks super positively about an ex or is flooded with anger, it may be a sign that the wounds haven’t healed.
If you feel like you are rebounding yourself, ask why you are dating the new person, said Elizabeth Earnshaw, a marriage and family therapist and the author of “I Want This to Work” and “’Til Stress Do Us Part.” Is it out of fear of being alone or because you are avoiding feelings, or is it because you want to get to know them and are truly invested in the relationship? Are you able to be present? Are you constantly comparing your new boo to your ex?
Talk to friends who know you well about your new relationship and ask them for input.
Then comes the hard part: If you feel you are in a rebound relationship, talk to the person you are dating directly. Express that you are concerned one of you may not be ready to date because you haven’t moved on.
Earnshaw recommends “being curious and expressing what you’ve noticed without being accusatory. Then [be] willing to hear their answer in both words and actions.”
Be careful not to ignore your gut feelings if something is off, Earnshaw said. “We can convince ourselves that what somebody says isn’t what they mean or that they might change their mind. It’s important to remember that grieving is a process, and if they’re not over it, it might take time.”
“New relationship energy is a real thing,” Coleman added, and if someone clearly tells you they are trying to keep things light and “you don’t accept it, ‘That’s really on you.’”
Allow yourself and the other person time to heal and grow.
If the other person truly isn’t ready to date, don’t push them. But there are no hard rules that say rebounds have to crumble if both people are honest and want to grow together, Earnshaw said.
For a rebound relationship to thrive, “both parties have to be willing to do the work, which usually requires a great deal of vulnerability,” Coleman said. You need to decide “as a unit” that you are going to do things differently.
Look to past relationships to see what went wrong. What conflicts kept coming up? Were there things that caused you and your ex to not be compatible? How can you improve your communication skills in this new relationship?
It’s essential that everyone involved learns to navigate being alone, and each person needs to form their own identity outside of the romantic relationship by tapping into family and friends as supports, Earnshaw said.
Sometimes, rebounds have a way of working themselves out.
If a relationship isn’t meant to be because one person isn’t over their ex, it will naturally resolve, Earnshaw said. Someone will say, “‘OK, I feel better now, and I’m not really into this relationship, so I’m gonna end it,’” Earnshaw said. “Or the other person is like, ‘I’m sick of the shit. I’m gonna end it.’”
Cat Stevens coined the phrase “the first cut is the deepest” in his often-covered song, and it’s true. After your first love, you can’t help but look into the past to recognize what you liked, what you didn’t like, and what you are still healing from, Earnshaw said.
“Like with anything with relationships, it’s challenging,” she said. Maybe things didn’t start perfectly, but a relationship can have respect and self-awareness.
If you both put in the work, these relationships can bloom. It did with me and my crush, whom I’ve been with for 16 years and who is now my wife. We had much to learn during the early years and both carried scars from exes, but we put in the effort to grow. I didn’t care that I was the rebound then, and I don’t care now. I wasn’t about to miss an opportunity.
