What’s Actually Going on When Individuals Keep In Touch With Exes

Exactly why keeping the idea of a reunion on the back-burner could be difficulty.

Published Sep 18, 2016

It’s relatively usual for those to keep up contact with former intimate associates. 1,2 But what happens when you enter another connection? Do you realy maintain experience of an ex or clipped them on? Can it be bad for your brand-new relationship if your ex still is inside your life? These are generally questions a lot of us can connect with, however they haven’t been evaluated a lot by commitment researchers—until not too long ago.

In two research, Lindsay Rodriguez along with her co-workers surveyed adults in passionate connections to determine how many times they talk to exes, the reason why they manage get in touch with, and what that says regarding their existing connection. 3 The first research interviewed 260 undergraduates, who had been along with their latest spouse for at least four weeks and had a previous connection that lasted at least 90 days.

They unearthed that about 40 per cent of people kept in touch with an ex. For your vast majority (over 90 percentage), this correspondence began within two months in the breakup and continuing to happen at least once every couple of months. Most people didn’t talk to their particular ex many times, but limited subgroup—13 percent—had exposure to exes a couple of times a week.

That is very likely to keep in touch with an ex? More major the updates with the latest connection (e.g., partnered or almost interested vs. internet dating), the less likely members are for experience of an ex. However, persisted interaction with an ex was unrelated to how major the partnership together with the ex was basically. (it is probably mainly because individuals are relatively young, so that they will never have a similar degree of financial that requires future communications, such co-parenting, that can happen when considerably committed interactions split up.) Rather, it was her thoughts about their ex and concerning separation that expected communications: People were more prone to communicate with exes they still got thoughts for. They were furthermore more prone to keep in touch with exes if they thought your break up ended up being more positive—characterized by comprehension and insufficient mean and terrible conduct. Ultimately, those people that stated that they were maybe not on the separation happened to be inclined than others to steadfastly keep up contact with their ex.

Just what implications performs this has for people’s existing affairs? Typically, individuals who stayed touching an ex had a tendency to become much less invested in her existing spouse compared to those which wouldn’t, but experience of an ex had beenn’t associated with how gratifying they found their current relationship.

In another research, the researchers furthermore researched just how contact with exes relates to the caliber of current commitment by examining people’s reasons for staying in touch. They interviewed 169 undergraduate college students in relationships, exactly who stated they communicated with an ex at least once every month or two.

This time, the group receive a connection between contact with exes while the quality of the existing partnership: The more regular the experience of an ex, the much less happy participants comprise due to their recent partnership.

Both of these reports together declare that merely staying in touch with an ex cannot suggest nothing exactly how happy you will be together with your current mate, it could if it get in touch with are constant.

The scientists also requested individuals to level how good each of four different objectives defined their own grounds for communicating with their ex:

How performed these objectives relate with the caliber of individuals’ existing relations? Those people that kept communications because they were keeping the ex in mind as a backup dating sites for Spanking Sites professionals tended to feel less satisfied with and focused on their own latest lover. On the other hand, if they comprise chatting with an ex for the reason that it individual had been element of their particular social network, they were almost certainly going to accept her current relationship (maybe having these communications suggests close social modification, or truly more positive because it happens without having to be deliberately sought out). Generally speaking, chatting with an ex since they were still a buddy or since they got used lots inside partnership wasn’t related to the way the participants thought regarding their current spouse.