This is pod popular podcast for the people, The Great Love Debate. It's
the Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate. It's a Great Love Debate.
Hi, get everyone, It's Brian Howie. Welcome to The Great Love
Debate, the world's number one dating air relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I
am here in the very fine studios of Pod Populi Podcasts for the People.
I am back at the one in Boca Ratone, Florida. I have not
been here in some time, and it is delightful. It's delightful here in
the Boca Ratone. There's many issues that come up on this podcast, in
this Great Love Debate that we're doing, this conversation that we've been having for
over ten years, and there's a lot of them that I can see both
sides on. People are always like, where do you stand on the debate.
I'm not saying my job is to stay neutral, but I'm saying that
my job is to hear all sides of this and then try and relay a
consensus that is going to give people the better opportunity to find what they're looking
for. Kind of lets me sidestep any responsibility. But there's there's certain things
that there's no absolutes on there's no clear cut answers. But what I'm talking
about today, I think there are two clear cut answers. And not only
does each side have two clear cut answers, but I think each of those
have two answers. So it's a perfect alignment of hopefully logic. You know,
emotion doesn't always match up with logic. It's one of those rare occurrences,
like a like a comment or any clips that sort of sores by you
and you can be like, was is that right? Do that what happened
line up with what I thought and felt? Doesn't always happen that way.
And so this is what I want to talk about. It's about getting back
together with your ex. And I'm not talking about married people doing that.
That happens every once in a while. It's extremely rare, and I'm gonna
explore that a whole lot deeper with a couple that I recently met, who
did that, Who did just that? They got back together after forty years
forty years. I have an upcoming episode that I'm going to have them on,
I promise, And it's unbelievable what happened. But that's a tease for
you. But as I've mentioned before on this show, I'm not really sure
why married people don't get back together more often after they divorced, because you
figured, at the peak of that relationship, it's very height the marriage,
the kids, the hope for the happily ever after, you figure that peak
was a greater peak than almost any other relationship that they had, and you
would figure you'd want to revisit that peak. You figure they'd get together at
a high school graduation with the child that they made together, and they would
feel that bond and they would give to say that, give us another try.
But people who have gotten divorced always explained to me, because I've never
gotten divorced, they always explain that once lawyers get involved, any shot at
the romance is gone, and the any good and some of the memories have
been sucked out of it. So, Sey LEVI, even for people who
are like, oh my god, we're the best of friends still, it
just very rarely, rarely happens. Well, what I want to talk about
today is when it happens with boyfriends and girlfriends, the ones that go on
and off, back and forth. And so I'm going to break that category
down into two subsets. The first type of this is when you're in the
relatively early stages of the relationship, maybe the first year or so, and
you might say a year isn't early, but you know, if you're planning
on doing fifty years with someone, a year is two percent, So yeah,
it's still early those situations. So there's a few reasons why people break
up and get back together in these situations. Lots of it has to do
with not understanding the other person clearly enough, or what you might not want,
what you might want or need from the other person. And lots of
it might come from external stimuli that you weren't prepared to handle. It was,
you know, jealousy from certain behaviors, why is that girl always around,
who's that guy from the office, blah blah blah. Pressures from your
job or your family. Could be one or two bad nights out, It
could be a drunk morning after. It could be a fight, a misunderstanding,
somebody said too much, somebody said too little, somebody got scared or
came on too strong or misinterpreted, and no, no, no, no,
and on. The list is endless of why we can be pulled apart
or not want to work through the awkwardness or the ick to the other side.
But what happens is soon enough you think, oh, maybe they weren't
so bad. You know, that anger kind of fades away, and they
were kind of cute, and you knew a few things about them that you
liked, and you remember those things. But a whole lot of the pull
towards a reconciliation is usually centered around the unknown. You still don't feel like
you played out the whole hand. I said this to this woman the other
day. I go, women are oftentimes more likely to get back together with
their boyfriend from college than they are their ex husband, even if they dated
that guy in college like six weeks. And it's not that the XPUZM was
so bad. It's that there's that part of I didn't quite play it all
out in the circumstance I want at the time I want, and their shrinings
and I didn't wait for them to turn thirty five and all that kind of
stuff. I feel like there's still some meat on the bone, so to
speak. And yeah, you found out some things you didn't like, but
you didn't find out everything. And finding out everything thing is where the hope
and possibilities lie that. We always talk about it, so you keep after
it, and you revisit it, and you return to it, and on
and on and on. And that's why there are two sides to this.
Some will say, as soon as you see a red flag, that's it.
When people show who they really are, believe them. And I agree
with those, yes, and there's absolutely merit to that train of thought.
And most of the time it probably is the case. It wasn't quite right
from the jump, and rather than you know, square peg round hole it,
you just get out and move on. But there's also the other side
of those who say, well, maybe if you just communicated better, or
if you just got through that misunderstanding, or someone was willing to change their
habits, And that is always the key to every relationship, even the ones
that are you know, blissful for forty years from the beginning, the willingness
for one or both of them to change. And that's where this elasticity comes
from, not that you stretched it out so far out that you stretched out
the sweater and it doesn't work anymore. It's that pulling apart and the coming
together within a relationship that actually has benefit, you know, Do you want
to be in a relationship that is constantly fighting and making up? No,
you do not. It's too dramatic, it's too exhausting. Do you want
to be in a relationship where where one is always looking at the good parts
and one is always looking at the bad parts? The red flags green lights
conundrum that we always come back to around here. No, you don't.
That's not healthy either. And you can go to couple's therapy and work it
out. But if you never work it out, then you're doing nothing but
making a therapist very wealthy. But the best relationship I've ever had of you
have had is the one where you had a crossroads come at you fairly early
on, maybe ninety days in, and you asked a question, or you
gave an answer, or you took a stand one way or another ended it,
and that became the light bulb or the impetus or even the ultimatum for
the other person to know what you really want and see it clearly if you're
going to do this, you're going to have to do this. And maybe
a day, a week, or a month later, somebody texts and you
grab a drink and suddenly either you forget what you kept you a part or
remembered what brought you together, the possibilities. I heard someone say the other
day that almost nobody is afraid of marriage. Despite the general thought that a
certain percentage of the population, especially the al population, is scared of commitment,
that's not really true. What they're scared of is commitment marriage with the
wrong person, being stuck. And so a lot of early breakups and frequent
ones. They're rooted in that I think I might maybe I don't know,
I can't decide. Let me have some space and think, and let me
look around some more, and on and on and on, and you keep
circling back because maybe they weren't so bad, and let's try it again.
So there's an element from the friends and the families that I can't believe you
guys are still doing this. And there's also people who are like, I'm
really glad you're still doing this. I like you guys together, work it
out. You might say, if it isn't right to the point where you
keep breaking it up breaking up, then it will never be right. And
you would be right to say that. And you might say I like it
that you guys keep giving it a shot and working at it to to get
it right and hopefully, maybe eventually you will get it right. And you
would also be right to say that, because there's a million examples of both
red flags though sometimes might be false flags, could be wrong and what that
red flag might have been raised to you based on something that had nothing to
do with this person or their circumstance. You might see a red flag because
sixteen boyfriends ago somebody did something similar, and green lights might be you know,
yellow lights with a glare. So you take a minute, think about
it, revisit it, and maybe up to a point. And I don't
even know what that point is, because you obviously have to set some boundaries
and deadlines and ultimately some ultimatums. Is that redundant? Ultimately some ultimatums.
You know, you can't be doing it at twenty three and thirty three and
forty three and you're still not anywhere solid. You can't do that. I
get that everyone is on the clock here, But is it possible, No
doubt. So I want to get into the other example of revisiting the past.
But in the present, we got to pay for some things around here.
I need to take a quick break, but we will be back right
after this. Okay, and we are back. We're talking about breaking up
and getting back together. The boomerang dating scene might be like, well what
about you know? And this came out came up a lot during COVID days
when we were sitting around not me. I was not sitting around you guys
during COVID and thinking, oh, what about that girl from poly pside class
in college? We only went out twice, but maybe I wasn't ready or
you were bored and finish your binging and you're like, oh, what about
that guy that I lived with for three years and they moved for a job
opportunity. What about the one who you thought you were ready to propose to
but she didn't quite make you feel sure enough, you know? Or what
about the one uh, you know you broke up with you because you were
drinking too much or traveling too much or going out with the guys or the
girls too much, And then you know, you saw them on Instagram and
they seem single and lost weight and got their act together and whatever, and
you're thinking, what about revisiting that? And half of you would probably say
no, no, no, stop revisiting, Move ahead, windshield not rear
view merrit. But I'm the eternal optimist, and I am somebody who absolutely
believes in and subscribes to not just the power of change, but the ability
to change. I'm stubborn in the belief that stubbornness can be overcome, that
if somebody says the right thing and the right way at the right moment,
the light bulb can go off and the pieces can click into place, and
everything can be different. And the biggest different sense can simply be you know,
time and place. People grow up, people hopefully evolve, and people
have other relationships in between that might make you revisit and rethink the way you
behaved in the earlier ones. You know, you might take some good things
out of the relationships that happened between now, then and now. My friend
wrote a book once called I think it was called Everything I Learned About Dating
a Man I learned from dating a woman, Meaning she was able to see
the patterns in herself when she was no longer the quote unquote girl in the
relationship. And you've heard of say a million times that you know the answers
always lie outside of your comfort zone. Well, for her, clearly way
outside. That's where they were. That's where she found the answers. So
anybody can find answers or have a wake up call or hit across or pressure
point where bam, they are a different person, not so much that you
don't recognize them, but enough that maybe some of the edges have been smoothed
over. Flip side to that. Yeah, can someone change for the worst,
no doubt, But I think that will reveal itself soon enough. I
think that will reveal itself quickly if they are the same or if they've gotten
worse. You won't have to spend a whole lot of time on it,
even if you do revisit. But I'm hugely open to somebody saying that the
person from they dated, three, five, ten, fifty years ago,
maybe I want to see how that might work out. I'm absolutely, yeah,
fucking go for it. I prefer that to people who who never dated
somebody and then they're suddenly like, Hey, that guy I knew from college
as single, so maybe I'll go after him, Meaning that because you had
one thing in common, that suddenly it was something worth pursuing when it wasn't
worthsuing back then. Everybody has many things in common. We all have a
lot in common. We're I think I read ninety eight percent Our DNA is
ninety eight percent of the same as a banana. So you got a lot
in common with a banana, and you've got a lot common with everybody else.
But if it's like, oh, we you know, went to junior
high together, let's talk about it, it's totally fine because you're using that
commonality as an opening to connect, which is great. You know, you
got to start somewhere, and sometimes the hardest part is recognizing and acting on
and opening. Take that opening, have at it, fine, But this
is about somebody looking at it and saying, what was the thing that broke
us up? And is this something that I have changed or they have changed,
or time has changed, and maybe there is room for reconnection. I'm
on the side of that. And you know you want to play a amateur
professional psychologist on me here. Maybe that is me silently screaming to the world
that I'm a better person than I was in my twenties and thirties, and
I want the world to recognize growth out of those of us who believe it
has taken place. Guilty, But I look at a lot of people,
you know, so you know, take caution with some of my words.
They are biased. I'm a biased jury here, but I look at a
lot of people recently and maybe they were so politically charged up. People on
both sides of it have had their brains broken by Trump pro and con.
So do I think in ten years some people might be like, Jesus,
I can't believe how much time and energy I spent obsessing and hating him.
It actually changed my personality. And some people might be like, I can't
believe I went so far down that road with that hymn them. I never
really looked great in a red hat. Why did I wear it every day
for six years? Yep. Time can bring wisdom and hindsight can bring clarity.
But oftentimes what it also does is it brings an opportunity, one that
you never fully appreciated, one that you never correctly acted on, and ones
that you never knew you had. So for all those who say no,
no, no, never, I hear you and I agree with you,
And for those who say, well, maybe impossibly, and if only I
hear you and agree with you too, And every situation in relationship is different.
So all I'm asking to do is just look at it and think maybe
because absolutism has no place in the love business. None. I will never
do that. I would never get no place. There always has to be
nuance, and there's always room for interpretation, and there are always circumstances within
and beyond your control. So in a nutshell, it's a big nutshell my
answer to the question. It depends on the circumstance, and that is a
that's a lazy answer, but it's also a definitive answer. Duck in the
answer. Yeah, but definitive answer is possibly, which is good and which
is why we debate and why the debate continues. So shoot me an email,
Great Load Debate at gmail dot com if you've got thoughts, questions,
or a history with an on again, off again or a revisiting of an
off again, and we'll get into it. Uh Like, Share, follow,
Please review this podcast. Reviews mean a lot in the podcasting ecosystem because,
as always at the Great Love Debate, we never stop making love.
See you next time. The Great Love Debate. It's the Great Love Debate,
the Great Love Debate. It's a Great Love Debate.