5 Reasons To Get Back Together With Your Ex

You try to keep the thought out of your head, but you can’t help but entertain it from time to time. Your best friend, the one who held you in her arms while you hyperventilated in between gulps of Stoli Raz during the expanse of The Break Up, would positively slap you if you admitted this to her. Actually doing this is unthinkable. But sometimes, against your better judgment, you actually consider getting back together with your ex. That ex. You know which one.

Practically speaking, that’s a big no-no. You guys broke up for a reason, possibly even multiple times. They hurt you badly, shoved your heart down the garbage disposal and gave you trust issues years of therapy will have a hard time erasing. Or maybe you did that to them. Either way, getting back together with your ex is a bad idea nine times out of ten. But you can’t help thinking about it, just a little bit. Even though you’re “over it,” “moving on,” “in a better place,” “with someone else,” you undeniably miss them. Here are some reasons why you might consider getting back together with your ex (which you will never actually act on…right?).

Things still feel unfinished. That feeling you get when you know a relationship is definitely over and good riddance? That seems to be missing. It still feels like there are things left to be said and done, like in a novel that abruptly cuts off while leaving the story unfinished. I believe the cliché term for this would be “lack of closure.” Closure is something you feel you need so you’re not forever standing there with your palms up, wondering what didn’t happen. Like, what would have happened if someone had grabbed Lincoln from behind and shoved a bunch of marshmallows in his mouth right in the middle of the Gettysburg address? You get my point.

You’ve never had better sex. You’ve slept with tons of other people, but you might as well not have because no one else has ever been able to do what they did. Though you may have had more interesting or technically “better” sex with other people, you were never quite able to recreate that same connection with anyone else that caused an electrical fire underneath your skin. You worry that you’ll never truly want anyone else again, or ever feel truly wanted. Essentially, you started out with Ciroc and ended up with Kamchatka.

You’re the one who messed up. Truth be told, the breakup was your fault. You’re the one who impulsively broke it off; you’re the one who had a case of cold feet/commitment issues/other “plans” for your life that didn’t include them. But now you’re regretting the moves you made and genuinely want your ex back. All of a sudden, you feel like you could really build a life with them and the breakup was all a result of some paranoid freakout that you wish you would’ve avoided. You shake off the idea of actually trying to start over, knowing they’ll never take you back no matter how many times you apologize kneeling in the street with flowers.

You feel like you’ve lost your best friend. No one else gets your peculiar and endearing oddball qualities like they do. You’ve managed to get over your relationship drama and still care about each other deeply as friends. You exchange birthday gifts and text each other when something funny happens. They understand what’s on your mind when you call them because you “feel weird and want to talk,” even though you don’t actually say much. You text them half of an old inside joke one night while drinking and they instantly respond with the other half. For a moment, you feel like you’ve just been punched in the heart and honestly can’t remember the legitimate reason for the break up.

It’s that time of year. I’ll be the first to champion independence and fabulous singledom forever, but to be honest, being alone during the holiday season kind of blows. If you’re used to being in a relationship during the wintertime, going from being happily encased in warm kisses and blankets with your love to being encased in a Snuggie alone with a bottle of pinot is a difficult transition.