Raise your hand if you’ve ever thought about getting back together with an ex.

My hand’s up. No shame here. Pretty much everyone has, right? But I want to talk about this because a lot of people who actually do it don’t do it for the right reasons…or the right way.

And don’t think this is just about romantic relationships, either…we’re also going to talk about friendship breakups.

A Variety Pack of Breakups

Breakups happen all the time. And we know that romantic breakups happen all the time…but friendship breakups happen all the time, as well.

This isn’t something that’s talked about a lot. I remember going through friendship breakups and trying to look on TikTok or Instagram or look for podcasts about how to navigate that, and it was fucking hard to find anything.

Not a lot of people know how to navigate friendship breakups. I sure as fuck didn’t know how to navigate them. There’s so much information on navigating a romantic breakup, but good luck finding anything on friendship breakups.

Not only that, but when you go through a romantic breakup, there’s so much empathy from people. But those same people often don’t understand the heartbreak that comes along with friendship breakups.

I’m speaking from experience: in early 2023, I had a couple of friendship breakups that were extremely fucking challenging. They were close, close friendships, and I missed them a lot. I still miss them a lot, actually, and it’s almost harder because it wasn’t a huge blow-up thing.

It’s one thing when a relationship breaks down and it ended badly. Maybe there was cheating, maybe there was lying, whatever. Fill in the blank. It’s almost easier to move on when it ends tumultuously, because there’s so much anger there.

But when things end in an almost respectful way, where it’s just an acknowledgment that this thing isn’t aligned anymore, that can sometimes be really difficult to navigate. What do you do with all those feelings?

You’re feeling confused. You’re feeling hurt. You’re feeling sad. You’re feeling angry, but you didn’t get to get that anger out, because it didn’t end in a blow-up. You’re feeling like you miss them, like you want to reach out, but you also don’t…and all of that is really, really confusing.

Assess the Impulse

The reason I’m sharing about this now is because for a while, I had felt this pull to reach out to one of the friends that I went through a friendship breakup with last year.

I’d felt that pull for several months, but I hadn’t acted on it yet. And I want to tell you why I waited: because I didn’t want it to come from a reactive space.

When I’m talking to women about how they and their ex are thinking about getting back together, I immediately start by asking them to tell me why.

What has changed since you broke up? What have you reflected on? What responsibility have you taken in the breakdown of the relationship? What responsibility have they taken? What work have you done on yourself to ensure that things will be different this time? What work have they done on themselves to ensure that things will be different this time? What have you guys pointed to as the cause of the relationship to break down?

Both people need to come to the table with that, and both people need to want to rekindle the connection for a deeper reason beyond missing the other person.

Missing someone is not a reason to get back together. It’s a natural part of any breakup, whether it’s a romantic breakup or a friendship breakup.

Often, missing someone is actually just a comfort thing. You’re missing your safe person; they were your anchor, they’re not here anymore, and you just want them back.

That feeling is not coming from your highest self. It’s not coming from this very deeply aligned space where you know it feels right for you to reach out to that person. It’s actually coming from wounding and lingering attachment.

All that to say, I sat with the desire to reach out for several months. This friend and I did not have any contact during that time, so we didn’t speak for over a year.

I did eventually end up reaching out after this friendship breakup…but only when I knew I was reaching out from the most grounded space and knew it was the right thing to do.

Whenever you decide to reach out to someone you’ve cut off contact with after any kind of breakup, even a friendship breakup, it needs to come from a very grounded space. Not just to ensure you’re not reacting from a place of loneliness, but also so you can determine if you will genuinely be okay if this person says they do not want to reconnect.

When I went to reconnect with this person after our friendship breakup, I spent a few days preparing emotionally for whatever response they would have for me. They could have left me on read; they could have never even opened my message at all. They could even have said, “I appreciate your vulnerability, thank you, but no.”

But I trusted myself to handle that. Would it hurt if they didn’t respond favorably? Yeah, of course. If you’re coming from a true place of vulnerability and they reject it, that will hurt, but you need to be okay with that.

Getting Back Together…With Accountability

All in all, I wanted to go over this because I see this go wrong all the time. I see people get back together out of pure attachment and reactivity rather than actually anchoring into a relationship, and it just doesn’t work.

You need to pause and ask yourself, “Why do I want this person back in my life?” Because if it’s just that you miss them…it’s not enough, love. It’s just not.

You need to come at this from a grounded place, and you also need to come at it with a plan.

How are you going to do it differently this time? How are you going to show up differently as a partner? How are you going to show up differently as a friend? Because if you contributed to the demise of the relationship—which we all do in some way, even if the other person was acting like a fucking asshole at the time—you need to be conscious of that and have a plan to make it different this time around.

You don’t have to take action on this immediately. Sit with it. Contemplate it. Don’t make rash decisions. If you’re feeling urgency, it’s likely not coming from a grounded place. If reconnection is going to happen, waiting until you know it’s the right thing to do will not change that.

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