Back-and-forth dating doesn’t indicate anything good
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 11/18/2009
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If you’re in a yo-yo relationship, here’s my advice: Save yourself the emotional stress, end the relationship and move on with your life.
Over the years I’ve watched as dozens of friends and acquaintances have toiled through weeks, months and even years of an intimate relationship with a person they know is not a good fit for them. In many of these cases, my friends know very early on the relationship is not working out. They can identify qualities in the other person that are severely undesirable to them.
Their friends, me included, warn them not to continue on with the relationship because of these qualities. And more times than not, despite all the obvious signs and advice, many of my friends have continued on with the relationship until there is an ugly outcome.
To be fair, my friends only serve as a microcosm of something I’ve heard and seen many others do in our society. Perhaps it’s human nature.
I actually think it is a good thing for people to try to make a relationship work. Furthermore, everyone deserves the right to figure things out for themselves: Friends can be wrong about your relationship. And whether your friends are right or wrong, you must come to the conclusion all by yourself that the relationship is not working for you. That said, what I simply don’t understand is breaking up with someone who is obviously not good for you, and the need to get back together with that person repeatedly.
This is what I term “the relationship yo-yo:” the repeated cycle of breaking up and getting back together over and over and over and over� despite knowing the relationship is on course for a dead end.
There’s a big difference between trying to make a relationship work and the yo-yo (used as a noun). When you yo-yo (used as a verb) with someone, you already know the relationship is bad for you, you already know the outcome is another frustrating breakup, and you are no longer trying to make it work. The last time you got back together with your ex, you broke up because you realized all the bad things that caused you to break up the first time hadn’t changed. Still you go back for a third or fourth oscillation of disappointment?
At this point you’ve yo-yo’d so many times you don’t even want to tell your friends you’re back together with your ex.
You worry about hanging out with your ex’s friends who have now become your friends too. You also worry that your ex will hang out with friends who were originally just yours. Who will you have dinner with, who will you see movies with, and OMG, who will you have sex with now?
The reality is you will have to deal with these issues later on, once you realize for the fifth time your ex is absolutely the wrong person for you. So why don’t you start the healing process now instead of continuing to put yourself through all the hurt?
Of course that is much easier said than done. You’ve actually developed deep feelings for the other person. Plus you’ve spent so much time with this person you don’t want to feel like the last 3 months (or years) were a waste. And your ex isn’t all that bad, right?
Whether you realize it or not, each time you go back to be with that person, you are accepting all of the things they say, think or do that bother you. You are sending the message that all these things are OK with you because you already know how they are.
So instead of allowing the yo-yo to cause you more strife, find the strength to cut the string and move on with your life. Who knows, you could be missing your opportunity to meet someone who is a much better fit for you.
Darryl A. Boyd is a graduate student in the College of Science and may be reached at opinions@purdueexponent.org.