4 Questions to Ask Before Reuniting with an Ex-Partner

When stars Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck tied the knot in 2022, decades after ending their initial engagement, it seemed like something out of a Hollywood romance movie.

“Love is beautiful,” Ms. Lopez wrote after the couple’s Las Vegas nuptials. “Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years of patience.”

But Ms. Lopez filed for divorce from Mr. Affleck on Tuesday after two years of marriage, ending months of frenzied media speculation about their volatile union and highlighting a decidedly unromantic truth: Reuniting with a former partner does not guarantee a happy ending.

“I’ve certainly seen people who are in happy long-term relationships who get back together after they’ve broken up,” said Elizabeth Earnshaw, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Philadelphia. “I would say that’s the exception to the rule.”

Many couples counselors said they recommend taking a quasi-clinical approach to reuniting with an ex—even (or especially) if you’re caught up in the excitement of rediscovering old flames. Here are four questions therapists recommend asking.

1. Do we both understand why we broke up?

This is a “ridiculously obvious” question to begin with, admitted Lisa Marie Bobby, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Denver and founder of Growing Self, a counseling and coaching service. But if you and your partner can’t articulate a clear answer without getting defensive or tense, that’s a red flag, she said.

What patterns have damaged your relationship? What deeper issues have led one or both of you to see it as unsustainable?

“It can be very difficult to gain visibility into the true ‘why,’” Dr. Bobby says. She often recommends seeking individual or couples therapy to gain insight.

2. Am I just lonely? What about you?

Loneliness can bring on feelings of longing and melancholy, said Anthony Chambers, a certified marriage and family psychologist and academic director of the Family Institute at Northwestern University. It can also cause people to have an especially optimistic view of past relationships, he said.

If you recognize that your desire to reconnect is rooted in loneliness, you may benefit from dating. Or you may want to consider strategies for finding connection that have nothing to do with romantic love—perhaps focusing on strengthening your bonds with friends, family, and your community.

And if you find yourself feeling nostalgic for a past love, grab a piece of paper and jot down some of the challenges you faced in the relationship, Dr. Chambers said. The idea isn’t to dwell on them, but to clear your head about the past. Think of it as due diligence, he said, noting that it can also help foster conversations with your ex as you try to decide whether to give the relationship another chance.

3. What has changed this time?

Start by asking yourself if you can do things differently this time around, Ms. Earnshaw said. You might ask yourself questions like, “Have I changed what I expect in a relationship?” she said. “Have I changed the way I communicate? Have I changed the way I regulate my emotions?”

So consider: What has changed in your partner? Most couples Ms. Earnshaw knows who have successfully reunited have clear answers to these questions.

“They can say, ‘Well, we grew up. We got jobs. We matured. We went to therapy. We thought about ourselves and had other relationships,'” Ms. Earnshaw said.

Even if your or your partner’s life circumstances have remained largely the same, each of you may have grown emotionally, Dr. Bobby said. For example, your partner may have gone to therapy or done a lot of personal reflection, she said. And this new information may have helped your partner understand problematic decision-making in past relationships.

4. How will we know if this is working?

Before diving back into anything, create some benchmarks that will help you, or both of you, figure out if things are better this time around, Dr. Bobby recommended. One could be as simple as a regular gut check to see if you’re not falling into old patterns.

“A lot of people waste years in these relationships, going to the same rodeo over and over again,” Dr. Bobby said. “It’s easy to get stuck.”

Ms. Earnshaw said it can help to ask yourself questions like: Do I trust that if the same problems or issues arise again I will navigate them differently? Will I speak up this time and set clearer boundaries? Will I walk away rather than drag things out?

Dr. Chambers has worked with some couples who have found it helpful to set a timeline for reunion—although he admitted that this approach isn’t for everyone.

They “think of it as a lease,” he explained. “‘Let’s try this for six months. And in six months we’ll see if we want to renew.’” Sometimes they do. And sometimes, he said, they realize, “even with our best efforts, it seems like we’re running into the same problems again.”