Romantic breakups can shake our sense of identity. After the dissolution of a relationship, people can feel as if a part of themselves has gone missing. New research published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships suggests that this experience is related to desires to rekindle a former relationship among anxiously attached individuals.
“Although we may not want them to, romantic relationships often end, eliciting a range of emotions. Commonly these emotions are negative and range from moderate emotional discomfort to severe distress,” said study author Morgan A. Cope, a graduate student at Florida Atlantic University.
“While most people will experience relationship breakup, little is known about how people overcome these negative feelings. We were interested in this topic because there seemed to be a gap in the extant literature on breakup recovery; that is, we do not yet fully understand how individuals work to overcome the emotional pain and cognitive effects of romantic relationship termination.”
“Our study considered relationship rekindling – wanting to get back together with an ex – as one avenue people may consider for relieving breakup-related distress,” Cope explained. “Notably, this was a preliminary step in a line of research that can provide context to post-dissolution thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and, after further investigation, perhaps offer insight and intervention to those suffering emotional distress after relationship dissolution.”
In two surveys, 361 participants who had experienced a serious breakup within the previous two years indicated their desire to rekindle their relationship. They also completed an assessment of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance, as well as a measure of self-concept clarity.
The researchers found that those with higher levels of attachment anxiety tended to express a greater desire to rekindle their previous relationship. In other words, those who agreed with statements such as “I need a lot of reassurance and love from my partner” were more likely to also agree with statements such as “I tried to spend time with my ex-partner” and “I tried to rekindle my relationship with my ex-partner.”
In addition, self-concept clarity mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and rekindling desire, suggesting that confusion about one’s self-identity plays an important role. Participants with lower levels of self-concept clarity disagreed with statements such as “I have a clear sense of who I am and what I am.”
“How you act and feel during relationships may influence how you respond to breakup. Although relationships are a large part of many individuals’ lives, if you are high in attachment anxiety (that is, you feel the need to be extremely close to your partner, you fear that they might leave, etc..) you may feel as though your relationship is an especially large part of your identity,” Cope told PsyPost.
“Because of this, breakup may be exceptionally distressing, and you may feel that getting back together with an ex is a logical option — I mean, why would losing your partner feel this bad if it were the right thing to do? You might interpret this negative emotion as a sign that you should get back together.”
“However, this may not be the best option. Instead, consider that you may be feeling high levels of distress because you have just lost a part of your identity. Do not rush back into a relationship because breaking up hurts at first – your pain is valid, but over time your sense of self can be restored without rekindling the relationship,” Cope explained.
But the study — like all research — includes some caveats.
The first survey asked participants to recall how much they desired to rekindle their relationship with their ex-partner immediately after they had broken up. But participants’ recollections may not have been entirely accurate. “This cognitive ‘time travel’ can influence response people provide, since people can be inaccurate in predicting and remembering emotions,” Cope said.
In the second survey, participants were asked to report how much they currently desired to rekindle their past relationship. But future research could go a step further and adopt a longitudinal design, “following couples over time, and capturing feelings about breakup, sense of self, and rekindling desire as they happen in real-time,” Cope said.
“Further, the question remains: if rekindling is not the best way to restore self-concept clarity, what is?” she added. “Future research should examine other means of recovering newly singled individuals’ sense of self through other self-restorative processes, including self-expansion (i.e., adding new identities to the self-concept), re-establishing habits and activities that were lost during the relationship, and bolstering platonic and familial social connection (i.e., spending time with non-romantic others).”
The study, “Putting me back together by getting back together: Post-dissolution self-concept confusion predicts rekindling desire among anxiously attached individuals“, was authored by Morgan A. Cope and Brent A. Mattingly.