Dr. Seth Meyers, Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Seth Meyers, Clinical Psychologist

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Rebound Relationships: Are They Always Unhealthy?

The issue of rebound relationships is not as clear-cut as you might guess. It would be easy to say that all rebound relationships are unhealthy because you haven’t given yourself time to mourn the end the relationship you just ended.

If you’re starving for a good generalization, it’s safe to eat this one for breakfast: As a rule, rebounds are bad news. However, this generalization fails to take into account the fact that the relationship one just ended may have been over for a long time prior to the official end. In other words, a man can be in a relationship and be mourning the loss that it is ending prior to the actual end of the relationship. In some relationships, the love and connection died a long time ago, and the two people simply stay together to avoid the upsetting breakup words.

For these individuals, they may seek out another relationship soon after. That relationship is not necessarily going to be unhealthy provided that he or she did the work to make sense of why the last relationship failed. This work, I must emphasize, must be done prior to beginning the next relationship.

Looking at the picture from this angle, it becomes apparent that you must define what a rebound relationship is, because not all relationships that begin soon after the previous one ended are actually rebound relationships. What defines a rebound relationship is the fact that you have worked through the issues of your last relationship so that you can avoid bringing them into your next one.

As long as your next relationship is not a rebound relationship and you have learned from your previous relationship, you are poised to find a relationship that will actually work for you!

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