While no one can truly know what goes on behind the closed doors of a relationship, it can be helpful to ask yourself what youвЂ™d advise your best friend if they were you. What would you tell your best friend if they were in the same situation? Do any number of things that help you lift the veil, and then reevaluate. Let your own two legs carry you a bit further than they could yesterday. If you havenвЂ™t been outside today, walk around the block, and then keep walking. So if youвЂ™re questioning whether you should get back together, ask yourself: Am I sure I made a mistake, or am I just heartbroken right now? If itвЂ™s the latter, make yourself your favorite snack. In my case, shaking the sad meant therapy, a new city, a clichГ© tattoo, lots of crying on the subway, and a drastic haircut. The breakup hurts! You want to feel better! Ergo, undo breakup! Getting to the other side of the sadness may take years. The rub? In the case of a breakup, that means running right back to the relationship. Sadness is staying out in the cold when thereвЂ™s a friend waiting by the fire with a warm drink. Very few of us would choose it for ourselves. Are you sure, or are you just heartbroken?Д«reakups can be liberating and restorative, but they are almost always sad, and being sad is hard.

So instead, IвЂ™d like to offer some questions that I think are worth posing before you backslide into your exвЂ™s DMs.ДЎ. As Leandra rightly says, вЂњevery relationship is its own breathing organism,вЂќ and so, as much as IвЂ™d like to, I canвЂ™t dish out slaphappy relationship ultimatums in good conscience. The very woman to whom we owe the glorious rat-nest of glamour that is this website got back together with her ex, and rather successfully so. If youвЂ™ve undone your relationship, in other words, you didnвЂ™t do so by accident.ДЄnd yet.

Breakups are not a bad hair day they do not just happen. I have eight years worth of strong opinions, eight years of self-flagellation, eight years of mental gymnastics performed to justify and excuse so much bad behavior and poor decision-making on both our parts. We spent the next four years breaking up again, and again, and again, until we broke up for good when-surprise!-he cheated on me for what became the final time (although I would have taken him back that time, too, if he hadnвЂ™t fled our apartment with all his belongings while I was out of town).ДЄll of that is to say: Whether or not weвЂ™ve met (hi!), I have strong opinions about whether you should get back together with your ex. He spent the next few months getting drunk and throwing things off the roof of his house, mostly beer cans, once a pumpkin, launched venomously into a snowbank while I shouted at him through the window. This was senior year of college-weвЂ™d been dating since we were freshmen-and when I confronted him, he said he needed to figure out who he was without me. My ex and I broke up, the first time, after I discovered heвЂ™d been carrying on an email affair.

Please get back to me