Rebound Relationships: Protect Your Heart First Before You Give it Away Again

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“How can I make rebound relationships work?”

Question Submitted by Dave, Sales, St. Petersburg, Florida

“Okay this is the second rebound relationships that has happened to me in 6 months. I meet a woman at a club. She is beautiful and warm etc.. etc.. She is also on the backend of a bad relationship. Right about the time they are leaving.

The latest one is still bound to him until their house is sold. I can’ tell if she is mad about me or not. I am a hopeless romantic and the intensity and passion has already escalated to boiling. She is getting all she hasn't gotten for so long.

The problem is I know once she is "free" my fate is sealed. She will want to explore her new found freedom and that will not include me because yet again I am the first after the breakup.

How do I keep her in the "this won't last" category as far as falling for her and ultimately getting hurt or should I bail out now and wait for better timing. I so enjoy her company and she is a good friend, If I get my heart pulled out of my chest yet again I may lose that and that would be sad. Can we, like moths, dance around the flame in rebound relationships without getting our wings burned off?”

Defining Rebound Relationships

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I’m sorry to tell you this, Dave, but there are several different things that are working against the possibility that this will last.

First, let’s look at what’s really happening here. She is coming out of a toxic relationship and judging by how you mentioned they have to split up assets like a house, that indicates they have been together for a long time (possibly married?). When long term relationships reach the point of “divorce,” there usually has been a long period of pain, anger, depression and maybe even hatred.

It’s also possible that one of the partners (him or her) is dealing with the fear of commitment and left the relationship in a very abrupt, inconceivable way. The abandoned partner gets crushed in all the activity and is essentially trapped in this hope that he or she will one day return. Some people get so distraught they engage in some form of “stalker behavior” or another.

Some relationships just end because they aren’t good anymore so it’s important to figure out how things ended because it will spell out what the next year or the rest of your life might look like.

Either way, you need some perspective right now. You need to ask yourself what you need out of this relationship, but you also need to figure out why you want to keep this one. You should read Should You Stay or Should You Go and discover where you're coming from before you get too deep into something that might ultimately break your heart.

Find out who left the relationship and why

People often follow patterns throughout their lives. We as humans have “standard ways” of dealing with things like pain, grieving, and loss. If you’ve ever heard of the “five stages of grief,” then you know what I’m talking about.

What you need most now is information to see if rebound relationships can work. This alone will foretell your future with amazing accuracy. You want to know who backed out of the relationship first and how they did it? How did the other person react? Did this loss leave her heartbroken or was she OK about it?

From what you’ve described here, you have found a woman who is terrified of commitment. In the book, “He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships ” by Steven Carter and Julia Sokol, they describe your situation step-by-step:

Intense passion from the very beginning.

Soon the commitment-phobe starts to feel trapped and starts to put up barriers. Maybe she doesn’t call as much as before or acts distant when you’re together.

As the trapped feelings get more obvious, this person will start acting out in often cruel and inexplicable ways.

She or he may even get a new boy/girlfriend they fall madly in love with so fast that it’s “inconceivable.” As a way to put up a wall between themselves and the abandoned partner.

This is almost always followed by moments of panic when they continue to hook up with the abandoned partner.

The guy or girl that got left behind is left as a complete basket case and dearly struggles to hold on. This sounds like where you are nearing in your rebound relationships.

Check yourself

You are the guy rolling in at the “end” of this relationship. No matter what she says about it being over, are they still together? Do they still see each other for time to time and is it apparent they might still be sleeping together (i.e. she doesn’t answer the phone on nights that she’d be hanging out with him)?

Get the hell out of there! What are you doing, dude? She is using you as a barrier to stop her ex from having any hope. Sure, you guys are great together, things are ultra passionate, and the sex is probably some of the best you’ve ever had, but you are standing in the way of them confronting any legitimate issues they really need to take care of.

Commitment-phobic people do this to ALL of their lovers. They also leave all of them pretty much the exact same way.

Right now, you’re thinking that you are saving her from this boring or stupid or abusive guy, but you’re actually just another dude in a long line of… sorry to say this… suckers.

If she truly is afraid of commitment, then you will go through everything her ex is going through within a year or two. It will break your heart and it will be a long time before you find someone who might even come close to the “boiling” hot relationship you currently have.

Moving in on a dying relationship is not a very honorable thing to do. Let both of them deal with their pain and let them heal. This is a terrible foundation for a new relationship and doesn’t bode well for any extended future you two could have together.

Best advice for rebound relationships

If this is just something fun and casual, then by all means, go for it! You actually have a much better chance of keeping her if you don't try to push her in any direction. Be cool. Lay back. Never act jealous in any way and just get to know each other. There is a great book, 1000 Questions for Lovers, that has tons of great questions that one actually would want to know about someone they're in to. The great thing about something like this is that you are really making an effort to get to know her that NO ONE has ever done to her. You will stand out in her mind and elevate yourself into something more than a rebound.

If you feel you're getting in too deep, do yourselves both a favor and walk away. Tell her to figure out her life and if she figures out that you two really had something special, then she should come find you. But it has to be a conscious decision and one she really wants.

Don’t base your decision on your own needs. It’s so easy to want to be selfish and do everything you can to hold on to her, but she is conflicted. She will hurt you.

She needs time to rediscover herself. She needs to find out who she is without the “prison” of going from relationship to relationship. Believe me, you will have a much stronger love if she returns whole and ready. Rebound relationships can be great because it helps you avoid the pain of loss, but by avoiding that pain, you can never really grow. You can never really have a completely meaningful relationship if you never put your past behind you.