The healthy benefits of rebound relationships
When you break up with someone you were in a serious and long-term relationship with, it’s a natural phenomenon to look for someone a little below your standards for your next love interest. It’s called a rebound relationship and it happens to most of us at some point. While many people point out the bad qualities of having a rebound relationship. there can be many good things that come with one as well. Here’s a summary of why it’s not the worst to bounce back.
Helps the healing process. It can be hard to break up with someone you had a lot of strong feelings for and shared a lot of good times with. The natural response to this is a depressed state. Maybe you want to isolate yourself, or eat a half gallon of ice cream and sit in your sweatpants thinking about happy times. By having a rebound relationship, you can relax into the single state, instead of going cold turkey. Just make sure you don’t turn your rebounder into another serious long-term relationship.
It allows you to continue living your life. There’s no point moping yourself down wondering if the other person is as miserable as you are. Self-hatred and depression are things that will get in the way of you being able to experience more of life. Find someone who has similar interests to you and go out and have fun. You can keep things relatively light and light-hearted with your new partner, and if things get more serious, you can either slow it down or see where it takes you.
It can be significant. There’s no reason that just because you’re in a rebound relationship can’t make sense to you. This new love interest could be the person of your dreams, and the timing is not right since you are just getting out of a relationship. Don’t completely discount what could be a good thing, given enough time. You don’t want to think that you screwed things up with your future wife or husband because you just couldn’t invest the time.
It shows you what you don’t want. Perhaps because you were recovering from your breakup, you entered into a new relationship with someone you don’t usually date. If you’re dating, you can at least recognize the traits this person has that you don’t want in your future relationships. Since you know you’re not going to be with them forever, you can really dissect your likes and dislikes about a partner. Don’t be afraid to let them know it’s just not working, but spare them the embarrassment of telling them why.
