Today we’re going to talk about why your ex jumped into another relationship so quickly after their breakup with you.

And really I want to highlight two areas that often don’t get talked about enough,

1. The Swept Under The Rug Facts About Rebounds
2. How Avoidant Research Can Help Us Understand The Speed Of Rebounds

So, buckle up buttercup because we are going to be diving into things that are rarely talked about in the breakup industry.

Let’s begin!

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The Facts The Breakup Industry Sweeps Under The Rug About Rebounds

Generally speaking when you are looking at a situation where your ex quickly jumps into another relationship after their breakup with you, you are looking at a rebound relationship.

Of course, when you are looking at rebounds there are certain held beliefs that people have about them.

• That they are all destined to fail
• That they are an unhealthy way of handling a breakup

But what if I were to tell you that most of what you believe about rebounds might be wrong. In fact, many of the stereotypes you have about them are simply false when looking at the data.

Take the “unhealthy” aspect.

So, most people believe that rebounds don’t give you time to process your emotions and properly grieve. I suppose the expectation is that you are supposed to go through the five stages of grief after a breakup before moving on to someone else.

But what usually happens is that right around when we get to this stage or this stage,

1. Anger
2. Depression

You’ll notice your ex go on the rebound. They’ll push their pain away but instead of processing it. They’ll use another person to distract themselves from it.

That’s the stereotype. That’s the argument for why people say that rebounds are “bad.”

That’s the whole argument of the breakup industry.

But they’re wrong.

In fact, according to an article written by Psychology Today in 2014,

New research shows rebound relationships are surprisingly healthy.

Recent evidence suggests, in fact, that people who dive into rebound relationships get over their ex-partner more quickly and feel more confident in their date-ability (Brumbaugh & Fraley, 2014).

It was actually me stumbling across this research that convinced me that our concept of the being there method was the correct way to go in a post breakup period assuming you want to get your ex back if they are in a new relationship.

But we are kind of dancing around the big elephant in the room.

We still haven’t explained WHY exes move on so quickly. To be honest with you I struggled with this question for years before finding an answer that I felt made a lot of sense.

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The Connection Between Avoidants And The Speed Of The Rebounds

Often when writing about avoidants you’ll see me cite the following poll,

Essentially it proves that most of our clients believe that their exes tend to have avoidant attachment styles. It’s the whole reason I’ve essentially dedicated all of 2022 to studying avoidant exes.

And you want to know what I’m learning?

That you can learn a lot about why exes act the way they act by simply understanding their psychology. Them jumping into another relationship is no different.

Take the avoidant death cycle as a perfect example.

This is essentially a graphic I put together to help explain the life cycle of a relationship for an avoidant. There are eight core parts to it.

I’ve talked about them extensively in many of our most recent articles in our blog.

The eight stages are;

1. The avoidant wants someone to love them
2. They enter into a relationship with you
3. They notice some worrying things in the relationship
4. They think of leaving you
5. They actually leave you
6. They are happy they left you
7. They begin to feel kind of lonely
8. They wonder why they can’t ever find anyone

I’ve always thought of the cycle as a wheel with each revolution claiming another relationship in its path. Now, for our purposes the important part of the graphic is actually this part here,

This essentially highlights that post breakup period and how an avoidant handles it. According to Free To Attach avoidants will often go through a “separation elation” period,

After a relationship ends, people with an avoidant attachment style tend not to show much anxiety or distress, often feeling an initial sense of relief at the relinquishing of obligations and the sense that they are regaining their self-identity, and not tending to initially miss their partner – this is “separation elation” as the pressure to connect is gone.

Which interestingly is followed pretty closely by a period of repression,

Experts in repressing emotions, they do not feel much initially, typically appear to recover quickly after relationships and can move on fast, more comfortable seeking a new pursuit situation. They envisage that a new person could be the solution to their woes.

So, this seems to line up pretty well with the rebound stereotype I just took aim at earlier. So, am I wrong or is there something I’m missing?

Well, what’s interesting is that while it is true that avoidants use rebounds to repress their emotions this is a coping mechanism that’s been present since childhood.

They don’t know any other way of “dealing with it.”

As such they jump from relationship to relationship and heal from breakups that way and it’s actually effective for them. In fact, one of the things we are finding is that the more “experience” your ex has of handling breakups in this way the more effective it is for them to “move on.”

But I’m getting off topic.

How Avoidants Truly View Jumping From Relationship To Relationship

Generally speaking new relationships are romanticized by avoidants. Remember, a contradiction lies at the heart of every avoidant,

A need to be love but a protective mechanism that prevents them from letting anyone get close enough to give them that love.

Naturally they prefer relationships where there are “no strings attached.”

Or no large threat to their independence.

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Rebounds fit this criteria because ultimately in their head they have no intention of “falling for the other person.” Rather, it’s more about falling for the chase.

Romanticizing that honeymoon period.

But this is all happening subconsciously. Without their knowledge.

They start out every new relationship optimistic that things are going to work out. Remember the start of the death cycle?

“I just want someone to love me.”

This is ultimately what everyone thinks before entering into a relationship. Avoidants are no different at the beginning.

They fall for the honeymoon period. Things are looking great until the newness wears off and their avoidant tendencies begin to come to the forefront.

It always revolves around a threat to their independence.

Once that honeymoon period is over, once that rebound makes an attempt to draw them closer they begin to self sabotage the relationship. They want their independence back.

Jumping From Honeymoon To Honeymoon

I suppose the big thing I’d like you to take from this article is that avoidants don’t really view rebounds as viable on purpose.

Remember, their whole M.O. is that they want to keep their independence by any means necessary. So, the reason they jump so quickly from one relationship to the next is they are sucking up the honeymoon period out of each.

It’s a little like drinking a milkshake.

They get into a relationship with you, drink the honeymoon milkshake, but the second the shake goes dry is when their avoidant tendencies cause them to want to move on to someone else.

To drink another milkshake.

Honeymoon period to honeymoon period.