The Healthy Benefits of Rebound Relationships

When you break up with someone that you were in a serious and long term relationship with, it’s a natural phenomenon to seek out someone a little under your standards for your next love interest. It’s called a rebound relationship and it happens to most of us at some time. While many people point out the bad qualities of having a rebound relationship. there can be a lot of good things that come with one as well. Here’s a rundown of why it’s not the worst thing to rebound.

It helps the healing process. It can be tough to call it quits with someone that 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 will want to isolate yourself, or eat half-gallons of ice cream and sit in your sweat pants thinking of happier times. By having a rebound relationship you get to ease yourself into single status, rather than go cold turkey. Just make sure that you don’t turn your rebounder into another long term, serious relationship.

It lets you still live your life. There’s no point in moping around wondering if the other person is as miserable as you are. Self-loathing and depression are things that will get in the way of you experiencing more out of life. Find someone that has similar interests then you and get out there and have fun. You can keep things relatively light and breezy with your new partner, and if things get more serious you can either put the brakes on it, or see where it leads.

It can be meaningful. There’s no reason that just because you’re in a rebound relationship that it can’t have meaning for you. This new love interest could be the person of your dreams, and the timing is just not right since you’re just getting out of a relationship. Don’t completely write off what could be a good thing, if 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. Maybe because you were reeling from your break up you got into a new relationship with someone that’s not quite what you usually date. If you’re dating down at least you can 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 what you do and don’t like in a partner. Don’t be afraid to let them know that it’s just not working out, but spare them the embarrassment of telling them why.