The 12 Blogs of Christmas: The Ghosts of Relationships Past

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had relationships that felt great, met our needs at the time, made us feel fulfilled and happy, but also ended so horribly that the idea of post-breakup communication was out of the question. Then months or years later, something happens. It’s almost inevitable.  Because we men are creatures of habit and because we can’t let women just move on, there’s a good chance that at some point we pop up and try to reinsert ourselves into your lives.  We do damage, we leave, and then we reappear. Any good detective will tell you that criminals who are guilty can’t help but return to the scene of the crime; and neither can we. When we know we’ve done wrong, it’s in our nature to reappear for a number of reasons...

Sometimes we want to show you that we’ve changed, and are better people. In this case, because we’re not trying to get back together with the woman, this is a ridiculously selfish reason to come back into her life. The guilt of what we’ve done is so affecting that we want you to know that we aren’t really that person any longer, or that we never really were that person in the first place. We want you to see us for who we are, and to know that we’re not the douche-bag we pretended to be when we were with you. In reality, we’re really great people, we really are, and our current girlfriends can attest that we really have changed. I’m sure that last statement makes women around the world feel great knowing they were the only person capable of bringing out the worst in us. We’re not really interested in what you had to go through to heal or in knowing how you’ve moved on. All we want is to be able to sleep peacefully at night knowing that you know it isn’t us now. It was us at that time in our lives or, it wasn’t us at all as much as it was you (don’t worry, we forgive you). Maybe it was just the combination of us that brought all of that out. Either way, if this is why the men in your life are reappearing, it’s probably best if they just stay gone.

Sometimes we want to see whether or not you’ve changed. Contrary to popular belief, men are human. We do catch the vapors every once in awhile. The only thing better than meeting an awesome new woman is meeting an old girlfriend who now seems way more awesome than she was when we were with her. I’m sure social networking sites go a long way in exacerbating this next point. An old flame uploads new pictures, and her phone turns into the “hey it’s me, it’s been a minute” hotline. When us men-folk are interested in getting to know the new you, our interest is not genuine. It’s more of a novelty. We want to prove to ourselves, and to you, that we didn’t make a mistake the first time around. You’re not really that different, and the thing about you that always annoyed us is still there just below the glossy airbrushed surface of a new and professionally taken profile pic. We want to find out whether you’ve been doing hella squats and that’s all you back there, or whether that’s just an awesome camera angle. We want to know if that nonchalant confidence you exuded when you jetted off after briefly chatting with us when we bumped into you on the street was actually real confidence or the product of many-a-night spent practicing everything you’d say and do should you happen to randomly run into us somewhere. Again, if this is why he's coming back, it’s selfish and he might as well stay gone.

Sometimes we’re just being manipulative. Here’s a secret about some of us men that I probably shouldn’t be telling. Sometimes, we just want control. Many of us went through a period in our lives where our most valuable talent was our ability to exert an unhealthy amount of control over the women we were dealing with. The thing about having that sort of control is that it makes it impossible to build any sort of lasting relationship. If we can control you, we can’t respect you. We can pretend to, but in reality we don’t. The two things women reading this should take from this point are:

1. Never let a man have full control over you, even if that man has married you.
2. If a man who once had that sort of control over you reappears, we probably just want to see if we still have it.

Be honest with yourself. If you’re unsure of whether or not you really are free, then when we come back, you need to run. Don’t be embarrassed, just run. Don’t try to prove to us that you’re free, just run the other way because you’re about to go through that same thing you went through all over again. I wish we weren’t this way, but sometimes some of us just are.

Sometimes, we realize what we’ve lost and are ready to be whatever we need to be to get it back. Of all of the reasons a man might reappear, this is the most rare. Sometimes without us realizing it, a woman can carve out a perfectly round little space in our hearts and lives. We leave her, thinking she’ll be the only one who experiences any loss, but in reality, we lose too. Try as we may to fill that spot she left with the square pegs of another woman, there’s always a certain amount of emptiness that remains. And maybe one day we wake up and decide we’re going to give it another go. All we can do is reappear and hope our spot is still reserved. Hope sometimes is misleading to men, and we need to be prepared for that. 

Some say “all’s fair in love and war” and I agree to a certain extent, however the fact that all is fair, doesn’t always mean that all is right. As men, I think we sometimes have to take responsibility for the damage we’ve done and respect the fact that our women are entitled to rebuild themselves in whatever way they see fit.  We also have to be responsible about how we decide to return to their lives. We have to think about whether we are returning because we think we can ‘help’ them, whether we’re returning because of our own selfish motives, or whether we’re returning because we think there might be a real chance at a lasting “we” this time.

Fellas, have you ever popped back into the life of a woman you’d been with previously? How did things turn out the second time around? Ladies, have you experienced any of the above scenarios, or maybe one I’ve missed?  How do you approach rekindling old flames? 

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