"I Rebounded...Are We Doomed?"

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Hello and welcome to Reimagining Love. I'm Dr. Alexandra Solomon.

I have been studying relationships for over 20 years as a couples therapist, a professor,

an award-winning author, and as a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend.

Now, I'm inviting you into this space each week as I dig into some of the toughest and most

fascinating relational dilemmas of our time. If you want to discover how to create vibrant and

loving relationships in your own life, you have come to the right place. This is Reimagining Love.

Hi there. Welcome back to Reimagining Love. We are together today for a brand new solo episode

just you and me, and you know when we tackle a solo episode together, we're going to be heading

into some facet of intimate relationships that feels tangly, that feels confusing, and where there

is an abundance of so-called conventional wisdom that I am going to want us to think critically

about together. And you know what I always say is that we are never going to make intimate relationship

dynamics easy or simple, but we can make ourselves brave and savvy. So let's tackle the rebound.

So maybe you are here with me today because you are fresh out of a breakup and you have crossed

paths with someone you're interested in, but you're scared that pursuing this feels rebounding

and therefore foolish and doomed. Or maybe you are seeing someone who themselves is recently out

of a relationship and you are worried about becoming there rebound. Or maybe you've had concerns

about a rebounding couple who is part of your relationship world or maybe you're just curious

about the process of how we heal between relationships. Wherever you are coming in from, I'm glad

that you're here and I feel hopeful and confident that you're going to leave with something useful.

So to keep things simple, I'm mostly going to be speaking to you as if you are the person

who is self-identifying as the rebounder. Our plan is we're going to talk about rebound

relationships, look at some of the rhetoric around them, and then I'm going to offer you a framework

for how to do a rebound with relational self-awareness, i.e. how to keep a new relationship healthy while

you're also continuing to process whatever your last relationship left you with.

And if you're the partner of somebody who is rebounding, you're going to be able to repurpose

my framework for your own situation. As I always say, relationships have the power to wound us

and the power to heal us. So let's dig in and see how you can make a rebound work for you,

both in terms of your healing journey and how to support the well-being of your relationship.

Okay, so rebounds are generally understood as getting into a new relationship,

quote-unquote quickly, after the breakup of your last relationship with the assumption being

that you didn't take quote-unquote sufficient time to process the end of your last relationship.

And you know, culturally we have this like collective spectrum. One end of the spectrum is

unhealed slash no time between relationships. And the other end of the spectrum is

totally healed slash abundant time between relationships. Can you picture that spectrum?

It's like no time at all, jump from one to the next with no healing.

Then the other end of the spectrum is plenty of time, lots of healing, mindful space between

relationships. That's how we imagine the spectrum. And the belief that is embedded in the spectrum

is that the people who wait a nice long time between relationships are well healed and ready to love

again. And the people on the other end of the spectrum who moved quickly between relationships

are unhealed, i.e. rebounding, and they're doing a disservice to themselves,

they're doing a disservice to their new partner, and they are sort of disrespecting the memory

of their last partner. But in my experience, this equation or this kind of merging of time and

healing isn't quite right. I think when we imagine that spectrum, what we're saying is time

equals healing, right? The more time between relationships, the more healing between relationships.

And that doesn't fit with my experience. From where I stand, from what I know from my work,

the more accurate equation is this, time plus intentionality equals healing. So it's not time

equals healing. It's time plus intentionality equals healing. Healing doesn't just take time.

It takes time plus intentional effort toward integrating the loss of the last relationship

gleaning the lessons from the last relationship, learning about yourself, connecting the dots,

settling your body from the inside out, and being ready to open up again. So that equation

shows us that there's actually two separate variables. Time is separate from what you have done

with the time. And so if we separate those variables, rather than a spectrum, you now actually have

like a two by two square, right? These are different dimensions. The fancy term is their orthogonal

dimensions. They're separate from each other. So imagine now in your brain, rather than

that spectrum of having you imagine, I now want to imagine a two by two square that gives us

actually four types of people. Type one people have taken lots of time and they've invested lots

of intentional energy in their healing, right? These are the people that took time between relationships.

They use that time well. They are healed. They're ready to love again. And they have the support

of the world behind them, because the world would say that there has been enough time that has

passed, okay? Type two people, they've taken lots of time, but there's been no intentionality.

Now here, the world is going to assume they're ready to love again, because the world would say

that an appropriate amount of time has passed, but they actually haven't processed the last

relationship, and they actually are bringing in all of that unexamined reactivity into their next

relationship. They're sort of white knuckling their recovery. But what's sneaky is because there was,

you know, what the world would say was ample time from relationship one into relationship two,

they're going to have the support of the world behind them. They're not going to be seen as

rebounding, but they're kind of emotionally rebounding because they haven't, they've just sort of

like white knuckled the time between relationships, okay? Type three people have taken very little time

between relationships, and they also have had no intentionality. This is, you know, what we typically

think of when we think of rebounds. So here, the world is judging them because they've kind of

jumped from relationship one into relationship two, and the world may be kind of onto something,

because they're jumping from relationship one to relationship two, and they probably are bringing

lots of reactivity from the last relationship into this one, and they might be trying to avoid the

pain of the loss by kind of hiding out in a new relationship. But then let's be careful because

we don't want to forget about the type four people. These people have taken very little time

in between relationships, but there's been lots of intentional effort to heal. These type four

folks are kind of getting, you know, my bad rap here. The world is misunderstanding them. The world

is very likely judging these type four people is rebounding, right? Because there wasn't a whole

lot of time between the last relationship and the new relationship. So the world is probably

deeming them to be impulsive, irresponsible, saying, oh my gosh, can you believe it? It's so soon.

But what the world can't see is that even in the absence of a long amount of time, the type four

people did their work. They readied their hearts, they readied their minds, they readied their bodies

to love again. So the date on the calendar doesn't tell the full story. So that's just an,

I'm inviting you to kind of tease this apart and add some complexity here. And I want you to

consider with me that time and what you do with time are two different things. It's why the

conventional wisdom around rebounding deserves some scrutiny. The amount of time someone has been

single is genuinely not a reliable metric for how ready they are. Somebody can be single for like,

three years and find themselves completely triggered in a new relationship, making comparisons

and flooding and exiting and saying they weren't ready. Meanwhile, somebody else may have been

mentally checked out of their relationship for months before it officially ended. And processing

the relationship while still technically in the relationship and they may arrive at a new

connection in a much more grounded place, ready to truly meet this new person, you know, in a space

of openness and readiness. And you know, we have this collective fascination with intimate relationship

dynamics. It's why there are seemingly an unlimited number of reality TV shows about dating. It's

why I am never, ever short of things to talk about on this podcast. And part of that fascination

exists because love makes us feel so incredibly vulnerable. The stakes are high, the risks are real.

So we go looking for these magic formulas. We want a guarantee up front that we're not going to

get hurt and that we're not going to hurt somebody else. And it leads us to fixate on numbers.

You know, we're looking for these kind of concrete metrics or ways that we can kind of check the

box that we're going to be okay. So why we focus on things like how many dates should you wait

before you have sex with your new person? How many times a week should a couple be having sex to

have a happy relationship? How long should you wait in between relationships? And every single one

of those cases, we're searching for the number that confirms that we're normal, the number that

promises that we're going to be okay. And like I said before, love is always going to refuse

to be simple, but we can become increasingly able to sit with nuance and complexity and uncertainty

and trust ourselves. Trust ourselves to be on a path that doesn't look like the way the world

is told it's supposed to look because oftentimes the world's efforts to determine how it's supposed

to look are a reflection of the world's collective anxiety and difficulty sitting in all of the

shades of gray. I want to share with you a personal story here. Years ago, there was somebody in my

family who became widowed at the age of 58 after a long and happy marriage. And she started dating

within like, I mean, maybe it was two years, maybe even like a little less than two years,

there was lots of concerned discussion among her family. Had she truly dealt with her grief,

was she pursuing this new relationship to avoid her grief? And honestly, there was like another

layer to those concerned conversations that was this kind of sneaky judgmental layer that was like,

was she disrespecting the memory of her first husband by pursuing love again? And I remember her

saying to me something that was so illuminating. She said basically paraphrasing, you know, far

from disrespecting the memory of my first husband, my interest in loving again is a tribute to him.

In loving him, it was my relationship with him that taught me in the first place that love

is transformative, that love is important, that love is really vital, that matters, it's worth

investing in. And so that's how I see it for myself. I'm dating again in an honor of him.

I share that story because it highlights that time itself tells us little to nothing. What matters

far more is the process the person has gone through to grieve and rebuild. And the meaning that

the person has made of the last relationship as they step into the next relationship.

So if your ex-partner moves into a new relationship quickly after ending things with you,

I know that situation can evoke such intense feelings. It can evoke envy and anger and a deep

sense of unfairness. It also can create a sense that you feel like you must not have meant very

much to them or that you are really easy to get over. And there can be this temptation to

slide from sadness into shame and self-criticism. Knowing that they are with someone new can feel sad,

that makes complete sense. But I want to really challenge you here that it is a significant stretch

to take that data point as any kind of evidence or truth about you. The fact that they have moved

on tells us something about their process and tells us little to nothing about you, your worth,

who you were as a partner, et cetera, et cetera. And maybe the case that they had sort of

emotionally left the relationship with you long before the breakup happened. And that is sad.

And that is unfortunate. But there again, it tells you something about their difficulty

making a decision, enacting a decision, processing their own self-doubt. It does not tell you

anything about your worth. And it could be the case that they are rushing in to something new,

to prove something to themselves, to avoid the grief, to avoid the guilt. Your work, no matter what,

your work is to let their process be their business and to return yourself to your business.

What's your business? Your business is rebuilding yourself, investing in yourself,

investing in your friendships, investing in your family, cultivating practices that bring you joy,

that bring you curiosity, that seed the possibility of what your life gets to be now. Your business

is basically pouring into yourself.

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to the innovative technology across Exfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to

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just watching. We're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast,

proud partner of Team USA.

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nerdy little note from the research land that may surprise you. There was a study that came out

last year in the archives of sexual behavior that actually found benefits to beginning to date

soon after a breakup. So these researchers found that people who stayed single after a breakup

struggled more frequently with rheumatative thoughts and painful memories.

And those who quote-unquote rebounded with a new relationship or even with a situation

ship were able to function more easily in their day-to-day lives. They still experienced grief,

but the new romantic connection helped them move forward in their overall well-being

and their confidence were also higher. In part, these researchers said because they felt desirable

again. So what's interesting here is that it seemed from where these researchers stood that the

key to the improved functioning was not that the rebound relationship was going to lead to something

long-term. It was simply that the presence of the new relationship helped lift the person

out of their rheumatative thoughts. So we hate to say it, but apparently the old adage that the

best way to get over someone is to get under someone else seems to have at least some scientific

merit to it. But before we move on from this research finding, I want to talk you through

what stands out to me as three important caveats. First, the sample was made up of young adults,

ages 18 to 25. So these relationships, you're never going to catch me diminishing the value or

the importance of the relationships that we have when we are young adults. But this was not the end

of decades-long marriages. These were not the ends of relationships that had been around for many,

many years. This was a sample of young people. The more important caveats are,

to the researchers didn't track how successful the subsequent relationships were and what happened

to the new relationship longer term. This was research that was just about what happened to

post-breakup rheumatative thoughts if you started dating again right away. And I think we could

agree that something could solve one problem, right? Dating someone new does help you stop

ruminating about your ex while potentially creating another problem, which would be reinforcing

the avoidance of your grief. So in this way, the research is somewhat cautionary. It's like,

listen, if you start dating right away, you will feel better. There's nothing like a little NRE,

a little new relationship energy to get you out of a funk. But you need to practice discernment.

Are you excited about what you and this new partner are building? Or are you excited about getting

away from the yucky, painful breakup feelings? The third caveat is that these researchers also

didn't track or investigate how the new partner felt about the fact that the person they were

dating was fresh from a breakup. The study certainly outlines the appeal of a rebound for the rebounder.

But some of the collective judgment that we make about rebounders exist precisely because

the new partner could feel, you know, sort of used if things don't work out. Like, wait a minute,

did you only like me because I was an escape from the hell of your breakup grief?

So all of that is just a big ol' reminder that if you are the rebounding partner,

it's really, really important for you to be upfront about your situation, your intentions,

and to the degree that you can be open and transparent about your own assessment of your capacity,

you know? One of the members of my team shared a story about beginning to date somebody who

was fresh out of their last relationship. And so the member of my team was understandably

feeling somewhat skittish and cautious about this new person's intentions, their emotional

availability, she's feeling a little self-protective, like am I going to get hurt here while also being,

you know, super excited about this person. So my team member advocated for herself and she said

to this new partner, listen, I'm really enjoying getting to know you, but I'm feeling a little

self-protective, given how recently your last relationship ended. And I wonder if I can ask you

a few questions. And the person that she was dating was forthcoming, emotionally attuned,

and genuinely concerned about her well-being. And my team member told me that she felt like

a hundred percent better after that conversation. And it wasn't only because of the answers

she had received, but it was actually more because of how her partner showed up in that moment.

It was more about the process, the feeling inside of her body as she asked those questions,

that was the more significant data for my team member than what the new partner said. You know,

the content, the answers that she got back mattered less than the feeling that she had in her body

as she watched her new partner answer these questions and feel, you know, she felt cared for.

She felt like this new partner cared for her concerns, and she could feel the empathy coming

across. So if you are the person who's newly out of a relationship and you're beginning to date,

it is wholly reasonable that your new partner may have some concerns, right? Your new partner might

wonder if you are using them to bypass your healing. They may worry that you are just there to

distract yourself. They may wonder if you're using them as a test run to see if you're ready to

date again, and your new partners concerns matter. Concerns are not accusations. Concerns are not

indictments. In fact, the long-term viability of the relationship of any relationship rests in

part on both partners' abilities to tend to each other's concerns. So this is really just a practice

ground for something that you're going to need to do over and over and over again in your

relationship, which is if you have a concern, it's a concern for me, you know, turning toward

a partner's concern. So your job is to view your new partner's questions as an opportunity,

not a threat, an opportunity, an opportunity to build closeness and connection to deepen your

understanding of each other. So do not roll your eyes, do not deflect, do not minimize your

partner's concerns in any way. Just notice how you feel in the conversation. That's data for you.

And your new partner's job is to ask you questions with as much openness and curiosity as they

can muster, you know? And their job is also to notice how your responses feel inside of their body

as you respond to them. That's the data for them. I also want to remind you that your partner's

concerns do not grant them unlimited and total access to every nook and cranny of your psyche,

you know? Like you get to share the amount of information about your past relationship,

that you feel ready to share, that you can share with a regulated nervous system,

because trust builds between people as a relational process, you know? And if you feel like you

have to spill your guts and you are distressed and distraught, but you feel like you have to do it,

otherwise they're going to leave you. That's not going to build trust. And if you feel like you are,

you know, closed up tight as a vault and you can't tell them anything because if they feel disappointed

or if they feel concerned, you know, then they're going to leave you. That's not going to build trust

either. So it's like this titrated process of you disclosing the amount that you feel like you can

disclose from a place of calm, steady openness, and then you may need to pause and come back again,

right? You don't have to do this entire thing in one fell swoop in one whole conversation.

So let's just think about some possible questions that your new partner might want to ask,

what if your new partner asks what kind of ongoing contact you have with your ex, you know,

online in real life? That question feels so understandable, right? We want your new partner to have

informed consent about what it looks like to be involved in your world. What if your new partner

asks, how did you get over your ex? Okay, well, first of all, I struggle with that language,

you know, talking about like getting over somebody treats healing like a binary. It's like you're

either over them or you're not over them when the reality is that healing happens more in shades of

gray. You may have heard me talk about it as the pain to paying transition, you know, like early

in the grief, when we lose a relationship, it's pain. And then over time, it becomes more of a

paying P-A-N-G in like a twinge. Given the nature of intimate partnership, you may always feel a

little something, something in your nervous system when you think about or talk about your ex

because we are changed by relationships. I don't believe that total neutrality is a precursor

for being, you know, ready for a new relationship. So I would invite you in this case to speak

what feels true. Something like I have positive memories from the relationship and I definitely

grew as a person from the experience, but that's different from longing for my ex or wishing I

was with my ex. And I'm excited about what you and I are starting to build together here.

And then I'm also sure that we could come up with some questions that may actually be better left

unanswered. Like what if your new partner asks you to compare and contrast them with your ex?

I want to tell you what I would do if I was your couple therapist with you in that moment.

For ease, I'm going to use names like just to kind of keep this clear. Okay, so your name is

Jane and your partner's name is Carrie. So if Carrie wants a side-by-side comparison of her versus

your last partner, here's what I would say to Carrie. Carrie, it sounds like you are very

understandably wondering how you measure up versus Jane's ex and it sounds like you are wondering

if inside of Jane's mind you are being compared to her last partner, which is also so reasonable

and so real. When I wonder if instead of hearing Jane talk through a point-by-point comparison

of you versus the ex, what if you talk to Jane about what it's like for you to carry that concern

that you are being compared? And then I would coach Jane to express and feel a crap ton of empathy

for Carrie, you know, like just to be with Carrie in that feeling of like wondering how Carrie lines

up versus Jane's last partner. And then I would help Jane verbalize her sense that Carrie is brave

to open up her heart to somebody who is pretty newly out of a relationship. And I would want to help

Jane be able to convey that Jane is getting to know Carrie as Carrie, which is exactly how

Carrie deserves to be known on her own merits in her own context, not as somebody who exists against

the backdrop of the last partner. And I would want Jane also to convey to Carrie that hopefully with

time, day by day, Carrie is going to increasingly feel and trust from Jane that she is getting to know

Carrie, you know, on her own terms, on her own merits, not versus somebody else.

Okay, I want to talk you through a framework. And the goal here is that especially if you are

moving quickly from one relationship to the next, these strategies are going to support you,

and are going to stack the deck in the favor of this new relationship.

I've organized these into tasks, task one, checking your readiness. So this is a relational

self-awareness check-in. If you're the rebounder, here are some questions that are worth

sitting with before and as you move into a new relationship. What are my motivations for pursuing

this relationship? Am I moving toward something that I want or am I seeking to avoid or move away from

something that feels painful? If it's feeling inside of you, like it's more the second thing,

like you're trying to get out of some painful feelings, you know, I want you to proceed with caution,

maybe even pause, that difference between approaching something you want and avoiding something

that you're dreading, it's a meaningful distinction. To what degree do I feel able to speak my truth

about my recovery journey? If I'm feeling uncertain about how I'm doing with my healing,

can I actually express that uncertainty to my new partner? If I'm only ready for something casual,

can I be honest about that even if it's uncomfortable and even if I suspect that my new partner might

feel disappointed hearing that? To what degree do I have the capacity to be accountable for, quote,

my stuff when it gets stirred up emotionally? Because invariably, it's going to get stirred up.

To what degree do I feel able to be curious and present when their stuff gets stirred up? Because

it also invariably will. And to what degree do I feel able to navigate that middle space of like

our stuff? And if my capacity fluctuates, which it may, can I say so? Do I have the courage

to say so? To slow things down when they need to and to communicate that clearly?

Task two is about forgiving yourself. I want to invite you to be humble about the very real

possibility that you are going to project your old relationship wounds onto your new partner.

Old fears, old expectations, old patterns may end up attaching themselves to this new person,

even though rationally you know that they had nothing to do with creating them.

Part of doing a relationship right is building a practice of asking yourself again and again

to what degree is this feeling I'm having about my new partner versus my history?

And if you are the one who ended your last relationship, even if you did it as kindly and

maturely as possible, you may feel guilt that you caused harm. And that may lead you to feel

sensitive to any whiff that your new partner is feeling hurt or let down by you. And you may end up

primed to make a metaphorical mountain out of a molehill in that situation, either by going over

the top to make it up to them or deflecting that maybe the partner wasn't actually hurt,

which of course is going to leave them feeling like you're not being particularly, you know,

attentive to them. So the best way to mitigate all of this like time, warpy,

confusion between the past and the present is for you to work on forgiving yourself,

is for you to work on reminding yourself that the fact that your ex was hurt by your decision to end

the relationship does not by definition mean that you did something wrong. Clarity is not

cruelty. Practice letting yourself off the hook. Practice forgiving yourself for your sake

and for the sake of your new partner.

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another $2.50 in economic activity spurring growth from farms to factories. And here's the best part.

Freight railroads fund their own infrastructure saving taxpayers billions while powering the economy

forward from reducing highway congestion to delivering goods safely and efficiently. Freight rail

keeps America moving. Learn more at AARC.org slash America's engine.

Atlantic Union Bank. Anyway, you bank.

Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports. And nothing brings us together

quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBC Universal's iconic storytelling

to the innovative technology across Xfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to

America sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage,

we're not just watching. We're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team.

Comcast, proud partner of Team USA.

One iced coffee. 99 cents please. For real? No way.

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Task three, just tied to task two, is practicing self-compassion. Instead of striving to be

the perfect partner in this new relationship because spoiler alert, none of us are going to be

the perfect partner. What if you aims to be the best partner that you can be given where you are

right now. Those are radically different standards. The presence of doubt, the presence of anxiety

as you step into something new does not automatically tell you that this relationship is doomed.

Doubt and anxiety show up in all kinds of new relationships, whether they're rebound relationships

or not. What matters is what you do with those feelings. So, reminder that the fantastic researcher Dr.

Kristen Neff taught us that there are three pillars to self-compassion. And we've got a link in the

show notes to my the episode that I did with Kristen Neff. The first pillar of self-compassion is

self-kindness. And for you in this situation, self-kindness might sound like you saying to yourself.

It's okay. You are feeling scared about navigating all of this. You want to do your best.

There's a lot going on. That's okay. The second pillar is common humanity. And for you in this

situation, common humanity might sound like you reminding yourself. All relationships are these

containers where both wounding and healing can happen. Relationships are scary and alluring

all at the same time. And many, many people fear stepping into something new. And lots of people

wonder whether they're adequate as a partner. I am not alone in these feelings. The third pillar

is mindfulness. And for you, that might sound like this. Everything is okay right now. I'm safe

in my body. I don't have to have it all figured out today. I don't have to know how this ends.

I worry about being a good partner because I'm fresh out of a relationship. My nervous system

is responding, but that's all that's happening right now. Number four, task number four is carrying

the both end of a rebound. Here's something I want you to hold. You can be in more than one

emotional place at once. In fact, you will be. That's not a problem. That's called being human.

You can miss aspects of your old relationship and still be genuinely open to someone new.

You can feel love and gratitude for what a previous relationship gave you and acknowledge that

that was then. This is now and you are open to something different. You can hold grief for what

ended and feel presence and excitement for what is beginning. You can have questions about your

readiness and also be absorbing a lot of external noise about rebounds and timing that's shaping

your feelings in ways that are not entirely yours. That both end isn't a contradiction. It's

the truth of being a feeling person who's paying attention.

Task number five, putting your cards on the table. One of the most important things you can do in a

rebound situation and honestly in any new relationship is to communicate truth about where you are.

It doesn't mean leading with your entire emotional history on a first date. It means as things develop

and feel meaningful that you're willing to say something like, I want to be upfront with you about

where I'm at. I'm still in the process of making sense of my last relationship. I'm not

carrying a torch from my axe, but I'd be lying to you if I said I was walking in here completely

clear-slated. I'm excited about what's happening between us and I want to make sure that I'm

honoring both of us by being truthful with you and being direct with you. I think being upfront

can feel really vulnerable, which is exactly why it matters. It also invites your new partner to

share their own landscape with you. We talked before about the kinds of things that your partner

might want to know. They might want to understand the emotional entanglement. I used to still

angry. Do you miss them? They might want to understand what didn't work in your last relationship

and what insights you've walked away with. They may have their own feelings about the fact that

feelings, even feelings for an axe, don't just disappear on command. A kind of love can persist

for someone that you are once deeply connected to. The question for a new partner isn't whether

that's true. It's about what that means for this relationship. Does their love for you feel like

it has room to grow? Do they feel chosen by you? Not just convenient. Task number six, clarifying

boundaries about the past. For both partners' well-being, I think it's really worth having a clear

and open conversation about what boundaries exist regarding the past about your axe specifically,

and what feels clarifying and what feels comfortable. This does not have to be a dramatic

negotiation. It can be a gentle check-in. What does contact look like with your axe right now?

What if you share a friend group? How do you each feel about social media? How do you want to talk

about your past relationship in a way that's honest but also honors what's being built here

without turning your new partner into your therapist? Certainly. I think it's worth asking your

partner what they need and also sharing what you need. That kind of check-in models respect and

care simultaneously. That kind of check-in builds trust. Number seven, task number seven is keeping

an eye out for pace discrepancies. I think it's worth naming that in a rebound relationship,

you may have a higher chance of running into a pace discrepancy. Your new partner may be more

ready to go deep and go fast and you may need to move more slowly. You are being caring

for yourself and caring for your new partner and increasing the chances that this relationship

can really thrive by deepening commitment at a pace that allows you to feel calm, open,

regulated on the inside every step of the way. In other words, don't over-promise and under-deliver

just to keep the pace. Or it may be vice versa. You may be the one with your foot on the accelerator

because you are really trying to cement this new relationship and it may be your new partner

who's pumping the brakes. If that's the case, see if you can slow yourself down. See if you can

really anchor yourself into feelings of gratitude for the amount of connection that you have with

this new partner right here right now today. Practice, savoring what you already have with them

without looking down the road and trying to figure out what the next thing is and how quickly

you can get to the next thing. We have a whole episode about pace discrepancies and we've

linked that in the show notes. Task number eight, navigating the chorus together.

Like I said before, the cultural noise around rebounds is real and you and your partner have both

been socialized by the culture, which means the noise doesn't just live out there in the world,

it also lives inside each of you. And those messages that you both have been carrying about

rebounding can stoke feelings of shame, can feed self-doubt and can color your beliefs about whether

this relationship has staying power and it can kind of like create this ambient pressure that makes

it harder for both of you to simply just be present with each other. And what's tricky is that

cultural stereotypes or myths, they're not monolithic and the culture tends to have different

social standards depending on who you are, the way we talk about a man who most quickly

into a new relationship after a breakup is different than how we talk about a woman who does

the very same thing. So just, you know, it's really helpful for you and your new partner to look

together and talk together about how those double standards might be operating inside of the

conversations that are happening in your communities and inside of your own minds.

Bottom line here is I want to invite you to take the cultural condemnation and judgment

with a grain of salt because honestly, who can condemn somebody for wanting to love again,

for wanting to connect again, for wanting to feel desirable again, and makes so much sense.

And there's not ever, ever going to be a one-size-fits-all template for relationships. We know

that a relationship that begins after three years of being single can implode and we know that what

starts as a rebound can become a deeply healthy long-term partnership. We know that a smooth start

is no guarantee of longevity and we know that a messy origin story is no guarantee of failure.

There just aren't set in stone rules, but there is a way to look at the cultural rhetoric

together so that it loses some of the power over you. So here's some check-in questions that I

would encourage you and your partner to talk through together. Here's the questions.

What do each of you hear people say in your world about rebound relationships and to what degree

to each of you believe that those narratives are true? What assumptions or judgments have each

of you made in the past about people who are in rebound situations? What assumptions or judgments

have each of you made about this relationship given that it's a rebound situation?

What fears do each of you have about this relationship specifically? Where do you feel those fears

in your body? And can you connect those fears to maybe some old wounds that you bring into the

relationship? What can each of you do to support your partner? And what support do each of you

need or want from your partner? These aren't easy questions but they're questions that are going to

grow your relational self-awareness and they're questions that are going to grow trust and connection

between the two of you. Task number nine final task is creating space, space to heal and space

to be present. I want to say something here that applies well beyond rebound relationships which

is that we always need some amount of space and time that is hours and hours alone to distinguish

ourselves from everything else including our partner, even if that partner is somebody who's

new in our world and when that we're so excited about and that we feel like we could spend all of our

time with, we always need space and time to ourselves. It's true when we're single and it's

equally true when we're in a relationship. Solitude is not just for people who are between

relationships. Solitude is part of how we stay tethered to ourselves while being deeply connected

to another person. You've heard me say that solitude and intimacy are inextricably bound

from each other. So for the rebounding partner specifically this may mean that you pretty fiercely

protect your time for therapy, your time for journaling, your time for simply being quiet with

yourself. And it may mean that you communicate pretty directly and clearly to your new partner

that you do need space to process while also asking them what they need in order to feel secure.

Your ability and willingness to step away and continue to like work within yourself,

integrating, caring for yourself, listening to yourself, it's good for you but it's also very

protective of this new relationship that you're building. And time together and time apart

are not competing needs. They're the inhale and the exhale. They can coexist. And if you want more

on this whole topic, the task nine topic, we have a whole solo episode about navigating time

together and time apart. And you can find that link in the show notes.

Okay, my friend. That is what I've got for you today. I hope this episode about rebounds

offered you insight and support and permission and some practical strategies that you can use

in your life today. And I'm wishing you well as you continue your journey to love and be

love with authenticity and with care and with awareness. And until next time, be well.

Thank you for listening to our show. Our producers are Mary Chan and Katie Package

of Organized Sound Productions. Our theme music was composed by Slade Warnkin.

The show is executive produced by me, Dr. Alexandra Solomon.

Do you have a relationship question that you want answered on the show?

Visit reimagininglove.com to send in a written or audio question. Questions can be about intimate

partnerships, family relationships, friendships, you name it. If you're looking for more love and

relationship content, you can find me on Instagram at doctor. Alexandra. Solomon or visit my website

dr. Alexandra Solomon.com where you'll find my blog as well as the intimate relationships 101

E course based off of the popular class I teach at Northwestern University. Thank you for listening

and see you next week here on reimagining love.

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