Yes, I agree with that take on the matter; I said previously in this thread that if the reason(s) for the initial breakup were something like distance or employment then I could understand the “getting back together” in hopes of making it work. However, like you seem to be saying, I too expressed doubt in the couples who broke up due to “irreconcilable differences” and then got back together some time later.
Despite your dismissal of them in the OP, I think any relationship has significant outside forces at work on it. Drugs, kids, in-laws, work, money: it’s all a continuum. And those things do change, often with time. Junkies can get clean, kids grow up, jobs solidify–etc. It’s hard to see from the outside of a rekindled relationship which of those factors might have changed, but maybe something has.
FTR–I was married 3 years before my husband and I separated, with two kids by then. We never divorced but lived thousands of miles apart and led completely separate lives. I even had a third child in another relationship. Eight years after we separated we got back together. I couldn’t be happier, and the odd thing is that I can’t even put my finger on any huge change that makes it work now when it wouldn’t work then. We just both grew up. Time apart can help, I think, and I don’t believe wholehearted attempts at trying again are doomed to fail.
Maybe I didn’t clearly articulate myself but I wasn’t trying to dismiss outside forces altogether on impacting relationships. Not at all. What I meant was that relationships that have drugs or abuse as part of that relationship often display behavior that isn’t typical of most relationships. Like the abused partner who always goes back to the abuser because of the severe psychological trauma and damage the abuser has inflicted upon her. Or the drug addicts who stay together to support a habit rather than because they truly love and care for each other. They may stay together when a couple who didn’t have abuse or addiction would break up.
Law of attraction shit right there.
Gotta say I appreciate the encouraging posts. I just ran into a girl who I used to like a couple years ago and have started talking with her again.
A girl you “used to like”? Did you ever date, or have any sort of relationship, with this girl? 
It’s sort of working for my mom. She was married (husband number 3) for about 15 years, then she divorced him (left in the middle of the night) and moved across the country for 10 years.
He never got over her, kept calling, etc.
She was having an affair, which he never knew about, with a married guy that wouldn’t leave his wife. So that’s why she left. Ugh, but it gets better. She’s got a chronic illness, and she was getting ready to retire. She’d spent most of her retirement on the leaving and the moving - she quit her government job, got her retirement out and then got her old job back - so what to do? Well, get back together with husband number 3, of course, who has all his retirement, plus owns his house, etc. And of course, she can blame the chronic illness for her going ‘temporarily crazy’, that works, right?
So yeah. It’s working. He’s got her back, and she’s unhappy but taken care of and can spend his money. Fortunately, I live 10K miles away and have to deal with none of it except by phone, during which she whines and bitches about what he’s done lately and how much she hates it there.
Awesome.
Well, I’d say that’s “working” with a big asterisk next to it. If he knew about her affair and still stayed with her, that’d be another story. :dubious:
He probably did know, Mom’s not particularly good at hiding things and passive-agressive enough to make sure he could find out. I don’t know this is a fact though, it’s purely speculation.
It’s not working with a big asterisk, it’s working (for now) full stop. Mom has what she wants and my stepdad has Mom back, which is what he wants. It’s dysfunctional as all hell, and a bit skeevy, and makes me roll my eyes a lot, but it’s working for them.
Am in a second try right now. After realizing that the grass was not greener on the other side, I asked her for a second try. We’ve been together (second try) for about two years now, and are invested enough for it to be worth doing long distance while she’s in graduate school and I have a great job 300 miles away.
I hope they work. I am starting again with someone I dated from 1999-2001 on and off. We last saw each in 2003, but met up this past August. So far so good. But we do have a distance thing to deal with.
I only ever had one second try, and it was a godawful mistake. My younger days. A bat-shit-crazy nurse. I was really too young to understand she had some serious mental issues and believed her when she said she had “changed.” Then it started all over again. Looking back now from my vantage point of age and experience, I see I should have run like my life depended on it. After we were living in different cities, she started writing me asking for a third chance, only she didn’t put her name or return address on the envelopes, for some reason thinking I would not recognize her handwriting, the stupid bitch. Finally I began writing her name and address up in the return-address corner and “Return to Sender” on the envelope and dropping them unopened in the mailbox. She finally stopped.
I’m glad to see others here have had better luck though.
Depends on what broke up the relationship the first time around. If you think revisiting it will fix whatever was broken first time around, then it probably won’t work out. If you broke up the first time because of timing or geography or some issue that no longer exists, then maybe it could work out.
I dated my current bf for a couple months last year and we decided to be just friends. I wasn’t clear on the fact that he was actually dating someone else at the time (wasn’t sleeping with me, we were just hanging out). Flash forward about 8 months and the Other Girl was out of the picture, he and I reconnected and sparks were still there. If we’d broken up because of lack of communication, or some horrible personality flaw or something, I can’t see how it would have worked out. But it was really just a timing issue and all is well now.
It’s not something that I would ever consider. Can it ever work? Well clearly, the results are in this thread. But I consider it more mature to sever completely after every breakup, so the possibility of rekindling never, ever arises for me. I prefer it that way. We broke up for a reason, and whatever problems cropped up the first time are unlikely to go away permanently, because people do not change.
If you (general case) are unable to bring yourself to sever, perhaps you should consider why. Don’t date people you work with, for one. Are you co-dependent? Staying friends with your ex after a breakup can lead to a lot of confused feelings and possibly confused sex. It’s much more charitable, to yourself and your ex, to rip that band-aid and make a permanent break.
I think people, can and do in fact, change. I am certainly not the same person I was in 2001. I was immature and not ready for a serious relationship. I have definitely changed in that regard. The reasons for a breakup in the past may not exist anymore.
Why not date people you work with? Of course there can be some complications there. But we spend 1/3 of our lives at work. It’s a great and natural place to meet people, especially when working at a large company. As long as boundaries and rules are observed, relationships starting at work can be successful. I’ve seen quite a few over the years.
My great uncle was married for five years, divorced (in a country & at a time where that was virtually unheard of) then remarried the same woman after several years.
They were still happily married when she died thirty odd years later. He always said they only divorced so they could grow up and start over properly.
Wow. That warmed me a little. 
For each couple succeeding at their second chance, there are tens or dozens or scores of others that fail. I can’t in good conscience advocate playing bad odds.
I work with some people in very happy relationships with people they met here, too. But I know way more work relationships that have failed and led to awkwardness, job loss, or (in the extreme case) lawsuits. Do you want to risk that a crazy ex might just sue you and the company over what happened? Whether you’re guilty of the accusation or not, HR will get rid of you if you’re a problem for the company. Dip your nib outside the office.
To be fair, he also says he was waiting for his ex mother in law to die.
He could have been joking about that part of why their relationship was better 2nd time round.
But probably not.
The first time, we both realized after a (very intense) week that I wasn’t over my ex, so we broke it off. She wasn’t mad at me, but we kind of lost touch for a little while.
Almost a year later, after I’d ended it with my ex, we dated again. We lasted a few (again, very intense) months this time before we broke up again, this time because I wasn’t prepared to deal with her alcoholism and pain pill dependency.
She’s gotten past her addictions, and is now married with three kids. I went to see her when I went home a few months ago, and got to hold her then five day old son. We still share a very powerful connection, and I would call her one of my very best friends. I guess we just weren’t meant to be.