Favors Love Rants: The Problems with Exes Coming Back

I’m beginning this new blog series to focus on some aspects of relationship-making and decision-making that bothers me a great deal. A couple of years prior to and after my last relationship that ended in February 2016, I wrote many of my books on rebounding, rebound relationships, and essentially toxic encounters. I only implicitly referenced exes and linked the term to rebounding, but now I would like to think and analyze this situation more in this blog and possibly future blog entries.

Therefore, I have a few issues I want to get off my chest. Maybe reference some TV series and real-life events throughout this rant and future rants. Rest assured, I will try to stay focused and maintain a balanced view of the subject matter.

The Favors Love Rants are an appendix to the rebounding, overcoming setback, readiness, and pre-singles serials. Click the appropriate tabs on the Regina Y. Favors site. This discussion is subject to fair use.

Here is my first point.

Exes get on my nerves!

I’m not merely referring to your own ex. I am referring to your current boyfriend’s or husband’s ex: the person who refuses to let go even though said person had more than enough time to reconcile with the person who is now your man. This is what bothers me the most because women, or men, will procrastinate the reconciliation process thinking that they have all the time in the world to make things right.

Instead, they wait out of sheer ego and spite to hold back their feelings. I have always been the person who has voiced what I wanted. Maybe to the detriment of a relationship, but you knew where I stood. I was never forceful, per se, but I made sure you understood my point of view.

But exes who wait too long often will try to make the most of their appeal to your man, or woman, to give the relationship another chance, to believe again and invest emotionally, to consider the length of time the two of them were in a relationship, and to care enough about them to see the bigger picture.

They try to come back because they believe they have the prerogative, which really means they feel entitled. I have a few TV and film references I am interested in exploring. I make my additional points with these references and then conclude at the end of this article.

Dorothy & Stan: Preferences & Reluctance

I think about Dorothy and Stan on the Golden Girls. Stan never did right by Dorothy. He cheated throughout the marriage, they divorced, they tried multiple times to get back together, then they tried to get married one more time, it failed, and then they gave up the ghost, so to speak.

Eventually, when Dorothy discovered someone who would love and protect her, by way of Blanche’s uncle, Stan came back around with his appeal for love. Granted he struggled to understand why Dorothy would not sign his prenup, given the fact that she had put up with him and his shenanigans for years. If he didn’t trust her by now, then he would never trust her, and Stan was feeling a lot froggy since he had gotten all that money.

But my major issue with Stan is he had all that time to do right by Dorothy, and he simply refused. It doesn’t matter that he got a lot of money and was wanting to protect said money. He wouldn’t have asked any one of his blonde preferences to sign a prenup. He would have found the request dishonoring and unreasonable. This is not to say that he wouldn’t have protected himself. The Stan of old would never let himself become broke again in his present.

But to ask Dorothy for a prenup after all the years of dealing with hurt and pain and distrust was just dumb. There were different ways he could have handled that situation. Instead, on Dorothy’s wedding day, he kidnaps her in a limo and makes his case one last time. Here is the video.

This time, Dorothy was in a wedding dress, beautiful, happy, and ready to start a new life with a husband who cared for her, loved her, wanted to marry her without conditions, and someone she could surely trust and be friends with throughout the rest of her life.

That kind of love came late for Dorothy, and she had her own struggles in previously sleeping with a married man and him returning some years later, and related struggles in dealing with both Stan and other situations. Regardless, she stuck it out, worked on herself, kept teaching, and just found her own little peace . . . until love unexpectedly came knocking at her door.

It was a good thing that she did not take Stan back after the umpteenth time he had hurt and caused her pain. But it bothers me that he thought he had the right to appeal to her in the first place after so many years and when she was about to marry someone else.

There is really nothing wrong with making your love case to someone you feel may be the right person for you or you desire to engage the issue after so many years, but once someone is married or is about to be married or even engaged, do not engage that person again. It is disrespectful, and it leaves a long-lasting effect of distrust and anxiety.

Stan waited too long, and he reluctantly had to give his blessing and give up his blessing in Dorothy.

Dwayne & Whitley: Vulnerability & Anxiety

The major problem I have with Dwayne is that he had prime access to Whitley when he had her before Byron came on the scene. If he wanted Whitley, then he should not have cheated somewhat with someone else. He is the one who proposed to keep Whitley in town so she would not work at the internship in New York. He proposed out of fear, and then he was forced to walk out that fear all the way to the lips of another woman.

No one wants to lose a relationship, but every time you make decisions out of fear, you end up losing yourself. Dwayne repeated this decision while Whitley was getting ready to marry Byron at the altar, no less, and proposed marriage, again, out of fear. Here is the video.

Now sure, we understand that Dwayne and Whitley are the couple who should be together. They had been dancing around their intentions and love throughout the series. But I have to wonder about Dwayne sometimes whether he really meant even the proposal on the bridal aisle. Whitley is marrying someone else. Shouldn’t that be it? Why would he need to wait until she is about to marry someone else to confess his true intentions?

This bothers me a great deal because Byron was willing to marry Whitley. Dwayne was not. He got cold feet. This makes you wonder if his mother’s suspicions about Whitley were right: that she wasn’t the right person for her Dwayne. Regardless, the fact that he had the time to make good on his original promise to marry her and then succeeded to interrupt her current process in marrying someone else says a lot about the roles of exes and how they perceive your vulnerability.

Dwayne knew Whitley would not say no to him. He knew that in some cases Whitley had some people pleasing qualities, struggling first with her mother’s wishes and then desiring to respect her father’s decision to marry someone closer to his daughter’s age. No way would Whitley say no to Dwayne! Not going to happen, and it didn’t happen. She said yes! Dwayne knew this, and he made his ultimate case.

Many would say that “Love won at the end,” but you can’t truly conclude that statement if Dwayne pursued the situation using anxiety, interrupted the processing of someone’s marriage, and took someone who belonged to another person. To me, that’s stealing. Some might find my argument irrational, but it is nonetheless true. If I wait too long to pursue reconciliation with a partner, then wait until he is getting married to someone else to say, “Marry me,” and further walk out with him as my husband on that woman’s and family’s dime no less, then I would be stealing!

I would be a thief.

Some Things are No Longer Yours

Some things are no longer yours when you give them up. You cannot expect to keep something you decided to lose. It is one thing to have a situation like the main characters in Cast Away, played by Helen Hunt and Tom Hanks, be forced to give up each other because there is the assumption that the latter’s character has died.

Tom Hanks’s character was forced to give up his fiance, and when he was found, he had no other choice but to let her go. She was already married with a kid and established. He had no right to come back and reclaim his fiance, even if he was not directly responsible for the plane crash.

However, he was directly responsible for working too much, traveling all the time, and taking the relationship he had with Helen Hunt’s character for granted. There were many opportunities for him to realize that he needed to slow down, pour more into the relationship, and stay. Yes, he had to work, but it was implied that he worked too much and did not give enough time to his fiance. That work led to a crash, to a separation, to a reunion, and to a decision to let his fiance go! He lost the right to regain access to her and her life. It is in the following video where he has to make this heart-wrenching decision.

You could feel his pain after his return. You could feel it during the press conference when he sees her crying outside. You could feel it when he stopped by her house to talk. You could feel it when she cleared the jeep for him to take. You could feel it when he had to drive off and she stood in the rain, calling out to him. You could feel it when he backed up and ran to her . . . in the rain. You could feel it when they were in the car, and you were rooting for them despite the fact that we knew she was now married. You could feel it when she had to make that final decision to let him go! And in the scene above, you can feel the weight of his decision to let her go!

This is what happens when two people do not resolve their issues before one decides to move on with another person. I have many more examples, and I might do an analysis of My Best Friend’s Wedding because Julia Roberts’ character gets on my nerves too!

Conclusion

I conclude this first Favors Love Rants with my own personal experience, albeit briefly. All of my experiences are represented through the serials I have created, the books I have written, the YouTube series, and all content is housed also on the Regina Y. Favors website for view.

The guy I was with struggled with an ex who would not let him go. I remember him telling me what she said to him as our relationship was coming to a close. She said to him, “I can call you anytime and I know you will come.” She also said that he had a duty to her. This is the same woman who refused to let him know where she lived, who let him stay at my house so she didn’t have to take care of him, and who he kept running back to like he was a wounded deer seeking solace. He found none.

He made the one last decision to return to her for sex, and that was one last decision I was willing to put up with. I broke things off, packed his things, moved him in a cab since I do not drive, and returned home. I was romantically homeless again, which was fine with me because before my relationship with him, I had been single 13 years. I was cool with that option. I had too many issues I needed to deal with before any consideration of a romantic relationship. However, in choosing to be in relationship with him, I discovered through self-reflection that I was returning to dead things. It is scripture:

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returning to his folly.

Proverbs 26:11

Once I realized in clutching at him I was essentially clutching at my past, trying to make it work, and trying to make something that was dead live again, I knew I had to let it go. I had to let it go emotionally, psychologically, physically, spiritually, and financially. I could no longer put money on the problem and equally believe it would solve the problem. I was tired, too old for the foolishness, and I just wanted out for good. I do not want to return anymore to this type of folly because this life crossroad almost cost me my life.

That is another lesson for the day. Going back is not always beneficial. Going back does not always support the assumption that it will work just because you try to will it so. You cannot control someone’s will. If they do not want to work things out with you, then they do not want to work things out with you! Period.

This means that the ex who returns should reach that understanding before their ex-partner decides to marry another. You do not visit an ex-partner the night before to make your case when you had sufficient time prior to him dating to make the same case. If he is the one for you prior to his potential marriage, then he is the one for you during that time when he has not proposed to anyone. He is no longer the one for you while he has placed a ring on some woman’s finger, while he has professed his love for her in front of his and her family, and while he is actively marrying her.

I really do not believe that there are exceptions to the rule. Brown Sugar is one of those movies I would like to consider analyzing using Favors Love Rants because no man is your man while he is married to someone else. For the person to be your man, he or she would have to divorce, get therapy, self-reflect, and then consider you as an option. Kissing on a single woman while you are a married man is not love.

My ex-partner did not end up with the woman he refused to let go. In fact, he ended up marrying someone else, and I am glad that they are happy with each other. In keeping in line with the spirit of this article, it would definitely be wrong of me to contact him for anything. Whatever time I had with him was my time. Whatever time he has with his “wife” is their time. The times do not have the right to mix.

My time is up! If you are considering returning to an ex-partner who is already involved with someone else, your time is up too!

Thank you for reading. You can view many of the series where I discuss rebounding, overcoming setback, relationship readiness, and pre-singles considerations on the Regina Y. Favors website.

Have a great day.

Regina Y. Favors, Owner/Operator

The Regina Y. Favors Website

The vision of the Regina Y. Favors website is to be the preferred online curriculum you need for life recovery.

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