As Lopez Files for Divorce From Affleck, Should You Reunite With an Ex-Partner?

When the superstars Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck married in 2022, decades after calling off their initial engagement, it seemed like the stuff of a romantic Hollywood blockbuster.

“Love is beautiful,” Ms. Lopez wrote after the couple’s Las Vegas nuptials. “Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient.”

But Ms. Lopez filed for divorce from Mr. Affleck on Tuesday after two years of marriage, ending months of frenzied media speculation about their shaky union, and highlighting a decidedly unromantic truth: Reuniting with an ex-partner does not guarantee a happy ending.

“I have certainly seen people who are in long-term happy relationships who got back together after having broken up,” said Elizabeth Earnshaw, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Philadelphia. “I would say that is the exception to the rule.”

Many couples counselors said they recommended taking an almost clinical approach to reuniting with an ex — even (or especially) if you are swept up in the thrill of rediscovering old passions. Here are four questions therapists recommend asking.

1. Do we both understand why we broke up?

That is a “laughably obvious” question to start with, admitted Lisa Marie Bobby, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Denver and the founder of Growing Self, a counseling and coaching service. But if you and your partner cannot both articulate a clear answer without defensiveness or tension, that is a red flag, she said.

What patterns hurt your relationship? What deeper issues led one or both of you to see it as unsustainable?

“It can be very hard to get visibility onto the real ‘why,’” Dr. Bobby said. She often recommends seeking therapy individually or as a couple to gain insight.

2. Am I just lonely? Are you?

Loneliness can bring on feelings of longing and wistfulness, said Anthony Chambers, a board-certified couples and family psychologist and the chief academic officer at the Family Institute at Northwestern University. It can also cause people to take on an especially rosy view of past relationships, he said.

If you recognize that your desire to reconnect is rooted in loneliness, you might benefit from dating. Or you might want to think about strategies for finding connection that have nothing to do with romantic love — perhaps by focusing on strengthening your ties with friends, family and your community.

And if you find yourself swept up in nostalgia for an old love, grab a piece of paper and jot down some of the challenges you faced in the relationship, Dr. Chambers said. The idea isn’t to dwell on them but to be clearheaded about the past. Think of it as due diligence, he said, noting that it can also help foster conversations with your ex as you’re trying to decide if you should give the relationship another chance.

3. What has changed this time around?

Start by asking yourself whether you might do things differently this time around, Ms. Earnshaw said. You could ask questions like “Have I changed what I’m expecting in a relationship?” she said. “Have I changed the way I communicate? Have I changed the way I regulate my emotions?”

Then consider: What has changed about your partner? Most of the couples Ms. Earnshaw knows who have successfully reunited have clear answers to those questions.

“They’re able to say, ‘Well, we’ve grown up. We’ve gotten jobs. We’ve matured. We’ve gone to therapy. We’ve thought ourselves through, and we’ve had other relationships,’” Ms. Earnshaw said.

Even if your life circumstances, or your partner’s, have remained pretty much the same, you each may have grown emotionally, Dr. Bobby said. For instance, your partner might have gone to therapy or done a lot of personal reflection, she said. And that new information may have helped the partner understand problematic decision-making in past relationships.

4. How will we know if this is working?

Before diving back into anything, come up with some benchmarks that will help you, or both of you, figure out if things are better this time, Dr. Bobby recommended. One could be as simple as a regular gut check that you are not falling into old patterns.

“Too many people waste years in these relationships, going to the same rodeo over and over again,” Dr. Bobby said. “It’s easy to get stuck.”

Ms. Earnshaw said it could help to ask yourself something along the lines of: Do I trust that if the same issues or problems arise again I will navigate them differently? Will I speak up this time and put clearer boundaries in place? Will I leave early on rather than dragging things out?

Dr. Chambers has worked with some couples who have found it helpful to set a timeline in place when reuniting — though he admitted that this approach was not for everyone.

They “think of it like a lease,” he explained. “‘We’re going to try this for six months. And at six months we’ll see if we want to renew.’” Sometimes they do. And sometimes, he said, they realize, “Even with our best efforts, we seem to be running into the same problems again.”