A global pandemic may be one of the most powerful historical events to reaffirm what Jorge Manrique already mentioned in Coplas about his father's death : "Any time past was better." Any past conversation, any place other than the same seventy square meters that oppress us today and any encounter that not so long ago we would have qualified as mediocre today seems like a refuge to return to. Hence during these weeks of confinement - where the most exciting thing that can happen to you is to find a bottle of wine when you thought it was no longer there - memories and the past are idealized and magnified to the point of giving rise to a phenomenon that has arisen these days: the return of the ex.
"We live in uncertain times that awaken fear and uncertainty. Suddenly, during confinement, memories of people from the past that were important appear. Then distorted thoughts begin to appear where the negative is obvious and previous relationships are idealized"
Patricia Rosillo, psychologist specialized in couples
Twitter user MariajoHF shared on the social network the message that an ex-partner had sent her while they were already in the quarantine. "A pandemic was not necessary, but I am going to tell you. I am going to regret my whole life. You are the best and I know that it is late and that I gave you a hard time. I am realizing many things late," said the WhatsApp that they had sent him. But this is not an isolated case. Eva Bárcena, a 28-year-old Asturian woman, tells ICON that she and many of her acquaintances are also experiencing it: "A boy I met a couple of times in 2015 began to respond to all my Instagram stories when the I was alarmed. In the end I ended up asking him if he had nothing better to do and he threw the rod at me again. Five years without speaking and a pandemic has had to come to make him nice again! "
For his part, Jorge, a 42-year-old screenwriter from Madrid, remembers that a few days ago he was in the middle of a video call with an ex with whom he already had contact before quarantine, when he began to receive whatsapps from a girl with whom he had a story years ago and about which he had never heard anything. "After exchanging several messages with her, I came to the conclusion that people are encouraged to write to their exes by the infrequent combination of two factors: first, the time we have available makes us delve more into our agenda looking for people from the past, and, second, the certainty that you can fool around a bit without getting out of hand because nobody is going to be able to leave the house, "he says.
It is curious that the new contact is carried out especially by people who were part of our lives so many years ago. Patricia Rosillo, a psychologist specialized in couples at the Prado Psychologists center, points out to ICON the reasons why this occurs: "We live in uncertain times that awaken fear and uncertainty. This is something that human beings mismanage. Suddenly, during confinement they appear Memories of people from the past that were important and that have marked us in one way and then distorted thoughts begin to emerge where the negative is obvious and previous relationships are idealized. " Nostalgia, says the specialist, makes us wonder how the person we have been without knowing for a long time will be and leads us to want to contact them. "The past dramas, especially compared to the moment we are living, are relativized and we forget that if at the time the relationship did not work for something it would be," says Rosillo.
"A pandemic was not necessary, but I am going to tell you. I am going to regret my whole life. You are the best and I know that it is late and that I gave you a hard time.
Twitter user MariajoHF shared this message that an ex-partner had sent her
Because if something gives us the confinement, in addition to multiple opportunities to discuss with whom we share it, it is time to think and value what we had in the past. "We are immersed in a state of hibernation in which there is a kind of emotional anesthesia. This leads us to seek a shot of adrenaline that helps us feel alive and forget our daily worries in times of pandemic," says María Hurtado, clinical psychologist of AGS Psicólogos Madrid.
Spending all the time between four walls with no option but to socialize, at best, with a partner, family or a roommate, leads us to fill the gap we feel during quarantine through vehicles that are not always the most appropriate . "During the confinement we have to deal with ourselves. It is a difficult situation that in many cases we try to cope with by pulling old acquaintances and memories that calm us," says Rosillo.
If something gives us the confinement it is time to think and value what we had in the past. "We are immersed in a state of hibernation in which there is a kind of emotional anesthesia. This leads us to seek an adrenaline rush," says psychologist María Hurtado.
This specialist in couples therapy points out that when recontacting with an ex with whom all kinds of relationships had been cut, "they seek to cover emotional needs without letting the other one turn the page when what has to be done is a good closing, with their respective mourning , to heal wounds and look forward. " María Hurtado also emphasizes that being locked up as a couple discusses more, which leads us to value and, once again, idealize past relationships. "When you spend 24 hours at home with your partner, it is inevitable that disputes arise that lead us to doubt and question both our current relationship and other past ones," says ICON Hurtado.
Telling the other person what they would like to have heard by the time the relationship was ending is a hackneyed resource when trying to get close with an ex. But the one who uses him so much has his explanation: as the psychologist points out, normally relationships do not close in a healthy way. Lorena Navarro, 34, from Madrid, reminds ICON how a former couple, years after the relationship ended, told her word for word everything she would have needed to hear when she left her. "In my case, I was abandoned and my self-esteem was very damaged. I felt that he had left me because I was not enough. However, a long time later that boy contacted me again with a speech that was what he had always wanted He told me that he still thought of me as one of the most important women in his life and that he often wondered if he had not made a mistake leaving me. I had a partner when he told me all this and, although I liked listening That, removing a past that had left my mark confused me. We were never friends. Since we met, we started dating as a couple and pretending to establish a friendship when what we had was an intimate relationship did not make sense to me. "
Giving up a cordial relationship with an ex is a very common outcome. But it is not the only way. Juan, 36, from Andalusia, for example, has civil conversations with most of his ex-partners, as if it never hurt. He welcomes them to his house when they are visiting the city, invites them to their birthdays and is even friends with his ex's new boyfriends. "Being friends with people who have been important to me is natural. It is true that when the breakup is recent the best thing is to give yourself space, but after the time of mourning the body has always asked me to maintain contact and to be present in moments transcendental of the lives of these people, "he explains to ICON.
The writer Frédéric Beigbeder claimed in a novel that love lasts three years. It may have been a pessimistic forecast, but it is a fact that divorces in China, the mirror in which we look at ourselves in times of pandemic, are skyrocketing. Everything seems to indicate that we will soon replicate the same phenomenon here. And it is there, where love and desire perish, when something that is forever is born: an ex.
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