Watch the subtitled video above if you prefer to listen to my advice.
In today’s video, I’m going to talk about rebound sex to move on from an ex. Is that actually a good idea for us guys or will it just backfire. So I got a message from a guy. He’s having a hard time to move on from his ex. It’s really difficult for him. I believe she’s also happy.
Rebound Sex Psychology: Are Rebound Relationships Good For Men And Women?
Most of the time when your ex is broken up with you, typically women are super happy. They’re pretending like everything’s fine. They tend to also hook up with other guys. The study that I found before was 93% of all women have rebounds in the first year. Obviously, it’s so easy for a woman to have sex. And actually, it’s also been studied that yes, rebound relationships are in a sense good for women because it makes them feel desirable. And most women just don’t feel desired anymore at the end of a breakup. But for us guys, desirability as a man is not as important as for women. Women care so much about their looks. They’re so conscious about this. But for us guys, yeah, of course, we want to look hot. We want to look ripped. We want to look fit. And we like it when women are attracted to us. It’s a big bonus.
But ultimately, we all know that at the end of the day, what matters for a guy is money. Can you provide? And so that’s probably also why that study found that in a rebound relationship, it doesn’t really matter so much for us guys. We don’t care so much about desirability. It doesn’t increase our happiness level as much as it does for a woman. So rebound relationships tend to not be as beneficial for women to feel at least temporarily a little bit better while we’re struggling so much with the breakup. Both for men and for women, breakups are pretty tough. Actually, it’s been studied that women suffer more from the breakup initially. It’s just that they can recover much quicker from it. And so us guys, we actually don’t have the same strong symptoms initially as a woman has. But the problem is that we we just stretch out these symptoms for much longer. We are basically hung up on a woman much, much longer than a woman is hung up on us. And that’s why it gets so hard. Anyways, I hopefully made it clear that essentially rebound relationships are not that great for us guys. But let’s get into the message and let’s see what I have to say.
I Want To Do A Rebound Relationship: When Your Ex Moves On Fast But You Can’t Move On Fast
Hey coach, I want to ask you about whether the age old wisdom of ‘if you want to get over someone, get under someone’ is really true. And is it a good idea? I wonder if rebounding might be a good way to let go of my ex-girlfriend. To give you an idea of why I’m asking, I’ve been struggling a lot to move on from my ex-girlfriend. We were together for three years and I thought we were going to get married someday. But then out of nowhere, she broke up with me. She no longer felt happy and excited about the relationship. I’m still in love with her, but I know I need to move on because there’s nothing that you can do if a woman just loses feelings like that for you.
There’s no point in chasing if she just feels nothing for you. I tried focusing on hobbies and exploring new passions, but I’m just too distracted. I can’t manage to stay disciplined and try new things. I’m just not in the mental state right now to get anything done. So now I’m considering having a real relationship. I just feel very lonely and I think dating would be good for me. And maybe if I start seeing someone new, it will help me forget about my ex. One thing that really fucks me up is how my ex is moving on so easily. But I still feel like the breakup was just yesterday, even though we already have been broken up for three months.
Alright, so there is a lot to unpack here. The thing is, will you feel temporarily a little bit better if you hook up with another woman? Probably. You will be a little bit distracted, but it’s just a big misconception that you hook up with another woman and you will forget the other woman. The same thing with a woman who hooks up all the time. Like I said, 93 percent of all women have rebound relationships in the first year, yet they all come back. Why? Well, just because you hook up with another person, it doesn’t mean that you magically forget all the great memories, all the investments that you’ve made. It’s not like that doesn’t matter. Yes, actually, what’s most likely is this has actually also been studied that men and women, both of us, what we do is we compare our previous partners with the new one, especially if it’s in a rebound, when it’s an early relationship. It’s very, very common that people compare who they’re dating right now or who they are hooking up with, with their ex partner. Now, it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that this is not a good approach. And if you’re hooking up with a woman, even if she might be a great woman, and you compare her with your ex and see how is she not good enough? You’re always going to find the bad parts of that woman that you’re rebounding with because you can only focus on the negative stuff and then you highlight all the positive stuff of your ex. Well, that’s not going to really be beneficial for moving on. I’m not saying that you’re not going to get a little bit of relief from that rebound sex.
Don’t Try To Move On Too Fast: Move On From Your Ex Girlfriend Slowly With Little Baby Steps
Obviously, it’s going to be helpful, but it’s much better to just stay focused on yourself. Now, I know you said that you’re struggling with staying focused, or trying out new hobbies, or new passions, or whatever. Discipline is so hard. And so basically what I suggest is take it a little bit slower. Maybe you’ve read the books “Atomic Habits” from James Clear, or maybe you’ve read “The Compound Effect” from Darren Hardy. Both of these books are basically about the fact that instead of trying to create that big ambition, that big goal, or trying to reach that new passion, or that discipline to always play guitar, or to become a thriathlonist, or to become a guitarist, or to become good at marketing, or whatever it is that you’re curious about. You don’t just achieve that in big steps. You take like really micro steps and you can also go a little bit easier on yourself.
So, for example, right now, I’m dating a musician, a local musician here, and she’s amazing. She is inspiring and I’m like, “Oh, man, I want to be as good as her!” And so I’m picking up guitar again more frequently. But still, I’m not doing it every single day. Yesterday, I didn’t play the guitar. Probably, maybe after this recording or maybe after I’m doing one more recording after this, maybe I’ll play guitar after that. But the point is, you don’t have to force yourself. Now, obviously, the more often that you focus on your habit, the better. But it’s important to remove the pressure. It should be fun when you pursue something new. Right. And so if you can’t focus on it, it’s OK, man. It’s OK to sometimes struggle and think about your ex and feel lonely and not get shit done. That’s fine. What matters is that at least maybe let’s say once a week, or maybe two times a week, you focus on that thing and take your time. You don’t have to stress yourself. You don’t need to spend one hour on it. Spend 20 minutes on it. The point is that you just have a little bit of you-time. It’s not even about getting good. It’s about dedicating time to yourself to feel good about yourself. And as you dedicate more time to that stuff and you start feeling better about yourself because you actually prioritize your own needs over time, you’re going to get better at it. And your discipline is also going to improve.
Why Moving On From Your Ex Is So Hard: Rebound Relationships And Impression Management
Of course, you’re going to, over time, also forget your ex more. So don’t sweat it so much. Don’t think that you need to be perfect with pursuing something new. OK? It’s perfectly fine to struggle, especially because you’ve been together with your ex for three years and you thought you were going to get married. And then all of a sudden she’s like done. She’s like, “I guess it’s not for me anymore.” That’s painful! And it’s OK to struggle a little bit. We always have that notion or that desire to move on so quickly and prove that we’re fine, that it doesn’t bother us. But that’s a really shitty notion. You’re basically just trying to signal to your ex how you made a mistake and say: “Look, I’m fine! This doesn’t bother me.” But this is basically impression management theory. Again, you’re trying to highlight that everything is cool. Rebounds are the same thing – pretending that everything is fine and moving on is easy. But why do you need to do that? If you’re happy with in yourself, you wouldn’t need to do that. And so because you’re not happy within yourself, you’re trying to force yourself to project something that you’re not. What I suggest typically after a breakup, don’t flex. Don’t focus on highlighting how happy you are in the world. Don’t make fancy social media posts or something like that. Be low-key. Have some fun on your own.
For example, the guitar. As I just mentioned. I play it for myself. I don’t post it very often. And it’s just for myself to feel better about myself. Yes, at some point, maybe I would like to maybe perform live or something like that here in Jogja. But the point is, it’s really just about myself to feel good about myself. And I don’t need to push this out to the world to see how great I’m doing. And you also don’t need to do that. You’re fine just the way that you are. I know that you’re struggling and that struggle is OK. And you don’t need to project something to your ex or to someone else. Your friends haven’t really changed and they’re not now magically thinking, “Oh, he had a breakup” and now they are thinking, “Oh, he’s not doing great. And he’s not that awesome.” Whatever. They don’t care. They’re still your friends. They still love you. They still appreciate you exactly the way that you were before. And you don’t need to highlight something to anyone. Probably, primarily, you want to highlight it to your ex. But obviously, your ex, she’s moving on.
And so you don’t need to be perfect with your passions or exploring some new things. Take it slowly. Take it slowly That discipline is great. But you can take it one step at a time. Sometimes you skip a day with your passion. Sometimes you skip two days. It’s OK. Maybe you make a journal. You write down how often have you done it this week and try to reach. You can you can slowly gradually get up. Maybe in the beginning you can do it one time a week. Right. If you can manage to pursue your new hobby or your passion one time per week, for some of you, that is really difficult, but that’s a great first step! You can reach that. Then maybe after a while you can take two times a week. You can try to do it two times a week. And then you level it up over time. Right. And it’s OK. It doesn’t matter how much you do it. Just start slowly and eventually over time you’re going to feel better. OK, so anyway, let’s continue.
Best Way To Get Over Your Ex Girlfriend: Can Rebound Relationships Work? Can Rebounds Turn Into Love?
Whatever I’ve tried so far has not really worked out for me. I’m not mad or disappointed with my ex, but seeing her post happy stuff on IG really hurts. I bet she is already dating someone else because she probably wanted to break up with me for a while. And I bet that is one of the reasons why she’s having such an easy time after our breakup. So on a scale of one to ten, how good or bad of an idea is it to rebound? I know rebounds are stereotypically not that successful, but waiting around also doesn’t really solve anything. Like I said, I’m not really able to focus on myself much because of all the mental distractions. So if I rebound, what do I say to the girl? I mean, do I say we’re casually dating or dating for a relationship? I’m not sure what I want right now. Or rather, I know that I’m still hurting, but there’s no reason why I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with another girl in the future if we get along well. Man, I’m really all over the place with my emotions and I hope you can advise me on what’s best for me. Thank you, Coach. Kind regards, Ryan.
Well, first of all, let’s talk about your ex quickly because it’s so painful to see her being happy. She’s probably also projecting something, even though she felt like she was done with the breakup or with the relationship. Three years is a long time. For whatever reason she wanted to break up, she decided to make that move. But it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t regret it or that she doesn’t hurt from it. She’s not just moving on the next day and everything is fine. Yes, maybe she has been thinking about dating for a while. She has been thinking about getting out of the relationship for a while. But thinking about it and then actually making the decision and then being lonely are two completely different things. So I’m not saying that she’s not hurting at all, for the sake of making you get your hopes up that you can get back with her or something like that. I’m saying this because, just ignore what she’s posting on social media. It doesn’t matter. What matters is you. And so on a scale of one to ten, how good of a bad idea is it to do a rebound? I would say it’s probably like somewhere in the neutral area. Five, maybe four or three. It’s basically not that beneficial. You’re not really going to get much out of it.
Also, as you said, you don’t really know what you want. So it’s probably not going to work out. And yes, it’s been studied that almost all rebounds don’t work out. So whatever girl you’re meeting up with. Well, it’s probably not going to really lead to anything. So, yeah, it’s basically useless, and you’re going to have problems because you can’t really clearly define the relationship. Plus, when you get into that rebound, you’re going to essentially in quotes, waste your time. Plus, when you get into that rebound, you’re going to, in a sense, waste your time, you’re not going to focus on yourself. You’re not going to get time for those hobbies or those passions. You’re going to neglect them even more than you are right now. So you’re not basically recreating yourself. So that woman will become a distraction. But then when the distraction is gone, you’re basically back to square one. You have to then again reconcile that you didn’t focus on yourself and you’re still hung up on your ex, you’re still missing her. And you’re not happy with who you’ve become.
I know that right now everything is hard. Moving forward is hard. Trying out new things is really hard. But it’s better to start right now than to start in three months from now when you probably are broken up with this girl again. I know this is a bit of a bleak outlook on all of the situation, but that’s kind of how it goes. Now, you can probably do some casual dating after a while. Right now, it’s probably too soon, three months after a three-year relationship. You’re probably not ready for it. So, yes, you’re right about that. Why wouldn’t you be in a relationship? There’s no reason to not be in a relationship in the future. But I think right now it’s a bit too soon. Maybe give it two or three more months. Try to find a little bit more courage to work on the things, the hobbies and so on. And yeah, I know that’s going to be tough, but you’re going to learn something from this, actually. That experience, that hardship, that’s what men have to do. It’s kind of awesome if you get through that. If you force yourself, well, I said don’t force yourself…
But if you encourage yourself, if you challenge yourself to grow, become better, to struggle a little bit, that’s amazing! Because after the next three months, maybe you won’t be perfect. Things won’t be that perfect. You haven’t made that much progress, but you made some progress. And you didn’t give up and you’re going to feel good about that. And then if you look at your ex, she’s probably rebounding. She’s probably dating another guy. What has she done? She hasn’t really moved on. She basically has just been trying to lie to herself. She’s been fucking some guys and nothing has really happened for her. Time has been standing still for her in that case. But if you move forward right now and try even just some small things here or there, time didn’t stand still for you. But if you date another woman, yeah, it’s basically going to stand still because, yeah, you’re not in the place that you want to be right now. You already know probably who you are right now is not who you want to be in a year from now.
You have to recreate yourself. You have to find yourself again. You have to figure out what you want to be with a woman by your side. If you’re not ready for that, if you’re not ready for either having her by your side while you find yourself and her being accepting of that, it’s not going to work out. So take the time for yourself. And I would not jump into a rebound relationship. It’s typically not a great idea for men. As I said, for women, it’s a little bit, in quotes, “better“. It makes them feel better about themselves. But for us guys, it’s pretty much only having downsides. Yes, good sex, obviously. But let’s be real. Sex with women that we love or that we appreciate is much better than just random, wild, meaningless sex. It’s not very close. We’re not very attached. You’re probably not going to attach too much to this woman. So I wouldn’t be doing a rebound. Just stay focused on yourself. I know it’s so hard, but you can do this because you’re a king. So let me know in the comments what you think. Give me a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. And never forget to unleash the king within.
