Before hopping back into bed with your ex…
BREAK-UP sex can seem like a perfect solution to a sad situation: you get your sexual needs met by someone who knows you well, and forget about your achy-breaky heart for a few hours.
But I’ve found that break-up sex is usually not worth the momentary indulgence. The last time I did it, a few weeks post-split, I was standing with my ex after a dinner at friends when we looked at each other and he said: “Do you want to come over?” I went with my immediate impulse because I still missed him. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
After a few nights of trying to have it both ways – not back together, but too emotionally invested to be casual friends with benefits – we concluded that break-up sex was leaving us in limbo.
There’s the rub. Break-up sex feels good in the moment, but for me it has made it harder than necessary to get over my ex.
I spoke with several dating gurus who agreed that break-up sex is tricky territory. “It’s not uncommon for people to hook up following a tough break-up talk because there’s an intimacy built by having an honest talk,” relationship expert Andrea Syrtash, author of He’s Just Not Your Type (And That’s a Good Thing), told me. Although it’s seductive to get it on “without the stress, pressure or strings that were attached when you were together,” she cautioned that instant gratification can be more painful than it’s worth. “Very rarely are two people on the exact same page following a break-up. In most cases, one person is more invested in making the relationship work,” Syrtash said.
Sex educator Allison Moon, author of Girl Sex 101, likens a relationship ending to an addict’s withdrawal symptoms. “When you’re breaking up with someone, you’re essentially going through detox,” Moon explained. “You need to level out your blood chemistry and keep from getting your “fix”. Cold turkey is better. Sex isn’t methadone or a nicotine patch. It’s a full fix, and you can’t get ‘clean’ if you keep visiting your dealer.”
However, if you can be okay with having sex with your ex and then going on your single merry way, go ahead, says dating coach Erin Tillman.
“If someone is truly ready to move on emotionally, one final sexual experience could be seen as a sweet and sexy send-off into the land of singlehood,” Tillman said.
She suggested some questions to ask yourself before getting busy with your former flame: “What do I honestly want from sex with my ex? What is my end goal? Do I still have feelings for them? Would I be upset if my ex wanted nothing to do with me after our sex session?”
You also need to take your ex’s feelings into consideration. If your ex is still sobbing every time they think of you, it’s not fair for them to engage in sex, even if they say they’re okay with it.
There are, of course, exceptions. “The only case where break-up sex can help you get over the break-up is if you and your ex broke up because you had little sexual chemistry. In that case, you may be reminded of how incompatible you are,” Syrtash says.
Or wait a little while before you hop into bed again. Moon says that, to protect your heart, you have two options: “Either bang as your goodbye and call it quits, or wait until you’ve had a few other escapades with new people and you feel fully separate and healed from the relationship; then you can have sex as friends.”
But never assume that break-up sex will be the ticket to winning back your ex. As dating coach and author Evan Marc Katz says: “The idea that you’re going to sleep your way back into (someone’s) heart seems like wishful thinking because the same problems that caused you to break up remain.”
Break-ups are hard – there’s no getting around that, even with orgasms.
If it takes most people six weeks to three months to get over a break-up, why risk prolonging your misery?
Even if you’re not quite ready for a new fling, don’t fool yourself into thinking the source of your pain, your ex, can be the one to heal it by getting naked with them. – The Washington Post