Why The ‘Getting Them Back’ Narrative Is One You Should Ignore

Pop culture doesn’t always provide the best examples of happy and healthy relationships. But one of the worst offenders, appearing in movies and TV shows for decades, is the idea that getting an ex back is a romantic end goal. 

From Jay doing the most to woo his long lost Daisy in The Great Gatsby, to Noah’s declarations of love in The Notebook, to duplicate Lindey Lohans putting in the work to get their parents back together in The Parent Trap, we’ve grown up internalising this mindset. Even today, ‘getting them back’ is an idea heavily featured in mainstream pop-culture. It’s Nate playing emotional games to get Maddy back in HBO’s Euphoria, buying her gifts and making his desire for her a public display. It’s the constant back and forth of Tessa and Hardin in the already-infamous After movies. 

Shows like Love Island have familiarised  the term “grafting”, which is how the Brits describe actively pursuing someone. It’s all about displays of affection, romantic gestures and publicly owning your mistakes almost to the point of humiliation – all in the hopes of getting them back.

And the stereotype gets flipped on its head, too – Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Like Crazy, even the newly released Barbie has Ken realising that the blonde bombshell that is Barbara Millicent Roberts just isn’t that into him. But these more realistic takes aren’t shown as aspirational in the same way their counterparts are. Making “ending up alone” look desirable is no easy feat. 

It’s not that hard to understand why people love these stories. They feel like triumphs of fate and reinforce the idea that true love always wins. 

And people can break-up and get back together again. In the best case scenarios it works. But the implications of “getting them back” is that it's one person's prerogative and one person putting in the work – which most of the time means the feelings are one-sided, too. 

And why is it such a bad thing? Well, here’s a few reasons to ponder. 

By its nature, the dream of “getting them back” is one-sided, and it doesn’t reflect a healthy mutual relationship. 

Love can be so easy. It shouldn't be that much work, and you shouldn’t have to convince someone to be with you – you should want to be with someone who wants you enough on their own – not someone who is being forced into saying yes because of constant pressure. 

Grand gestures and persistence are made to seem extravagant and purposeful, but the reality is that if you’ve already broken things off once, it’s likely that the other person probably doesn’t want to be with you. There has to be a point at which you stop and realise that if it didn’t work once, it's better to leave it be. 

While it can be romantic to publicly declare your feelings for someone, there’s also a high chance you might be embarrassing them or making the person uncomfortable. 

We’ve all seen videos of someone proposing to their girl on the big screen at a basketball game – and all winced when the person's eyes darted around in a panic before timidly shaking their head and mouthing “what are you doing?” 

It’s always a risk, because you never really know what someone else is thinking, but you can safely save the big gestures for when you’re actually together. 

Aside from the potential for public embarrassment, continued efforts to win someone back could be making them feel incredibly distressed. People might argue that being pursued romantically is always flattering, but it can be really uncomfortable when it’s unrequited. Big decisions, such as re-entering a relationship, shouldn’t be made under the pressure from anyone. 

So if you’re hoping to win an ex back, consider if you’re really giving them the space and time to make that decision – and whether your actions might be making them feel backed into a corner. 

While a lot of the issues with the “getting them back” narrative stem from the experience of the person on the receiving end, the experience can be equally taxing for the person in pursuit. But it’s important to remember that they’re the one bringing that emotional turbulence on themselves.

It’s rarely easy to just walk away from a break-up and never look back, whether it was mutual, one-sided or you were the one in the driver's seat. It’s normal to miss the person and to conjure up the idea that you could’ve made it work in an alternate timeline.

No one’s telling you to snap your fingers and get over it. But if you’re putting in the effort for weeks or months (don’t make us say years) to get your ex back by your side, then you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to move on. 

“When we come out of a relationship, having space is a really important part of being able to reimagine our lives without our partner,” relationship expert Eleanor Butterworth told VICE.  

Don’t do yourself the disservice of holding on to something that’s over. New things are on the horizon – and you can’t get to them if your post break-up healing never begins. 

We’re not saying don't make an effort to show someone you’re apologetic for something you’ve done wrong, or that you should give up on a relationship that’s had a small speed bump. Proving that you’re invested in a relationship is a good thing, ultimately, as long as the other person wants to be there too. 

Change is good, so get comfortable being alone and give yourself – and other people – space and time to process the break-up before making any rash decisions.

It’s hard to picture our pop-culture landscape without these stories. We’ve grown up on them and they’re sold as something thrilling and fairytale-like. We’ll probably always see these stories in films and TV because they hold an aspirational quality for people fantasising about undoing their break-ups. But let’s leave it to the movies to explore that narrative. 

Own the Feels is brought to you by #LoveBetter, a campaign funded by the Ministry for Social Development.

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Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa. You can find her @rachellydiab on IG and Letterboxd and see her film criticism on Youtube.