Rebound relationship: what it means, how long it lasts, and whether it can work

Who this page is for

Adults who are seeing someone new soon after a breakup, who suspect they are someone's rebound, or whose ex has moved on fast. It also covers dating after a breakup in general. Our way of choosing and reading sources is on the about page.

What sits on other pages

The first days after a split are covered in what to do in the first week. Recovery time has its own page, including what the published numbers are based on.

Rebound relationship meaning in one sentence

There is no dictionary-grade definition of a rebound relationship. The rebound relationship definition used by the main research team is this: a relationship "initiated shortly after a romantic breakup", "before the feelings about the former relationship have been resolved". The same authors add a warning: there is "essentially no empirical research on these relationships, nor even an authoritative definition of them" (Brumbaugh and Fraley, 2015). So any page that tells you precisely what counts is choosing a definition, not reporting one.

Where "on the rebound" comes from

The picture is a ball bouncing back off a wall: fast, and in a direction set by the impact, not by aim. The romantic sense of "on the rebound" is usually reported as dating from the nineteenth century. We could not open a dictionary entry to confirm that, so we give no year.

What is considered a rebound relationship: timing, state or motive?

Everyday use mixes three ideas. Brumbaugh and Fraley list them: a rebound (a) forms shortly after a breakup, (b) forms before the person has fully recovered, and (c) is driven by a wish to be distracted from the pain. Only the first can be seen from outside.

How researchers handle the definition

The second and third ideas build the bad outcome into the label. If a rebound is by definition shallow and premature, then of course rebounds go badly. To avoid that circle the researchers dropped the label and measured two plain things: whether a person had a new partner and, for those who did, the months they had spent single between the two relationships.

Rebound sex, a fling, a relationship

Rebound sex is a single encounter or a few, soon after a breakup. A fling is short and both people know it. A rebound in a relationship sense means two people act as a couple while one is still reacting to the last partner.

Other names you will meet

"Transitional relationship" is a kinder term for the same thing: the research paper itself says a rebound partner is usually thought of as "a transitional mate or a stepping stone". "Monkey-barring" is slang for lining up the next partner before letting go of the current one. Some pages sort post-breakup relationships into named types; those typologies are an author's framing, not findings.

Attachment anxiety and avoidance

Attachment anxiety means worrying a great deal about being left; avoidance means discomfort with closeness. In Brumbaugh and Fraley's first study, people who scored higher on either, measured while they were still with the old partner, tended to start their next relationship sooner. The correlations were -.36 and -.27 in a subsample of fewer than 30 people, and neither reached the usual threshold for significance. It is not grounds for labeling your ex, or yourself, "avoidant" from a distance.

Gender: one study, a modest result

In a survey of 201 students at a university in the southern United States, men scored higher than women on a two-question "rebound tendency" measure (5.51 against 4.15). The authors, Cassie Shimek and Richard Bello, linked this to men reporting more lingering attachment to the ex and a more game-playing approach to love, not to greater distress, which did not differ between men and women. One student sample cannot tell you what "a guy" or "a girl" on the rebound will do.

Why a rebound can feel like love and move fast

Relief is a strong feeling. After weeks of grief, a person who makes you laugh produces a contrast that is easy to read as certainty. Add the wish to prove something, and the pace picks up: exclusivity in a week, a trip in a month. Fast is not proof of anything. Intense attention plus pressure to commit, sometimes called love bombing, is a separate matter; if you feel pushed, slow down and see whether the person can tolerate that.

What we left out on purpose

Many pages explain rebounds with brain chemistry, usually dopamine. We found no study that measured it in people on the rebound, so it is not here.

Brumbaugh and Fraley, 2015: "Too fast, too soon?"

Study 1 followed people who were already in a long-running project and then broke up: 77 participants, 60 of them women, average age 20, surveyed about seven months after the split. Study 2 surveyed 264 students once and analyzed 236 (131 single, 105 in a relationship; average age 21.71). The paper gives the number with a new partner in Study 1 as 23 in one place and 27 in another.

First, partnered against single, holding constant the time since the breakup. People with a new partner had fewer lingering feelings for the ex (correlations of -.43 and -.45 in the two studies) and were more confident that others found them desirable (.23 in Study 1, short of significance; .49 in Study 2). Self-esteem was not linked to having a partner in either study, and general well-being only weakly, in Study 2 (.16).

Second, only among those with a new partner (fewer than 30 people in Study 1, 105 in Study 2), how long they had stayed single. Combined across both studies, less time single went weakly with higher well-being (r = -.28), higher self-esteem (-.19) and more respect for the new partner (-.17, at the edge of significance). The authors' conclusion: people who rebound quickly "are not necessarily any worse off than those who wait longer". Quick starters also tended to compare the new partner with the old one a little more (r = -.15, p = .09), and in Study 1 to want revenge on the ex more. Neither result reached significance.

Spielmann, MacDonald and Wilson, 2009

In the paper titled "On the rebound", a correlational study found that the usual link between anxious attachment and longing for an ex was absent when the person had a new partner. Two experiments then led anxiously attached people to believe they would find someone new easily, and their attachment to the ex dropped. The authors call focusing on someone new potentially "an adaptive part of the breakup recovery process" for this group. The abstract gives no sample sizes.

Shimek and Bello, 2014

A one-time survey of students recruited from their courses, asking them to recall past breakups, covered above under gender. Its definition of a rebound, given to participants, included the words "likely at least somewhat superficial in nature", so it measured rebounds of one kind only. The authors themselves list the student sample and reliance on memory as limits.

Barber and Cooper, 2014

Undergraduates kept online diaries after a breakup. People who began the study having sex to cope or to get over the ex were more likely to have sex with a stranger and to keep having sex with new partners over time. The paper describes behavior; it does not show that rebound sex harms or helps recovery.

Wolfinger, 2007: "Does the rebound effect exist?"

Rebound time was counted in months from separation to remarriage, or to moving in with the person later married. The journal abstract reports "no evidence of a rebound effect", after adjusting for demographic differences. The figure of 1,171 adults comes from the University of Utah's 2006 news release about the conference version of the study (copy at phys.org), not from the abstract. In that release Wolfinger limited the reach of his result: "Maybe the rebound effect really does exist in dating relationships", he said, adding that adequate data to test it did not exist.

How rebound relationships usually end

Without data we can only name possible mechanisms. One is comparison: the new partner keeps being measured against the old one (in the research, a tendency that fell short of significance). Another is unequal intent, where one person wants a companion for a hard season and the other wants a future. A third is plain mismatch, the kind any new couple can discover; a rebound chosen less carefully may discover it sooner. When one ends, it can reopen the first loss as well; the page on what slows recovery down then applies to you twice over.

Signs a rebound relationship is ending

One search suggestion reads "signs rebound relationship ending". From inside, the signs are the same as in any fading relationship: fewer plans, less curiosity, irritation where there was ease, talk of the future going quiet. If you are tracking someone else's relationship for cracks, the more useful question is in the section on an ex who has moved on.

What is fair in the list

Each stage describes something that can happen: new relationships do start bright and meet friction, and people fresh from a breakup may compare. The trouble is the packaging: a fixed order, a guaranteed last step and, on some pages, a number of weeks per stage. We found no published study that describes rebounds in stages, in order or on a schedule. Stage lists for grief have a similar history, which we cover under breakup stages and what they are based on.

Stages for the dumper and for the one who was left

One search suggestion is "rebound relationship stages for dumper", as if the person who ended it followed a known script. Brumbaugh and Fraley checked: who initiated the breakup did not predict whether someone found a new partner, or how fast. In the diary study, those who had been left were more distressed and angrier, and more likely to have sex to cope.

Why a timeline cannot be read off it

A stage chart invites one use above all: locating an ex on it and counting down. You cannot see inside their relationship, the stages have no measured lengths, and the final stage was written in before any data. If the chart is feeding hope that your ex will come back on a date, see what "is it working" can and cannot mean.

Six questions about your own new relationship

You have access to the one thing the lists lack: your own motives. Ask these on a quiet day, not on a lonely night.

1. If this person became unavailable tomorrow, would you miss them, or would you miss having someone?
2. When something good happens, who do you first want to tell?
3. Do you want your ex to know about this relationship?
4. Can you name three things about this person that have nothing to do with how they differ from your ex?
5. Are you curious about their life, or mainly grateful for their company?
6. Have you told them how recent your breakup is?

No score. A "yes" to question 3 or a blank at question 4 only tells you where your attention is.

What a rebound relationship looks like from inside

What does a rebound relationship look like to the person in it? Often like an ordinary new relationship with a second conversation running underneath. You are on a pleasant date and also composing a reply to an argument from last spring. Thoughts of an ex while seeing someone new have their own section: missing an ex when you have a new partner.

When the label matters and when it does not

It matters in two cases. One: you are using the person, you know it, and they do not; the next section deals with that. Two: you are making large, hard-to-reverse decisions (moving in, moving cities, merging money) on the strength of relief. Slowing those down costs little.

Otherwise, a relationship that began early and is honest, unhurried and mutual does not need a different name.

If the answer is "yes, partly"

Most honest answers are. You do not have to end it, and you do not have to pretend. Say so to the other person, slow the pace, and keep doing the ordinary work of getting over the last relationship. Our pages on leaning on friends and family and on handling intrusive thoughts about an ex still apply to you.

Say how recent it is

By the second or third date, not the tenth. "I should tell you I came out of a four-year relationship in August" is enough. It lets the other person decide with the same information you have.

Say what you can offer now

You may not know what you want in six months. You do know what is true this week. "I like seeing you and I am not in a position to promise much yet" is an honest sentence.

If you still miss your ex

You do not owe a new partner a running report of every pang. You do owe them the truth if they ask directly, or if the feelings are steering your choices. Whether to say anything to the ex is a separate decision, covered in should you tell your ex you miss them.

Words that work, words that do not

Can you carry on without naming it?

For a few light dates, yes. Once the other person is rearranging their week around you, no. The test is whether they would feel misled if they learned the full picture later.

If the two of you want different things

One person may want a companion for now and the other a future. Neither is wrong. What goes wrong is leaving the gap unspoken. Say what you want, ask what they want, and believe the answer you get.

What you can see and what you cannot

You can see how they treat you: whether they ask about your life, keep plans, and stay steady when you slow things down. You cannot see their motives. In Brumbaugh and Fraley's data, people who re-partnered sooner reported slightly more respect for the new partner, not less (a weak link, at the edge of significance). Being chosen soon is not the same as being used.

One direct question

"Where are you with your last relationship?" Ask it once, calmly. A person who can say "still raw in places, and glad to be here" is giving you something to work with.

You have real feelings and they are not there yet

You cannot hurry another person's readiness by being patient enough, and waiting in silence tends to turn into resentment. Say where you are. Ask for a pace you can live with.

When both of you are fresh from a breakup

It is not automatically worse. Two people who both say "I am not fully steady" may be more honest with each other than most new couples. The risk is a relationship built mainly on talking about the exes.

Deciding to step back

You are allowed to say "I like you, and the timing does not work for me." You are also allowed to stay and see. If you step back and it stings more than you expected, that is a loss too, and the same care applies as after any breakup: start with the first-week basics.

"My ex is a narcissist and rebounded"

Suggestions about an ex or a narcissist being in a rebound are 9 of the 191 we counted (4.7%). A fast new relationship is not a symptom, and nobody can be diagnosed from an ex's account of them. If the relationship involved control, threats or fear, that matters far more than the label; see the note on abuse below.

Where to take the rest of this question

If what you are really asking is whether they think of you, go to what an ex's behavior can and cannot tell you. If you are weighing a message, read before you reach out and the exceptions to no contact, such as shared children or a shared workplace. And if the news has brought the missing back at full strength, start with why you miss them, even now.

Rebound relationship after divorce: the Wolfinger result

This is the one place where a long-run outcome was tested. Using 1,171 adults from the National Survey of Families and Households, Wolfinger found that the months between the end of a first marriage and the start of the next union did not predict how long the remarriage lasted. Second marriages do carry extra risks, he notes, such as stepchildren and a demonstrated willingness to divorce. Speed was not one of them.

Signs of a rebound relationship after divorce

A search for signs of a rebound relationship after divorce returns the same lists as any other. What differs after a marriage is what else is unsettled: housing, money, custody, a legal process. A new partner can become a shelter from all of it. Ask whether you are choosing the person or the shelter. Our separate guide to dating after divorce has readiness checks for that.

Dating during separation

Whether dating before a divorce is final has legal consequences depends on your state and your case. We do not answer legal questions; ask your attorney before you act. Say plainly to anyone you date that you are separated and not divorced.

When there are children

Two studies followed mothers after they filed for divorce. In the first, which used monthly surveys over two years, mothers who entered high-quality relationships reported a lift in well-being, and those in lower-quality ones fared worse than mothers who stayed single. In the second, with 316 mothers of elementary-age children, a mother starting or ending a dating relationship had little direct effect on children's adjustment; closeness between mother and child changed some of the effects. Both studied mothers only, and neither tested when children should meet a partner. Our view, not a finding: waiting until you are fairly sure costs little.

After the death of a spouse

"Rebound" is the wrong word for a new relationship after bereavement, though it appears among the search suggestions. In a 1996 report from the San Diego Widowhood Project, which followed 249 widows and 101 widowers, 61% of the men and 19% of the women were remarried or in a new romance 25 months after the death, and being in one was correlated with greater well-being. The authors wrote that dating in widowhood is common and appears adaptive. Relatives who think it is too soon have no finding behind them.

A friend, a coworker, long distance

A rebound with a friend risks the friendship, so the honesty in the section on what to say matters double. With a coworker, a bad ending follows you to the office, as after a breakup that touches your job. Long distance hides good signs and warning signs alike, so give it more time.

How long should you wait? No rule has evidence

How long should you wait to date after a breakup? When should you start dating after a breakup? The popular answers are a month per year together, half the length of the relationship, a flat ninety days. We found no study behind any of them. Brumbaugh and Fraley set out to test the belief in a necessary waiting period and reported that their data did not support it. That is not an instruction to hurry. It removes one reason for guilt if you met someone sooner than you planned, and one false deadline if you are not ready after a year. Recovery has no fixed length either; see where the usual numbers come from.

How to start dating after a breakup

Small and low-stakes. One coffee, an hour, daytime. Tell a friend you are going. Decide beforehand that the aim is to have a decent conversation with a stranger, not to find a replacement. Notice afterwards how you feel: lighter, flat, or tearful in the car. None is a failure.

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Dating after heartbreak: a slower first month

Dating after heartbreak goes better with a few guardrails. See one person at a time if juggling makes you anxious. Keep the first few weeks free of big gestures. Hold on to the routines that have been keeping you upright, sleep, food and movement included, so that a date is an addition to your week and not its foundation.

Five checks that beat a calendar

Two "worth waiting" answers do not forbid a coffee; they suggest going gently. If contact with your ex is the unsettled part, the page on how long no contact usually runs may help more than a dating profile.

If it goes badly

A first date after a long relationship can end in crying on the way home. That means the loss is still close, not that you set yourself back. Wait a few weeks, then try again or do not.

This site is not therapy, and a new relationship is not treatment.

Signs it is time to talk to someone

Consider a counselor, therapist or your doctor if, several weeks on, you cannot work or sleep, if you are drinking to get through evenings, if you go from one relationship to the next without ever feeling steadier, or if you simply want a neutral person to think aloud with. Our page on recovery describes what being stuck looks like.

If the relationship you left was abusive

If your ex controlled, threatened or hurt you, the advice on this page about honesty and contact does not apply to them. You owe no explanation and no reply. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is free, confidential and open 24/7: call 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.