Ronnie and Jen from 'Jersey Shore' keep getting back together — a relationship expert unpacks why

Sabrina Rojas Weiss

When we read that Jersey Shore star Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and girlfriend Jen Harley had broken up once again, after so many failed reunions over the past year, the story sounded familiar. So many of us try and try again when it comes to relationships we really hope will work. Maybe celebrity drama is more public than most, but there are some lessons we can all take away from their experience.

“It’s something that happens really frequently,” psychologist Chloe Carmichael, PsyD, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. While reuniting after a breakup sometimes works — and it certainly sounds like the stuff of a good romantic comedy — Carmichael says it’s important to recognize the factors that might be going into your frequent breakups and makeups.

You’ve Seen True Love Conquer All

“Sometimes, the couples I see that get stuck in that pattern are people whose parents actually have a great relationship,” Carmichael says. If you grew up in a nuclear family that valued staying together above all else, you might not want to leave your own relationship, no matter how dysfunctional it may be. “When you just take that steadfast commitment and apply it to an unhealthy relationship, that’s where it can become a vulnerability.”

You’ve Put So Much Into This Already

Carmichael says people often apply the economic principle of “sunk cost” to their love lives. “When we’ve lost money on an investment, we sometimes actually have a hard time cutting our losses and walking away,” she explains. Likewise, people want to fix a relationship they’ve been working on for years, precisely because of how long it’s been. Rather than see a failed relationship as a loss, however, Carmichael advises her clients to view it as a learning experience they can apply in the future.

You’re in the “Fog of War”

Just as in battle, when soldiers lose their sense of reality and behave illogically, couples who have been fighting for a while can get lost in the fog. And just like soldiers, naming this disorientation is the first step to finding your way out of a damaging relationship cycle. “Sometimes, in psychology, we see that by labeling things, we actually can free ourselves,” Carmichael says.

Your Friends Aren’t Helping

We can only imagine what Ortiz-Magro and Harley feel like with fans and the media constantly asking them about each other. It’s bad enough when you’ve got friends and family “helpfully” reminding you that you’ve just been through a breakup. That’s great, until you’ve decided to try to move on. That helpfulness might be part of what pushes you back into an unhealthy relationship.

“Your social support network is supporting a part of your identity that you actually don’t want to anymore,” Carmichael says. To stop being that breakup person, you might need to ask them directly, but with a tone of appreciation. “Tell them that the best way to support you now is actually to not bring up the person and to try to help you get interested in other people, other things, and other activities.”

You Want Closure

“There’s something in psychology that we call a repetition compulsion, which is where if you feel like something didn’t end quite the way you wanted it to, then you feel compelled to keep going back and trying to fix it to have a different ending,” Carmichael says.

It’s fine to try to part as friends, but that’s not always possible, particularly after multiple breakups with the same person. Whatever made your relationship stop working might also prevent you from ending things well, so there’s a point at which you should just move on.

You Give in to Fatigue

After days, months, or years of trying to fix a failing romance, all that talking and texting and fighting wears a person down. Carmichael suggests that some people need to take a real, physical break from each other to figure things out.

“Sometimes just getting a total change of scenery, going away for two weeks and just trying to break away and give yourself a sense of new perspective and rejuvenation … can help you to make more rational decisions,” she says.

There Really Is Hope You’ll Change

All that said, sometimes things do finally work out for those on-again-off-again couples, especially if they’re willing to change. Ortiz-Magro and Harley reportedly tried to stay together for the sake of 8-month-old daughter Ariana Sky. “The event of a newborn child — that does change people sometimes,” Carmichael says. “If both partners are feeling a deeper commitment to stability and partnership, then that is an interesting window of opportunity that can exist, but it’s not guaranteed.”

With or without a child in the picture, both partners need to be willing to put in some hard work on themselves. “If partners are going to individual therapy and willing to take ownership of their role in drama and are really working on it, then that’s usually a good sign,” Carmichael says. Even a person who has been the victim of their partner’s abuse or adultery would benefit from their own counseling to figure out their own role in what happened. “It takes two people to tango,” she says, “and both partners have to be willing to talk about what they’re going to do differently.”

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