History Main / WhyWouldAnyoneTakeHimBack

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Hermes Conrad temporarily becomes a head in a jar after his body in an accident causing his wife to almost instantly return to her ex-husband, claiming it is because their son "needs a daddy"; as though the still living Hermes no longer counts. Once he has a body again she takes him back, but following a second accident she jumps ship again, and even changes the son's surname to that of his stepfather. It isn't until he helps to defeat the Gold Death Stars that she takes him back, rather casually. Hermes would be entirely justified in telling her to take a hike.

* A non-romantic example in ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd'' with Sam, Nate's lost brother who returns to his life alive and well. Despite having lied to Nate about his predicament just to save his own skin, and being ''extremely'' flippant about his marriage with Elena to the point of nearly ruining it (not to mention abadoning them to go after the Libertalia treasure hoard while they were in the middle of getting out of there), [[ThickerThanWater both Nate and Elena forgive and welcome Sam into the family as if it was no big deal]].

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': The biggest reason as to why the ending of "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS10E2SeahorseSeashellParty Seahorse Seashell Party]]" is so reviled is that Meg rightfully calls out her family for how dysfunctional they are, yet decides to keep being their punching bag for the sake of letting them be anywhere ''close'' to functional, when she fully knows that they're a lost cause.

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'':
** Bella and Edward seem to have this mutually. Edward frequently belittles, controls, manipulates, and [[StalkerWithACrush stalks]] Bella throughout the series. In ''New Moon'', Edward abruptly leaves Bella and leaves her so depressed that she's in a catatonic state -- which she only snaps out with help from her best friend Jacob, who's also in love with her -- and he comes back with equally little explanation. In one memorable scene, Bella comes back from a shopping trip and admits to herself that she ''knows'' Edward will break into her car and check her odometer, just to see if she's telling the truth. But she never stops being in love with Edward (and quite infamously has [[StalkingIsLove no problem with the stalking]]). Meanwhile, Bella can be pretty emotionally abusive to Edward (albeit not to the same degree); her time without him in ''New Moon'' shows an alarming degree of obsessiveness, particularly her habit of engaging in dangerous behavior. And when Edward comes back, she makes him promise never to leave her again and basically says that if she's DrivenToSuicide by another breakup, it's his fault. She later pressures Edward for sex even though he [[LetsWaitAWhile wants to wait until they're married]] (imagine how bad ''that'' would look if the genders were reversed) and further pressures him to turn her into a vampire herself.

** Then there's Apu and Manjula. In her first episode, it looks like they have a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage. Then they have eight babies, which is understandably stressful. But Apu cheats on her because they'd become distant due to the stress of raising their children, which caused them both to act in ways that were unacceptable and detrimental to their relationship. When the affair is discovered it's a wonder either of them takes the other back, all of which is [[HilariousInHindsight Something I]][[HarsherInHindsight n Hindsight]] when you again recall that first episode, where Manjula herself says "If it doesn't work out, we can always get a divorce."
*** Though children change the dynamic in any marriage; there's suddenly more motivation to make it work, and as the two of them combined hardly have enough time for all their children, neither one of them on their own would be able to take care of all of them.

* This is played around with a lot in the ''Anime/LoveHina'' fanfic ''Fanfic/ForHisOwnSake''.

* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' gives us Oskar and Suzie Kokoshka. Suzie works hard, while [[ManChild Oskar]] is consistently unemployed, whiny, and only cares about himself. Many times she has attempted to walk out on him, but she always comes back. In the GrandFinale, ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheJungleMovie'', however, Suzie is nowhere to be seen, and Creator/CraigBartlett would later [[WordOfGod confirm in a Reddit AMA]] that Suzie had indeed divorced and left Oskar by that point.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In "Escape", aka "The Pina Colada Song", the protagonist is checking out personal ads in the middle of the night while his girlfriend is sleeping because he was "tired of my lady". He answers the ad, only to find out it was placed [[TwoPersonLoveTriangle by his girlfriend]]. Not only were the two completely willing to cheat on each other with complete strangers, they apparently had never even bothered to discuss things they like to do with each other.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'': During the game's epilogue, Goombella states that Vivian decided to return to her sisters and forgive their misdeeds, on the basis that [[ThickerThanWater they're family]]. Her decision to go back ended up baffling many fans, who believe that no one should accept a family as [[BigScrewedUpFamily dysfunctional]] as the Shadow Sirens.

** Emma and Hook's relationship has a lot of fans questioning why they keep getting back together. In the Season 5A final, Hook tried to send to the Underworld not only her parents, but also her son Henry, the adoptive mother of her son Regina, Robin Hood (a guy Emma and Hook have barely interacted with), and Robin's young son who had nothing to do with the events of Camelot, but still Emma risks said family's lives to save him. Meanwhile, Emma turns Hook into the Dark One against his will before erasing his memories and lying to him for weeks. Then things get worse in Season 6, where Hook again lies to her over an extended period of time about murdering her grandfather and proposes to her under false pretenses, but Emma still spends several episodes after he disappears pining for him. All of this makes it hard for a lot of fans to swallow them as the True Loves the show paints them as.

** With Ted and Zoey at the end of season 6, it goes both ways. From Ted's perspective, this woman tried to destroy his career, manipulated him, lied to him, and secretly recorded his conversations so that she could blackmail him. From Zoey's perspective, she worked so hard to prevent the destruction of the Arcadian Building and managed to convince this man to help her, only for him to betray her at the last second and ensure the building's destruction. Yeah, they were made fore each other.

* ''Series/OnceUponATime'': Emma and Hook's relationship has a lot of fans questioning why they keep getting back together. In the Season 5A final, Hook tried to send to the Underworld not only her parents, but also her son Henry, the adoptive mother of her son Regina, Robin Hood (a guy Emma and Hook have barely interacted with), and Robin's young son who had nothing to do with the events of Camelot, but still Emma risks said family's lives to save him. Meanwhile, Emma turns Hook into the Dark One against his will before erasing his memories and lying to him for weeks. Then things get worse in Season 6, where Hook again lies to her over an extended period of time about murdering her grandfather and proposes to her under false pretenses, but Emma still spends several episodes after he disappears pining for him. All of this makes it hard for a lot of fans to swallow them as the True Loves the show paints them as.

* ''Fanfic/{{After}}'': Many people questioned why Tessa would take Harry/[[AdaptationNameChange Hardin]] back, as the ending implies she does. She broke up with him after finding out he'd lied to her for the entirety of their relationship: [[spoiler: he initially only dated her to get her into bed on a dare and even after developing feelings for Tessa he kept this from her]]. He also spent a lot of their relationship being a controlling, condescending jerk to her. After they break up Tessa's life seems to greatly improve; she becomes more mature and responsible, including focusing on her studies, working on getting her dream internship, ditching toxic friends, and reconciling with her mother and ex-boyfriend. The only apparent pro to her staying with Hardin is regular sex, which doesn't really outweigh all the cons.

->''After '''four''' times he '''still''' couldn't make it to the altar? He is a '''ball of shit!!! Why are you marrying him?! Nothing''' indicates that he would be a good husband! Where are you spending your honeymoon, divorce court? (...) '''Run away, woman! Run away!''' Go marry that jerky guy, he at least would show up! Sure, he's a diabolical villain, but... '''He would fucking show up!!!'''''

* ''Theatre/AllsWellThatEndsWell'' is worse. The entire point of the play is that Bertram is an insufferable boor who reneges on his promise and gives a series of impossible demands on his betrothed. Then, at the climax when she reveals that she has completed his impossible tasks (which included pretending to be another woman so she could get pregnant with his child), he somehow declares that he loves her. The only sympathetic version that I've seen has him [[RedemptionEqualsAffliction get seriously injured in between the last two scenes, giving a reason for his change of heart.]]
* ''Theatre/TheWintersTale'' is worst of all. King Leontes, from out of nowhere and with absolutely ''no'' evidence, suddenly becomes convinced that his faithful wife Hermione is cheating on him with his old friend King Polixenes. Dead set on believing the worst of his wife despite all the world around him telling he's dead wrong, Leontes' mad efforts to prove Hermione unfaithful lead to their son Mamillius ''deliberately starving himself to death out of heartbreak over his father's actions,'' their second child Perdita ''being abandoned to die in another country,'' and Hermione herself apparently dying from grief and shock over Mamillius' death. Finally, after his cruel foolishness costs him everything, Leontes belatedly realizes just how badly he's messed things up and is subsequently left alone to grieve over how much he's ruined his own, once happy life. Yet years later, Hermione and Perdita are miraculously restored to him, and neither woman shows ''any'' hatred or bitterness toward the man who tried to destroy them. This is treated as a happy ending for all three of them--but while Perdita forgiving her father is more understandable, given that she was only a baby when he tried to kill her and therefore has no memory of the actual events, Hermione's attitude is much more baffling, especially given that they'll always have the death of Mamillius between them. Given all that he put her through, it makes one wonder why Hermione doesn't leave him for good.

* ''ComicBook/BlackCanary'' and ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' developed this problem after the latter proposes marriage, where both of their flaws get Flanderised. Until they actually [[ShipSinking broke up for good]], their mutual treatment towards each other had become so toxic that it raised serious questions ''what'' was making them think that getting married would be a good idea, and after the wedding, things didn't get any better. It took Oliver becoming a killer for Dinah to give back her wedding ring, and even that she regretted.
* It's even lampshaded in the ''Death'' spinoffs during ''ComicBook/TheSandman''. Foxglove and Hazel are an Official Couple, but during an OrpheanRescue to [[spoiler:bargain with Death for their son Alvin's life, Foxglove confesses she's been unfaithful to Hazel. While on the road after becoming a musical sensation, she slept with several women and is convinced she's fallen out of love with Hazel. She apologizes, saying her girlfriend deserved better. Hazel says that's nonsense: Foxglove still came to rescue her and Alvin, and isn't that what love is? To risk your life when the people you care about are in danger? It does seem naive, but Foxglove makes it up to Hazel by retiring from her music career and using the royalties to support a quiet life in a rural town]]. The comic also notes that Foxglove was on the other side of it: [[spoiler:Hazel got pregnant while cheating on Foxglove, with her excuse being that she was drunk. Foxglove was angry, but she claimed it was because they would have to start saving money for diapers and other baby supplies]].

* ''ComicStrip/{{Cathy}}'': Irving eventurally returns to the comic after getting PutOnABus when he breaks off his and Cathy's quite on-off relationship. Following this, his and Cathy's relationship grows increasingly steady, and eventually they get married, and stay together until the end of the comic's run. Quite a few readers disliked this development, feeling that Irving had previously been too much of a passive-aggressive jerk towards Cathy to really justify a rekindling of their relationship.

* In ''Holy Fools'' by Joanne Harris, l'Ailée blames Guy [=LeMerle=] for leaving her pregnant and alone, and only works with him under protest when he arrives with a new Mother Superior. And to ensure her cooperation, he takes her daughter and puts her up for fostering, using the young and naive Mother Superior to give the order; Guy suspects that the child is his but hopes not, since it would make him feel guiltier about using the child as a bargaining chip. l'Ailée, as the "widow" nun Soeur Auguste, refuses to trust him and eventually [[spoiler:undermines his scheme because it will kill the Mother Superior, but reveals the local bishop as Guy [=LeMerle=]'s father, which was his end goal all along]]. She then [[spoiler:rescues him from execution on charges of impersonation and conspiracy, but tells him that's because she didn't want his death on her hands, and leaves him to his own devices]]. This renews Guy's interest in her, but l'Ailée doesn't want anything to do with him. [[spoiler:It takes several months for l'Ailée to settle in a new life with her daughter that she agrees to give him a second chance when as a show of contrition he dances with her in disguise. Even so, it's not a guarantee that they'll stay together, or she'll ever trust him again]].

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy's taste in men [[PoorJudgeOfCharacter kind of sucks]].

** Riley seemed nice to begin with, but when he felt Buffy wasn't paying enough attention to him (she was protecting her sister from a Hellgod and thought her mother was dying -- no shit she's not paying a lot of attention), he went to the vampire equivalent of a brothel seeking to get bitten. Buffy dumps him -- but five minues later, Xander convinces her that she should take him back because he's a "one-in-a-lifetime guy". Even though by this point, he's done pretty much everything to prove that he's the total opposite.

* On ''Series/DoctorWho'', Amy Pond skips out on her fiancé, {{childhood friend|Romance}}, and all-around DoggedNiceGuy Rory to gallivant around the universe with a dashing [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld young-looking]] space alien. ''Right'' before her wedding. It shouldn't matter too much, because the Doctor has a time machine and she should make it [[{{Pun}} back in time]], but she kisses him and attempts to seduce him. She never apologizes for this, and the only reason she never followed through was because the Doctor point-blank turned her down (he [[ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies lives a very dangerous lifestyle]]). Rory only hears about this from the Doctor himself, and the Doctor basically invites him to be a companion because Amy was making him uncomfortable. Initially, fans believed Rory only took Amy back because he was an ExtremeDoormat. But later episodes explore a little bit of what Amy was thinking: she first met the Doctor when she was a little girl and saw him do incredible things, and spent the rest of her childhood and adolescence trying to get over him, only for him to return when she's an adult and validate everything she thought about him -- she was trying to fulfill what was, at that point, a lifelong dream. Meanwhile, Rory got some serious CharacterDevelopment and TookALevelInBadass, showing extreme loyalty to Amy. It culminated in the episode "Amy's Choice", in which she's directly confronted about whether she really wanted to be with Rory or the Doctor -- and she very decisively chose Rory. It didn't solve ''all'' their problems, but it was good enough for most people.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': one of the most common complaints about the story is [[RomanticPlotTumor Raynor and Kerrigan's relationship]], and in particular how Raynor is still lovesick for Kerrigan even after she betrays him, kills his best friend, tries to kill him multiple times, and slaughters billions of innocent people. ''Heart of the Swarm'' throws in a RetCon about how she was mind-controlled during the latter events to explain this. This doesn't really work both because he was still pining for her even before he knew this, and because ''Heart'' also has her doing other, only moderately less heinous crimes all the time while she explicitly has free will. While Raynor is justifiably repulsed by her and rejects her mid-way through that game, he inexplicably comes around back to loving her at the end after a minor PetTheDog moment, even though the millions that she killed in that game alone are still dead.
* ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'': It's extremely unclear why Souma is so undyingly loyal to Keito. Though he insists he owes a debt to him that he would give his life to repay, we've seen zero evidence of Keito doing anything that would warrant that, and even when he first joined Akatsuki Souma admitted he couldn't explain why he felt so strongly about it. But ''Meteor Impact'' takes it to a whole new level: [[spoiler:After Souma lies to him in order to protect a lot of people, Keito rants at Souma at ''great length'' about how terrible, disloyal and useless he is, attacking his entire family and belief system, and revealing that he used Souma to hurt someone he dearly cares about, ending by mocking him cruelly as Souma leaves in tears. He claims he was [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim pushing him away to protect him]], but he never definitively tells Souma that. Instead, Souma reappears at the end of the story, saying that Keito was totally right (though again, he doesn't explain ''why'') and he should just be grateful he wasn't treated worse. The story concludes as though this was a happy ending and proof of Souma's innate kindness and purity.]] The story caused a big backlash in fandom, with many demanding that Keito at the very least apologise properly.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': Harley Quinn to ComicBook/TheJoker. She is head over her heels in love, goes mad, gives up her life as a psychiatrist for a life of crime all for her "Mr. J" and he can't take a few moments out of his day to "rev up his Harley". He abandons her, rats her out, abuses her, tries to kill her, and yet she always ends up by his side again sooner or later. However, she's actively called out on this by pretty much the whole rest of the cast, especially Franchise/{{Batman}} and ComicBook/PoisonIvy, but is too far into MadLove to really understand why he's bad for her. Depictions set chronologically after the series in the DCAU do show that she ends up finally realizing how bad the relationship is after a stint in jail and permanently leaves the Joker as part of her attempt to go legit. Getting her life back in order after realizing the Joker was abusive to her is also the foundation of the character's AntiVillain[=/=]AntiHero depiction in the comics and other adaptations from the 2010s onwards.

* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' gives us Oskar and Suzie Kokoshka. Suzie works hard, while [[ManChild Oskar]] is consistently unemployed, whiny, and only cares about himself. Many times she has attempted to walk out on him, but she always comes back. In the GrandFinale, ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheJungleMovie'', however, Suzie is nowhere to be seen, and Craig Bartlett would later [[WordOfGod confirm in a Reddit AMA]] that Suzie had indeed divorced and left Oskar by that point.

* ''Film/ACinderellaStory'': Sam still hooks up with Austin at the end of the film in spite of the latter not coming to her defense when she gets publicly humiliated. Sure, she calls him out on it and he makes amends to her at the end, but still.

* ''Literature/ThreeHundredSixtyFiveDays'': Throughout ''The Next 365 Days'', [[spoiler:Massimo spends weeks ignoring Laura save to have sex with her while she's recovering from major surgery and a miscarriage. He then rapes her during an argument and threatens to rape her again the next day even after she told him how awful he made her feel, prompting her to literally run from the house. He then kills her dog and sends her the corpse out of spite. And that's without mentioning his mistreatment of in the previous books, too (including kidnapping her). Despite all of this and Laura now being in a safe environment with Nacho – whom she openly acknowledges treats her far better than Massimo – Laura ''still'' chooses to return to Massimo one last time and try to fix their marriage. The reason she does so is because Massimo convinces her that Nacho killed her dog; despite Laura having only Massimo and his underling's word for this, Nacho having no reason to kill her dog ''and'' Massimo not being remotely trustworthy, she immediately believes Massimo. And even if Massimo ''didn't'' kill the dog, it still doesn't erase everything else he's done. She does end up leaving him for good in the end, but she still inexplicably takes him back mostly so the story can have a more dramatic conclusion]].