Celebrity breakUp Couples: Why Some Rekindled Romances End in Makeups and Marriages—and Others End in Awful Breakups

The celebrity relationship highway is filled with couples who became romance road kill, then resurrected—only to be flattened even more the second time around.

Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber  broke up more than most boy bands. Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom’s split, gave fans hope when she scuttled their divorce after His 2015 overdose, but then—after years of Khloe trying to make it work—divorced last year for good. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, all smiles and co-parenting like champs, had us hoping for a rekindle, until they filed for divorce last week, two years after separating. As for Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick…

Don’t ever get us started on their romance roller coaster!

Celeb Rebound Romances

But there is a new trend in Hollywood that is bucking the conventional wisdom that a celebrity couple sequel never works out as well as the original: A wave of successfully reloaded couples has taken over Hollywood—and we have applied the heart monitor to find out why these couples are working, while others have ended in double  heartbreaks.

One of the most amazing reunions that has worked out is that of Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth. Both fell in love while on the set of the heart-tugging drama The Last Song in 2009 and two years after got engaged. But within a year they were kaput amid accusations of cheating and with Miley embarking on an edgy post-Disney career that reportedly had her more conservative Aussie fiancé wondering WTF He got himself into. But then last year we got words that Miley and Liam were "hanging out" again: The Ring was put back on That Finger!

Celebrity relationship guru Dr. Drew Pinsky believes, when it comes to nurturing a healthy do-over relationship, age is more than just a number.

"In our later twenties, we stop being so compulsive and we start thinking more about real relationships," Pinsky says. "Inevitably, I have seen it worked times without number where people get back together and they tend to miss somebody, or something about somebody who they dated earlier or have a real connection with but they also they were not ready."

Pinsky has witness many couples reunite after, like Miley and Liam (who were 19 and 22 when they first got engaged), they gain better insight on the relationship. "In this sense, celebrities are no difference than the rest of us," He notes. "In adolescence it tends not to work. But in our later twenties it starts to be a more common thing that getting back tends to work out. People can treat each other terribly in their twenties. They are dating, they are cheating, they are carrying on and then they will come through it and think to themselves, "'You know I really miss so and so person.' And then they will go back and try it on again and then, behold, they decide they want to make a commitment."

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Is Miley and Liam moving on happily to marriage and a baby carriage, they will be following in the footprint of one of the most successfully rebooted Hollywood romances in modern history.

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel began dating in 2007 soon after hitting it off at a Golden Globes after-party, and over the next four years we were heartened by paparazzi pictures of the couple doing the kind of couple-y things on a rom-com level: Couple hikes, couple grocery runs, too-beautiful family outings. But then, in February 2011, Timberbiel suddenly broke up harder than 'N Sync. At the time, their reps told our team "They mutually have decided to part ways. The two remain friends and continue to hold the high level of respect and love for each other."

But just as soon as tabloid doubts surfaced over why such a happy-seeming couple had pulled the plug (Is J.T. getting back with Britney?!), by August of that same year Timberbiel  was back on, and  were engaged by December!

Now we are flooded with social media love (Justin once said: "You make me LOVE. You make me laugh. You make me smile. You make me want to be BEST. Speaking of, it does not get any BETTER than you... Now, I know for sure that it is BETTER to  good than to be lucky. Ask me who the luckiest guy in the world is and I will tell you that you are looking at him.") and the couple's son Silas just turned 2.   

Dr. Jenn Mann, author of The Relationship Fix and host of VH1's Couples Therapy, says that Justin and Jessica seems to be a great example of what can happen when a breakup can be a tool for a makeup. "When a couple breaks up and then comes back together, and they actually address the problems in the relationship, it gives the them opportunity of a rebirth," Mann tells our source"A relationship can be fixed when both parties are willing to first fix themselves."

Dr. Drew co-wrote a book titled The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America and His research showed that reality TV stars often scored the highest on the narcissism chart, which is a sign that they are often more prone to having trouble keeing a healthy relationship.

Pinsky adds, "Reality stars, generally, in our study were the most narcissistic of all. And so they’re going to have the most trouble. You can still be narcissist and make it work, but two narcissists is going to be a volatile situation. But if you have motivation   to work it out, you can always work it out."

One reality couple that has found a way to reboot: The Real Housewives of Atlantastars NeNe and Gregg Leaks, who married in 1997 and divorced in 2011. Cheating allegations, family feuds and personality clashes that played out for the world to see, the couple reconciled and even remarried in June 2013.

"When you hear about Nene's relationship falling apart and getting back together, it makes me wonder—given how difficult the breakup seemed to be—wonder if they had some treatment.  And treatment works. People can make their way through these things, most especially if they get help."

The Palace has never confirmed  Prince William and Kate Middleton engaged in royal couple's counseling, but the pair came back stronger after a very public breakup. Pretty long before their Disney Princess-perfect wedding in 2011, the royals moved different ways after a few years of dating back in 2007. But few months—by the summer of that same year, they were back on the path to marriage.

Mann and Pinsky say that separation can be healthy—and ultimately make for a stronger relationship. Thus, absence can make the heart grow fonder. "That is a cliché that has some truth in it," Pinsky says,often it is men who ask for the space and then, tasting freedom, want their partner back. "We can get too close to people and feel like we need some separation, but then we protest and start to idealize being back together."

Pinsky said despite the successes, celebrity relationships will always have extra pressures and challenges that we "civilians" typically do not have. "There was some information that came out recently that showed super attractive people actually cheat more," He says. "They are more tempted, and they actually do these things more. These people lives where they are in intimate contact with other people on a movie set, or ,on tour, or on a TV show and while they are away from their partner for long periods of time, it threatens the relationship."

No matter the pressures, here is to the rise of more successfully rebooted celebrity couples. After all, Hollywood does love a heartwarming comeback.