Thanks everyone for the comments so far. While at first I thought that the Russian proverb had a more nnegative connotation, I think that by applying some 'American optimism', one could say then that repeating a relationship will not be the same and therefore there exists a chance to make it better than it was when it failed. Granted, it could be worse, but as Winston Churchill said, "Failure is simply the option to begin again more intelligently."