Menewsha Avatar Community - After a Break Up Can you still be friends with an Ex?

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- - After a Break Up Can you still be friends with an Ex? (https://www.menewsha.com/forum/showthread.php?t=163672)

Yes u can! It may be a little weird at first, but then you will eventually get used to it! :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by jellysundae (Post 1767690606)

I'm friends with an ex that I was with for a long time, we were together for four years; engagement ring, mortgage and all. You can still be friends, but there needs to be a period of no contact inbetween the break up and when you move onto the new stage of just being friends. If not it just ends up being a big old mess of mixed emotions, there has to be that period where you go through the grieving process for your relationship before you can "just be friends". Basically, you need to have got to the stage where you absolutely do not care about them any more before you can sensibly go down the friendship route.

Well, you are absolutely right. I have only been able to have been friends with one ex so far in the few serious relationships I have had. It definitely took a lo--ong degree of separation for me to be able to be friends. Some people just expect you to be friends right after and it really just doesn't happen. Especially if they want to break up and just want to be friends, the way I see it is this, it's all or nothing in the end for me.

@Decode ~ Wished it were that easy for me. If it really wasn't a serious relationship then I'm more able to do that, but if I really loved them. I can't, I have to totally disappear from them and they no longer exist in my head for the simple reason of sanity.

@Grim Charu ~ Like I said, I have only been able to be friends with one ex that has been a lasting friendship. Was your relationship a real serious one and did both of you fall out of love? If that was the case I could see.
@zazabar ~ I am dating someone now, which has only been a month or two officially but unofficially has been five months but I have known the person almost two years now. My last ex was a little over a year, and we have become mortal enemies sadly, but emotions are funny things. Each situation is different.

@Ode ~ I know for a fact even if the person I am dating now would break up and we were able to be friends much later, it would still be like your rocky friendship being very awkward. So much hurt and resentment always remains for some people.

Certainly, I've seen it done. My friend was once going out with a girl, and now they're practically best friends. It does take special conditions, she's not friends with the guy she broke up with more recently, but it is possible.

Its possible to be friends after dating..
Just gotaa give yourself a break before you go back to being friends. ^^
get yourself out of that mindset
that he's urs.. cuss hes not no mores

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vix Viral (Post 1767692170)

It all depends on the emotional maturity of the people involved. I definitely agree with Jelly that there has to be some time where you don't talk to each other at all otherwise feelings are hurt even worse in the long run and you play that stupid game of "you lead me on/no YOU lead ME on". Most of my ex's I don't speak to at all because they were just plain crazy. For example, I was with one of them for a good ten months or so and I dumped him because he became extremely possessive to the point of getting angry at me for helping my FEMALE friend pack and move and expected me to text him all day. Seeing as I'm extremely independent, fuck that shit. When I left him (this was the second time, I had already given him a chance to change his crazy ways and he had failed) he started saying I had cheated on him and that he was going to kill himself. I stopped talking to him for about a year and then I contacted him because we had been close friends before we had dated and I genuinely cared about him as a fellow human being. However, he decided to play the "I'm such hot shit now that I'm not with you anymore" card and I stopped talking to him again because he was just plain disrespectful and always bringing up our past relationship for no reason. So about another year goes by and this time he gets in touch with me and he apologizes for the things he had said. That's all well and good but Vix is not sucker and I made it clear that while I didn't mind talking to him every once in a while, that we would never be friends like we used to be and that I would never take him back. He said that was fine at first but it wasn't long before he was talking about our old relationship and about how he had started dating an old friend of mine who wound up leaving him for the same reasons that I did. This is what he said, "I feel empty inside unless I'm holding someone or being told I'm loved constantly." I suggested therapy and stopped talking to him again when he tried threatening suicide in order to get me back. I don't play those fucking games. So yeah, some people are just too fucked up to bother with.

I can sympathize with you, when I first started dating and tried to be friends afterwards it didn't work very well for those same reasons. Some people are not worth bothering with after awhile. I'm just the kind of person to where it's all or nothing. It's really difficult to be friends with someone whom you had truly serious relations with.

@lillian90005 ~ If the dating isn't too serious sometimes you can regress back to being friends much easier, however, whenever a lot of time, feelings, and sexual energy is invested it is hard to turn back the clock to the prior relationship you had with that person and in some instances for people like myself, which I don't know how many of us there are, it becomes all or nothing.

@Knerd ~ I know what you mean. I have an ex, whom I had dealt with that similar situation but it took a long time for us to get to that point. I doubt I will ever have that kind of relationship with any of my other exes that I have had serious relationships with.

@@Soda ~ Some people are able to become friends with exes but like you pointed out, you find other fixations and lose interest. Rejection for some people is hard and sometimes it can bring you closer or sometimes make the friendship more awkward thus in the end pushing you away.

@[Dead.Angel] ~ I think it all truly depends on the circumstances... feelings that you have if you are dumped or done wrong can make it extremely difficult to remain friends.

Hm, this is a hard one. I suppose that it would really depend on the circumstances on the break up. As you said, if it was a mutual decision I may be able to still be friends with him, but I doubt I could ever be really good friends with him. Though generally speaking I would have to say no. I doubt that after a serious relationship where the end was not clean-cut and one of us got hurt, I could be friends with an ex again.

I have had a situation sort of like this before, but it wasn't a proper relationship, I was just seriously hurt by someone who I did really care for, so I couldn't be friends with him again, or his bloody weird sister. Which was a shame, because I was really good friends with them before that.

That is why I am not too good with showing my true feelings with people anymore, as I always seem to get hurt in some way, and that is also why I was not so keen on asking one of my best friends out.

Well this thread is officially depressing now. That relationship I was referencing before is now just friends. But I guess it answers the question that yes I can be friends with an ex.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carzeebear (Post 1767694116)

I think you can... I'm friends with my exes. mos of them...

That's great but how old are you and how long did your relationships last?

@Wings of Writing ~ Time apart definitely can facilitate depending on how the relationship ended. It's really cool, but usually it doesn't happen until after a certain amount of time depending on the individual or if you find yourself in love with someone else then that will totally take off the tension from your side.

@Crimson Fang ~ Emotional maturity is a concept that even past thirty that I am still trying to master. I'm dating someone right now and have told them all or nothing and, maybe that is emotionally immature but that's the only way I know how to be able to properly grieve for a failed relationship. That was by totally moving away and severing all ties. I see that is the only thing that works for me when I have much time and love invested in that person. It becomes too painful to even see them as anything else in your life once they have been there for so long.

@Hermes ~ Sometimes it works out that way, once you take something past a different level there is no going back.

@Fortis Silas ~ It seems you and I share similar views. I have only had one serious relationship after a period of time end up in friendship whereas all the rest end up in serious disasters.

I can be friends with an ex lover because i think it would secretly kill me if I stopped being friends with them and made a clean break...

The only difference is that your not as close anymore...

Yes, you can be friends but it sometimes takes a while but one of my exs I could not be friends with, it was impossible to be friends with an impossible person. So all my other exs I am friends with.

Yes, well sometimes depending on what you broke up about and how badly both of you are hurt by it but if it's something as simple as moving on to new people and new things then you could still be friends or atleast keep in contact.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kole_Locke (Post 1767737933)

@Hermes ~ Sometimes it works out that way, once you take something past a different level there is no going back.

In the end it's probably good. With the way all things are, this is much safer and there's nothing to be lost 5 months from now when I get back from my trip. Worst case scenario here we're still best friends, best case scenario things were just postponed for a couple months.

most of my exes are my friends. :] so i'm happy to say yes.
my best friend is one of them, i still love him dearly always will. ^^

i have only one friend who would say you can cuz she is friends with most of her exes, i on the other hand have never had this problem cuz i've never dated.

Well, when you factor the issue of actual, real love into the equation... I eould have to say no, it's not really possible. I say this because even though I am (sort of) friends with one of my ex-boyfriends, I'm pretty sure that I never really, really loved him in an intimate way. He basically guilt-tripped me into staying with him. He's a crappy boyfriend, but a pretty good friend.

Anyways, the other reason why I say that it is not possible... I wanted to stay friends with one of my ex boyfriends (a different one of course) like we were before we dated. Well, this boyfriend I didn't actually love because he sort of neglected me. Well, when we broke up, he avoided me like I was diseased. So, being around him in class became awkward, and I didn't want to talk to him at all. We are starting to talk more lately, but it still feels strange.

"They say a heart breaks, but it don't break even" or something like that. I probably misquoted the song xD

I believe it depends on how long the relationship lasted, how far it went, and how the relationship ended. At some point, when you've gone too far with someone to just go back to being friends, it won't work out. It all depends on the situation and the people in the relationship themselves.

I think that if 2 people were already friends before they started going out, and the breakup wasn't super horrible, then they can definitely still be friends with no problem.

Yeah, I am still besties with my ex boyfriend. Or I am when he decides to be present in my life. I moved on (I have a new boyfriend who I love), but... I guess he still loves me, so whenever it starts getting to him again, he disappears. He does check up on me now and then, though. And even though he was the one who broke up with me... I don't harbor any ill will against him. He's a good friend.

Definitely depends on the situation. I'm still friends with a guy I dated for over 2 years. He was still in love with me, but he had seen it coming and it was more mutual than one-sided. And I couldn't hang out with him for several months; it just felt weird.

But then, I dated this other guy and he broke up with me when I thought everything was going good. Then he started acting like a jerk. I am not friends with him.

I'm still friends with one of my exes. The other one I'm only not friends with because we have no similar interests anymore. Time can do that to you! It took me two years before I could speak to my first ex after how badly our relationship ended. For a long time, I really didn't like her and wanted nothing to do with her. Then... time happened? I got over it and I felt like an incredible weight was off my chest. I contacted her on good terms and we talked for a while, but any common interests we'd had before were gone. I hope she's happy in her life.

My most recent ex... it took me about a year to get in touch with again. I was in a really bad place (physically, emotionally, and mentally) when we broke up but I got help and I grew a lot because of it. I've matured so much in the past few years. We're still friends, though we don't talk nearly as much as we used to. I worry about her...

My current girlfriend is actually also friends with my last ex! We have bought her gifts together. xD I know that if, for some ungodly reason, me and my girlfriend break up... I want to be friends with her still. She has seriously made such an impact on my life! She's the reason, I believe, that I shaped up the way that I did (before we even dated). I don't want to imagine a life without her in it!

She is still friends with her ex fiancée. We went to said ex fiancées wedding not too long ago. (Oh, God, has it seriously almost been a year?)

Sometimes friendship after dating works out, and sometimes it doesn't. It depends on so many things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vexatious~Venom (Post 1767734518)

I have someone I am seeing right now where the possibility is pretty high that it may not work and it is kind of depressing. I think the guy I'm seeing is staying with me for now because it's conveinant. I really love him but there are some serious ingredients that are missing in the relationship that is glue in most relationships but not everything. Most of the time one ends the relationship and you are right, if he and I do split up, we will not be friends and it will probably get pretty ugly. It's really complicated...

@Hermes ~ Yes, it is depressing that nothing lasts forever. I do know friendships will last forever. Your best friend will always be your best friend as lovers come and go in your life they will still remain if that gives you any hope. Yes, you can be friends with an ex which I am with two actually one took five years for it to happen the other one year. Well I will hope for you things work out.

@Desert-desiert ~ I know making a clean cut would kill me so bad and I can empathize with your feelings, but it would kill me more to see them with someone else.

To the rest of you who can and are friends with exes, I have to say are strong people. I wished I could be friends with exes, but I'm too passionate for my own good I guess *sighs* Sometimes we grow from it and sometimes.... we just get older, bitter, and colder....