Hey guys. I've mentioned my troubles with my ex in another topic and how we are trying to navigate our current relationship. It ended quite along time ago and we spent months without any contact at all, but more recently we reconnected as just friends. More on this is in another topic, but my question here is whether or not it's even possible or something I should just give up on? I hear about couples that have become good friends after their romantic relationship ended. I've never experienced this but I am trying to make it happen if I can. I think we could be great friends. We set boundaries and all that stuff, but it remains a problem since she still has feeling that come back to the surface when we've had a good time chatting with each other. I just wonder if we can get past this on again off again friendship. What I mean is she will ghost me for a week or more at a time because she's trying to regain control over her emotions. This is hard on her of course, and I want to respect that and be patient, but it's hard on me because I feel like a part time friend.
It's possible. One of my closest friends is my ex. It depends on how you both handle the friendship. My ex is actually married to the man he was seeing before me, and I was indescribably hurt and full of rage when I found this out. We have almost stopped talking numerous times, I have been in tears and so has he, but now I am over it and still good friends with him. This is because he doesn't flirt with me, we respect each others boundaries, and we respect and value each other as people. I would rather he be happy than be with me. However, it can also go wrong no matter what your intentions are and how hard you try. I was friends with someone for almost a year, and the fallout from our situation is very new. But I know it can't work. Both of us struggle with our mental health. I have feelings for him, or had before I became emotionally exhausted by the situation, and he never felt anything for me. Yet the whole time he flirted with me on and off, checked in on me, knew how I felt but didn't tell me to back off, and ultimately whether intentionally or not lied to me about things like him not wanting a relationship with anyone or being capable of feeling love. So you can either have a great friendship or a traumatic experience that leaves you not wanting to get out of bed all day. And only some of that depends on you. At the end of the day most things are possible and everyone is different. But like the guy I liked didn't do with me, you have to respect each others emotions and sometimes it is your responsibility how they feel.
Thank you. This really helps me, and it sounds like you've experienced both sides of this. Some of the things you said are true in our case as well. She will still try to flirt with me sometimes. The thing is I don't really mind because those feelings aren't there for her, but I admit I'm also lonely and flirting can have an effect, even if I don't think of her as a romantic option. I think it may be a sort of sexual release? I don't flirt with her at all. It's a boundary that I have crossed in the past with disasterous results, I've learned my lesson I think. The real troubler occurs when she decides to randomly tell me she's fighting back feelings again. Then I'm like, "shit, I can't even be myself around her anymore." I'm hoping, as you say, that time and mutual respect and boundaries will resolve this into a genuine friendship. There is more going on here as well but I won't get into that right now.
It’s possible to be friends with exes, like Cinnamoon said it’s about boundaries and respect, and not all of it depends on you. I’d suggest no flirting as one, but you know your situation best.
I can only speak to this from a more later in life point of view. If there is still attraction from either person, and not from the other, I would avoid the situation. I have been reluctant to reconnect or continue contact with some people from my past I found on Facebook because of this. Just recently, a good friend who I go way back with and knows of these situations talked me out of doing this. I'm glad he did. I understand that there was "something" for both of you at one time. Do both of you have a fair number of other friends or new friends? If you do, do you really need risking that boundaries will be crossed and feelings might be hurt? Only you can decide. It may be more of a possibility months or years from now. Maybe.
This is sort of the way my brain has been leaning lately. it's just so up and down right now. She actually got me crying this morning. She sent me a long message pouring out her heart to me about how she still has feelings and hates this, but still wants to be friends. She sees no contact as worse than just friends. There is such a finality to it. I understand. I've tried to tell in in these moments that I'm keeping her from something, someone, in her future. I don't think she cares about that. Truth be told I'm not completely immune to her. She can catch me back in her orbit on occasions. Usually it's the loneliness that draws me to her, and not a true desire to be with her again as a couple. It takes me only 15 minutes to snap out of it. We both do have other friends, especially her. I'm a little more introverted than she is, and I'm half a world away from those core friends of mine. I think I spend more time being lonely in general, and she spends more time feeling the loss of "us." I thought all the months of no contact would solve this. It didn't.
Hey I don’t have any personal experience with this situation but I would say it is possible to be friends but only once both parties are over the other person.
How many months did you have no contact? It can take more than a year to get over a breakup, so it's not surprising your ex still has feelings. Also, you may end up not being "full time friends" for a long time because the same issues that lead to a breakup. I would say try to focus on making friends with people nearby. Maybe take a class or join a group that does something of interest to you, which gives you chances of finding likeminded people.
Hey, I don’t have much experience in this area but it is possible for exes to be friends. It may take time and boundaries do need to be set to avoid feelings being hurt. It might be difficult for your ex to snap straight back into “normal” friendship because of how she feels but I think that you need to be extremely clear with her. I think everyone else above has said everything I wanted to say. It must be really difficult for you too feeling like you can’t be there for her fully.
The breakup was over a year ago, but there was intermittent contact in that time. The main difference now, compared to then, is the distance. The time spent with zero contact was closer to six months, most of that time due to me moving out of the country. When we re-established contact close to three months ago now, we both made some mistakes in judgement, which lit the fire for her again. For instance, there was an early plan for her to come visit me here. After about a month I realized this wasn't smart. So I told her we need to not repeat history and just be friends, I told her it would be best if she didn't come see me. She has accepted this, but obviously the last several weeks have been hard. I do think you and others here are right. I think we need to just have very limited contact for a prolonged period of time, but I'm not sure I can do that because of our past, the reasons why we broke up, and how we got back into contact recently. It's mostly guilt over how things ended, and how things have now ended up. I've made some mistakes and I'm having a hard time making any sort of decisions about things when it comes to her. It's like I'm a coward and want her to come to these conclusions herself because I'm already carrying around enough guilt. I don't want more to add. The whole reason why we are back in contact is because of me. I just could not let things sit. Many months ago, not long after I moved here, I sent her a letter. The letter was me getting closure, and apologizing. It was something I had needed to say. She didn't respond for months, but she eventually did, and now here we are.
I'm still friends with one of my exes so it is possible, I'm just not as close with her as before we dated
Guilt is tough but ultimately everyone makes mistakes in life and if we could have our time again there are things we would all do differently. You can’t change what happened with her. It sounds like since you realised your mistake you have tried to do the right thing and I think that is most important. I’m not saying forget your mistakes but just learn from them and try not to beat yourself up with the guilt as that’s not helping anyone either.
@Wanderlost Firstly, I just have to give you kudos: you have approached this topic with so much depth, so much insight and maturity. There are people I know twice to three times older who couldn't/wouldn't handle this as well as you have--so it bears noting. Because if I have to guess, you're kicking yourself about this, and really, it's not your fault or hers. It just is what it is, and it sounds to me like you're both trying really hard. Can exes be friends? Yes, sometimes. In your case, I do think it can work--but right now might not be the time. As difficult as it is for you both, it sounds like things are still a lot more raw for her; she hasn't given herself proper time to heal, despite your best efforts to give her the space necessary to do so. I think maybe, if you two reduce contact instead of cutting it off entirely, it might help. A lot of people have mentioned boundaries, and I'd say that's really important, too. No flirting, do everything you can to avoid mixed signals, etc. But this goes for her, too--much as she's hurting, she shouldn't be pouring her heart out to you, because it sets you both back. This seems especially true from your admittance that when you feel yourself being drawn to her again, it's not because you miss her really, but having a relationship. It might hurt (it probably will, in fact), but I think you need to make this abundantly clear to her. Make sure she knows you're not saying this to hurt her, but because neither of you can heal if you carry on this way. It's all easier said than done, I know. Give yourself time, steel yourself for whatever you have to say or do to make things work--and when all is said and done, be kind to yourself; because it will undoubtedly leave you feeling hollowed out for a while.
You ever read over something compelling and true, then reach the crux of it, that statement that hit home, straight to the heart. This put me into tears because you are right. Thank you. And thank you for the kind words too. I do think the distance is helping me keep my head about me, where before maybe not so much. There is definitely a correlation between emotions and time spent talking. She lets her guard down too often. I struggle because I'm tempted to flirt back, or say things that are "leading," but so far I've not done so, but then it gets awkward, there is a lot of silence and deleting of text because it's the digital version of stumbling over what to say next. In those moments I consider ghosting her completely, but then I can't do that to her. So I retreat for a few days and hope it's more cordial the next time. The last time I tried even going a single week without talking to her she was lighting up all my friends about "have you heard from Nomi? Is she okay?" ugh. I can be very blunt with her though. I told her to calm the F down and stop being so dramatic. She told me to F off, haha. But message received I hope. I'm not as mature as I type/write, but thanks for that.
So many great responses. I can’t add much other than to reinforce how crucial boundaries are. That seems to be your bottom line.
I can testify to this. I didn’t get over my ex for like two years which prob sounds insane to a lot of people but I really was in love with her.
I feel I need to maybe give my 5c. In ending relationships, we have that tendency of trying to find "closure" of some sort.... we then get stuck in that "closure" mode, not able to really let go ... a solution can be stepping back and taking a breath to focus, this lets you think in different ways with every encounter you may have with her.. changing the behavior ... if you can... physically take a step back.. take one breath.. it will let you focus on where you are and force you to be mindful. Do it a couple of times and you will see not only changes in you , but changes in her as well, which could strengthen your friendship.
This is not encouraging. lol. Your 5c is always very appreciated. And as always, I value your insights very much.
Update/Closure: Recently I traveled back home for part of my Spring break. During that time I visited with my ex for close to three hours and way too much caffeine. The dust has settled and so have my thoughts. So many of you have been supportive and helpful with this probably dumb sounding problem, but a couple of you know that there is far more to this than what I've even mentioned in this topic. I sort of see life and it's events as a tapestry where one thing effects another to infinity, and even chapters that are closed will continue to impact lives, even if it's small things like how we perceive ourselves and how we cope. I'll get to the point. We decided to not have any contact at all until she is confident and secure in knowing she is over me. We both know that this is likely not going to happen until she finds, and falls for, someone else, which she claims will take years. I can't help but feel terrible guilt over that. But she's attractive and has a lot going for her so I doubt that if she will just try and let other candidates in, which she's not been doing over the last year or more since the breakup, and especially in the last four months since we reconnected. I essentially delayed her healing process, which sort of annoys me now, but again, those ripples.
I don't think you can take responsibility for preventing her from moving on, given that it sounds like the flirting was mostly coming from her side. I was going to advise you to break off contact with her until at least one of you has found someone else, and now it seems that that's what you've decided to do. Yeah, people can be friends with their exes, but I wonder how often that occurs when neither person has moved on to someone else? Loneliness and lack of physical affection can be stronger than the rational mind in those situations, and could have trapped both of you in an unfulfilling loop based on short-term needs rather than long-term wants. So, well done on resolving to break contact for a while. I do think both of you will ultimately be better off if you stick to it.
