Should You Be Friends with Your Ex?

Probably not.

I co-parent with one of my exes. We are amicable, polite. Not friends.

I worked with one of my exes for over a year. I tried being friends with him, but within a week of re-engaging, he had left flowers on my desk and walked two extra feet just to touch my arm. We are both attending the same work trip next month, which is out of the country and for ten days. I will be actively avoiding him because I will not be friends with that guy.

When I was doing online dating, I remember matching with a guy who told me, “My ex-wife is my best friend.” Freshly separated, the last thing I wanted to deal with was someone with some weird relationship with their ex. I imagined as soon as we finished our date, he’d call his ex-wife to dissect it. Gross.

For most people I know, having a friendship with their ex required a.) a considerable break and b.) maturity.

I have friends who were friends, became more, broke up, and then went back to being friends some amount of time later. The time that they were friends far outweighed the time they were “more.”

I also have friends who have maintained a friendship with their ex in the hopes of getting back together and then been stuck in a really unhealthy on-and-off-again thing over years.

Ultimately, if you broke up — not just had a short break due to a bad fight — there were real reasons that the relationship ended that time may do little to resolve. Because if the relationship was right (and Kris Gage has written about this brilliantly here), you would have fought to continue it regardless.

My ex-husband and I always struggled as a couple. It never felt right. When I told my optometrist I’d recently gotten married, he said, “Congratulations! Marriage is wonderful!” Something must have registered on my face because he then lowered his voice and said, “The first year is always the hardest, honey.”

I probably would have continued in that marriage, never knowing any different, if I hadn’t made the discovery I did.

Some people have said to me, “You never know what might happen. He might get it together and you might put your family back together a couple of years from now.”

I have looked at them like they were insane. “Nooooooooo,” I’ve said every time in a hushed whisper of dread. This ship has sailed to the Caribbean and will never go back to Antartica.

I went on my first date with my co-worker five days after I left my ex-husband. We’d been engaged in basically an emotional affair for the preceding week, and when I realized I wanted it to become more, I ended my marriage.

My coworker was 18 years older than me and had a very different value system from me along with several nasty personality traits. Time would just make him older. Time could change his values or personality, but that was a crapshoot.

If it’s not right now, it will probably not be right later.

In my case, I have to be friendly with my ex-husband. We have children together. We share a mutual group of friends. But if, some time later, we move to being friends, there would have to be a.) boundaries in place and b.) no romantic feelings toward each other.

Recently, he told a shared group of friends in front of me that he was really hurting because his actions caused him to lose his family (read: me). I felt sad for him, but that’s the burden he has to bear.

That was also a sign to me that I needed to put some new boundaries in place. If he shows up to events or places I am at, I leave. I don’t make a scene. I just quietly slip out. He can process his feelings of guilt and remorse without involving me in it. This ship is docked on the coast of Jamaica, and it is loving it.

I am not even friendly with my coworker because I don’t have to be. He literally works five feet from me (I know. I make great choices sometimes.). Just because he works with me, just because I see him everyday does NOT mean I have to be friends with him. I tried that and I got flowers and my arm touched. Nope.

We date people because they have qualities we like. And we might think of continuing to be friends with them after a break-up because of those qualities, but an ended romance can ruin that. There may be resentment. You may now know more about them that shades the qualities you originally liked. You might still have unresolved feelings.

Being friends with your ex IS possible, but, for your own sake, take a good long break from communicating with them and move on with your life. Then maybe revisit it after considering what boundaries would be good. You definitely want to make sure you don’t get sucked into something again that’s never going to work.

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