Can You Be Friends With Your Ex?

Can You Be Friends With Your Ex?

Not all romantic and/or sexual relationships transition or need to be transitioned into friendships, but it is possible and can be a positive outcome. Deciding to foster a friendship connection should be mutually agreed upon and beneficial. If remaining friends cause one or more parties more harm than good, consider ending the relationship entirely. Assess the pros and cons of transitioning the relationship into a friendship versus having a clean break before diving in.

Relationships often end because there were strengths but enough incompatibilities that warranted the ending of it. For example, you and your ex may have enjoyed spending time together but didn’t have the time to devote to an ongoing romantic connection. In such cases, it makes sense that you wouldn’t want to throw it all away and desire to preserve the friendship aspect of the relationship.

Considerations Of Being Friends With An Ex

Some considerations of being friends with an ex include how the friendship affects your post-breakup healing process. Friendship with your ex and healing are not mutually exclusive outcomes but are not always compatible. Continuing a friendship after a breakup can draw out the pain from grieving the relationship as it existed initially. Also, consider the duration and intensity of the connection and if the breakup was mutual or one-sided.

It is easier to transition to a friendship if the relationship is brief, casual, and doesn’t involve significant detangling of your lives. For example, breaking up with someone you live with is much harder than someone you just saw occasionally, and being friends with an ex you used to live with could be more difficult than staying friends with someone you didn’t live with.  If your relationship includes children, strongly consider the possibility of remaining friends with your ex. Carrying on as friends can make co-parenting easier than if the relationship involves hostility or avoidance. A mutually respectful and pleasant relationship also avoids putting your child in a loyalty bind, a dynamic that causes psychological distress.¹

How Long Should You Wait to Be Friends After the Breakup?

There is no set timeline for how long it takes to get past breakup grief. It’s up to those involved to decide if and when to transition the relationship into a friendship. Either way, all involved should take some time and space to accept the ending of the nature of the initial relationship and reflect. One indication you are ready to get over someone you love and become friends is if the pain of the breakup has ended or subsided enough not to interfere with the benefits of an ongoing connection.

When It’s Possible to Stay Friends With An Ex

Many factors increase the possibility of staying friends with an ex. If the relationship was brief and did not include abuse or betrayal, and the relationship’s ending was mutually agreed upon and was due to romantic or sexual incompatibilities, there is a greater possibility of remaining friends.

Scenarios when it’s possible to stay friends with an ex include:

• All partners have accepted the relationship is over and understand why it ended
• All partners have emotionally moved on from the relationship
• You can spend time with your ex without feeling pain, tension, or being intimate
• The breakup was mutual
• All partners maintain respect for one another
• You have some shared interests
• The relationship was brief
• The friendship adds to the lives of those involved
• Transitioning to a friendship is mutually agreed upon
• You can accept and support your ex dating someone else
• You can pursue other romantic relationships

When It’s Not Possible to Stay Friends With An Ex

While ending a significant relationship is often painful and difficult, and carrying on a friendship with your ex is appealing to avoid letting go completely, this transition is not always a possible or preferable consolation to a clean break. Several factors make it less likely that remaining friends is a healthy and beneficial option.

Scenarios when it’s not possible to stay friends with an ex include:

• You’re secretly hoping you can get back together with your ex
• One or both partners are not entirely over the relationship
• You feel like you “owe” your partner something
• You’re maintaining this connection to prevent the loss of mutual friends
• You’re trying to be friends to avoid a clean break or “soften the blow”
• The relationship included abuse and/or betrayal
• Seeing your ex causes one or more people pain
• Seeing or knowing your ex is pursuing other relationships brings up strong feelings of anger or jealousy
• Newly established boundaries are not being respected
• The desire to maintain a friendship is one-sided
• You are not able to pursue other romantic relationships

How to Be Friends With An Ex

The first step to being friends with your ex is to ensure doing so is mutually agreed upon and beneficial. Once that is clear, have an open conversation about boundaries and establish new norms to avoid slipping into old habits and patterns from when the relationship was romantic or sexual. Use your existing friendships as a baseline for engagement.

Give Yourself Time

Although there isn’t a set time for how long after a breakup you and your ex can be friends, give yourself time after the relationship has ended to grieve, accept its ending, and assess the next steps. Some couples decide to go no-contact for a set time after the breakup, others limit their engagement. Either way, a significant degree of separation is healthy before pursuing a friendship.

Feel Your Feelings

It is normal to experience sadness, anxiety, jealousy, anger, and relief after a relationship ends and a new one begins. If emotions are stifled, they unintentionally spill out into other areas of our lives. So, however, you want to do it, be it having a big cry, gushing to a confidant, or visiting a rage room, acknowledge and feel your feelings. Our feelings also communicate valuable information about our experiences, such as when someone matters to us, or a situation is not right for us.

Decide What Type of Friendship You Want to Have

As with any new connection, decide the type of friendship you want with your ex. Matthew’s research differentiates three classes of friendship by variables such as the quantity of friends the person has, the degree of emotional closeness, and the duration of the friendship.² Considering these aspects of friendship and determining if you and your ex agree to the style of friendship you will have can assist in the transition from romantic to platonic.³

Set & Respect Boundaries

Boundaries help us feel safe and respected in all types of relationships and allow for fulfilling connections to occur. Learning how to set boundaries with your ex is important to determine how you will engage with each other after shifting to a platonic relationship. Determine the boundaries in advance to avoid unnecessary violations that cause ruptures in the new friendship.

Questions to ask yourself when setting boundaries include:

• How often do you plan to communicate with the ex?
• What is your preferred way of communicating? (e.g., texting, social media, email)
• How much information do you plan to share about your personal lives?
• Will you spend time together alone or within groups of people only?
• In what spaces would you like to spend time together?
• What, if any, physical contact feels comfortable for you?

Bring In The New

It can be tempting to resume prior ways of engaging with your ex after deciding to be friends, and you may find yourself slipping into old patterns, which can be painful and counterproductive. To prevent this from happening, bring new elements to the friendship, such as going to new places and doing different activities together.

Continue To Pursue Other Relationships

While maintaining a friendship with your ex, remain open to new romantic and sexual connections and continue other relationships with friends and family. Having a large social network protects the friendship with your ex from carrying the full weight of either party’s social and emotional needs.

Maintain Open Communication

As with any friend, you don’t have to share everything about your personal life, but maintaining an open conversation about how the friendship is working and if you and your ex are starting to see new people keeps things clear and honest. It also provides information that helps assess the impact of the friendship and how well you and your ex can maintain the friendship. Remember that if the friendship isn’t working for one, it isn’t working for all.

When to Seek Professional Help for Relationships

Sometimes, when dealing with a breakup, we need more support than our natural networks and resources can provide. Seeking therapy after a breakup is nothing to be ashamed of. If you are struggling with daily anxiety, uncontrollable crying spells, reckless behavior, or disruptions to your daily functioning, consider finding a therapist to help you. You can find a therapist to talk with in person or via online therapy platforms using an online therapist directory.

Seeking professional support is also helpful when facing chronic relationship issues and existing relationship patterns are not creating the healthy connections humans need. Learning healthy relationship behaviors and how to break up well early in life improves mental health and relationship outcomes later in life.⁴ A therapist can help you identify what isn’t working in your relationships and develop new patterns so you and your relationships can thrive.

In My Experience

In my experience, most relationships don’t last forever. Although breakups are a normal and necessary part of living fully human, they are difficult, so many consider the idea of friendship as an alternative to a complete loss of connection. Recovering, grieving, making meaning, and deciding what to do next can be a confusing process, aided by receiving support from loved ones and sometimes professionals. In addition to the pain of a breakup, I also witness the growth that comes with it and the relationships that bloom in the spaces the old ones left.