Friends to Lovers and Back to Friends Again
Can You Be Friends With Your Ex? Adept Tips & Everything To Consider
If your relationship ends on good terms, it's perfectly reasonable to wonder if it's possible to be friends with your ex. After all, this person is probable someone y'all genuinely like and enjoy spending time with, too as someone with whom you probably have shared experiences, ideas, values, and interests. To surrender all of that merely because you realized a romantic relationship won't work between you two may very well feel like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
And so permit's talk about how to be friends with your ex—and when it does and doesn't work.
Is information technology a good idea to be friends with your ex?
Yeah, it's admittedly possible to exist friends with your ex. Whether it'south a adept idea will depend on the situation and the people involved. Some people are able to take healthy, positive relationships with their exes without any difficulty or complications, whereas others find that trying to stay friends ends upwardly beingness unnecessarily messy or even painful.
According to licensed spousal relationship therapist Weena Cullins, LCMFT, sometimes two people find they don't work as romantic partners, but there are aspects of their human relationship that are all the same valuable and can be healthily maintained through a friendship.
"Beingness friends with your ex tin can exist a good idea when other aspects of the relationship were valuable to your growth, evolution, or life goals," she explains. "If you lot and your ex identify that you brand better business partners, workout buddies, or friends, and you are able to maintain salubrious boundaries with each other, then creating an authentic friendship could work."
She adds that it can be particularly beneficial if you and your ex have children together. Though she says friendships aren't necessary for successful co-parenting, it may create an easier environment for both the parents and the kids. "Information technology can also provide increased flexibility with managing schedules, discipline issues, and the general flow of information."
That said, existence friends with an ex can sometimes make information technology harder to successfully move on from the relationship if there are still lingering romantic feelings for each other or if tension arises when you both start dating other people.
When you can stay friends with an ex:
- You've taken fourth dimension to process and accept the end of the romantic relationship.
- Y'all both accept accustomed that the human relationship is actually over (and empathize why information technology happened).
- You experience like y'all accept emotionally moved on from the relationship, and your ex has, also.
- You no longer have romantic feelings for each other or desire to be in a romantic human relationship.
- Your human relationship to each other no longer feels emotionally charged; it feels similar energetically to your other friendships.
- Both yous and your ex can spend time together without it feeling painful, tense, distracting, or inappropriately intimate.
- You no longer experience attached to, dependent on, or "partnered" with one some other. You lot both accept fully carve up, independent, private lives.
- Y'all're both able to maintain appropriate boundaries and manage cornball feelings that may come up without falling fully into them.
- Yous both feel totally comfortable and happy dating other people, and you authentically desire that for each other, likewise.
- You have kids together or are in each other's social or professional orbits in some manner, and yous need to maintain some level of interaction with each other.
- The friendship adds something positive to both of your lives, whether that's fun, companionship, collaboration, or practicality.
When to cutting ties:
- You're secretly hoping you'll get back together.
- You still have romantic feelings for your ex, and y'all're having trouble moving on.
- Y'all sense (or know) that your ex is not fully over you.
- Y'all're holding on because you can't imagine dating anyone else or having as potent a connexion with anyone else e'er again.
- You're holding on because you are scared or unwilling to untangle your lives from ane another and get-go to alive independently.
- You're holding on because you feel guilty for ending the relationship or feel like you "owe" them your attention in some manner.
- Your ex is occupying your time, free energy, or headspace, and it'south affecting your ability to date other people or exist present in other parts of your life.
- The idea of them dating someone else makes y'all experience jealous, uneasy, or upset.
- Talking to them or spending time together feels painful, tense, distracting, or inappropriately intimate.
- The friendship feels 1-sided, draining, or otherwise unhealthy.
- You lot're having trouble maintaining boundaries and go on slipping into old habits from when you lot were dating.
- Information technology just doesn't experience good being friends with them.
Remember, just because you decide to go no-contact for the time being doesn't mean you lot tin can't still intendance about each other and eventually come up together again in the future to nurture a new friendship. Sometimes you simply need a little space first.
Can yous be friends with an ex you still beloved?
Information technology'southward hard to exist friends with an ex you still love, just it's possible. For some people, love isn't something that they ever actually "have back," even afterward a romantic human relationship has ended. They may keep to beloved and care deeply about their former partners, though those feelings are no longer tied up with wanting to keep dating. As long as you wholeheartedly accept that the human relationship is over and are actively moving on with your life, you can however maintain a friendship with an ex you dearest.
That said, if the love you have for your ex nevertheless feels intense, hot, emotional, or wistful, staying friends may make it hard for you to let get of the human relationship and fully motion on.
How long should you lot await after the breakdown?
There's no set timeline for how long it takes to go over a breakup. For some people, information technology takes only a few weeks or months, while for others, it tin can take years. It's important for both people to feel like they've moved on—or are in the procedure of doing then successfully—earlier trying to exist friends. The friendship shouldn't hinder either person's power to move on; if it is, it's likely as well presently to be in contact.
Setting boundaries with your ex.
It's important to set boundaries with your ex, whether or not you intend to stay friends. Those boundaries may include physical, emotional, time, or energetic boundaries. It's up to each of you to decide what boundaries yous need in place to be able to stay friends without it becoming messy, painful, or sliding back into romantic territory.
Yous may want to consider:
- How often you communicate with each other
- How much you emotionally rely on each other
- How much information yous share about your personal lives
- Whether yous're going to share information about your dating lives or new partners
- Whether you feel comfortable spending time solitary together or prefer group hangouts merely
- What level of friendliness is comfortable when you lot see each other in person
- How much time or energy you each wait from one another
As for physical boundaries, some people feel fine with sharing physical intimacy with their exes—including having casual sex activity—but that varies widely depending on the people and the context. Cullins warns that having a sexual relationship with an ex often blurs the lines dramatically, but information technology is possible if you lot both come up to an agreement to be friends with benefits with truly no expectations or strings attached.
The key, says Cullins, is making sure that any relationship you have with your ex isn't getting in the way of your ability to move on and (if it's what you want) potentially connect with other people.
"If you discover that you or your ex are unable to maintain boundaries with each other, then y'all should cut ties," Cullins says. "If you truly want to move on and notice that your ex is still occupying the romantic space that your hereafter partner should have access to, and then it'southward a good thought to cut things off completely with your ex."
Tips for making information technology work:
1. Requite it time.
Don't try to rush into a friendship yous're not fix for. You lot'll probably need at least a lilliputian time and space immediately later on the breakup earlier you lot can commencement trying to be friends with your ex. "There has to be enough distance between the old romantic partnership and the new friendship you are trying to build," Cullins explains.
ii. Make sure you're actually over each other.
The key to making a friendship with an ex work is making sure you lot're both really over each other. Pay attention to how y'all feel when you lot're around your ex—is the energy charged or tense? Is at that place a sure pull or allure betwixt you? Are you feeling a rush of butterflies or a wash of sadness when you see their name announced in your texts? Does the idea of them dating someone new fill you lot with dread? Those are all signs that at that place may still be feelings there.
Likewise, brand certain you're taking seriously whatsoever mixed signals or signs that your ex is pretending to be over you. As licensed therapist Ken Page, LCSW, recently told mbg, sometimes people lie to their exes—or to themselves—well-nigh how "OK" they are with the breakup, in part considering they're only trying to rush the process of moving on. "We want to be resilient," he explains, but it'southward important to be emotionally honest with ourselves about where nosotros truly are in the stages of getting over a breakup.
3. Make certain your relationship is truly different now that you're not dating.
"Many exes make the mistake of letting the friendship resemble the romantic relationship as well closely. This usually doesn't piece of work in the long run," Cullins says.
Your friendship should not be identical to your former relationship. There should be differences in your dynamic in terms of how integrated your lives are, how much yous rely on each other, and how much intimacy you lot share. If your relationship is pretty much the same equally earlier you broke up, then did you actually break upwards? Remember: Relationships without labels are yet relationships.
4. Simply engage as much every bit information technology feels skillful for both of you.
Friendships should feel good. There'south no reason to maintain a friendship with your ex if it isn't really serving yous or adding something positive to your life. If the primary feeling you feel whenever you interact with your ex is dread, exhaustion, heartache, or just defoliation, you don't need to continue going along with it just because they're your ex. (And an ex who keeps reappearing in your life and drawing y'all back into their orbit confronting your will is hoovering you—and that'south grounds for just totally cutting things off.)
5. Accept when you lot need more than space.
While information technology'south definitely possible for exes to be friends, for some people and some situations it just doesn't work.
"Be objective nearly any cues yous observe that indicate that a friendship isn't possible," Cullins says. "For case, if ane or both of you become jealous when the other begins dating someone new, then there may not be enough separation between the old human relationship and the friendship."
It'south OK to make up one's mind you need to accept a step back if you realize that it's as well emotionally complicated to maintain a friendship with your ex. You lot tin can gently explicate that you lot'd similar to take some more than time and space, whether for at present or for the foreseeable future. You can wish each other well and express that you intendance nearly your ex, even as you proper name your need for infinite and finish the friendship.
And recollect, even if you're not actively staying "friends" per se, you can still—and should—be cordial and kind to one another someday your paths do cantankerous. You don't need to actively maintain a friendship with ane another to yet exist caring toward each other.
Source: https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-be-friends-with-your-ex