Friends with an ex?

linger

linger

Community Member
MBTI
INFJ
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6 (w/strong 2) sp/sx
Do you think it's possible to remain friends with an ex-lover/partner/spouse?

What impacts this ability? (Length of relationship/cause for breakup/age?)

Have you successfully managed this? Has an attempt crashed and burned or merely fizzled out?

I guess part of why I'm asking a bunch of INFJs is because of the notion of detachment. I feel like there needs to be a certain level of detachment to end a relationship, but I'm not sure how that would pan out for attempting a friendship afterwards.

Give me all your wisdom :o)
 
I think it really depends on how you end the relationship. All the successes I've had or my friends have had have been because the relationship wasn't working and it felt more like friendship than a relationship anyway, so there wasn't much of a transition.

If you had feelings for someone and teh relationship ends, trying to be friends is sometimes almost like hanging on after the fact, if you get me.
 
One of my guy friends said that you can never be friends with an ex. I asked him why and he said because you can't take back the whole sex thing and it changes the dynamic of the relationship--I said that much more flowery than him..LOL Basically that you are just ex-lovers who don't have sex anymore.

I'm going to say that I have never really seen this work and tend to agree with him. Maybe after a couple of years and even then, you play with fire to keep an ex close to you.
 
Sad answer? Yeah I can be friends with an ex I never really was serious about or attached to. Not so much to the ones I was attached to. Of course the follow up question would be why be in a relationship with someone you aren't serious with or attached to... short answer... MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!
 
I've never done it for any substantial amount of time, no. Though, typically after a breakup I do like to keep contact for awhile and say I want to be "friends" and slowly start to cut contact...I know cutting contact can be really painful so I try not to do that. Usually I'll break up, say I want to be friends, then I'll contact them as usual the next day, might even run over there and ask them if they understand why and that I still care about them...respond to any emails and texts as usual...but basically just kinda wind things down, stop emotionally sharing but be friends and make myself super boring until they feel like they are not being abandoned or totally rejected and its the best all the way around. So, we stay friends but usually in the end the contact is so few and far between I wouldn't really consider it friends. Everyone wins.
 
I can't seem to be able to stay friends with my exes again, although I often would like to.
 
I am on civil terms with one of my ex's, but I would not call us friends by any means at all. Old acquaintances, I guess you could say. He is my friend on facebook but we do not really talk to each other ever.

The others I haven't spoken to in years or since we broke up.

It's probably possible for some people, but not really for me. If I was with someone, I was serious about them, and I have the trend of being the one that gets dumped, not the other way around. Being "friends" is pretty hard. There is always at the very least some residual awkwardness present. Even with the one I am on somewhat good (indifferent) terms with.
 
It's an uphill battle. Perhaps it's better if both sides remain on friendly terms and keep some contact, but don't have great expectations of a real, involved friendship. You have a history, and usually one person is continuing the friendship out of guilt, while the other is continuing it out of an inability to completely let go and move on. This time around I am in the latter category and my ex is withdrawing slowly but surely. I've gotten the message and am content to just let things be from here on out.

I think where two people were friends for years before having a relationship, they have a stronger foundation to fall back on and those friendships can definitely work. You'd just need a lot of time and space for things to settle and for both sides to get over any lingering bitterness, jealousy, romantic feelings etc...

I can see why most exes do not remain friends, in the true sense of the word. You might both have good intentions, but over time you simply drift apart and look forward to new relationships.
 
I have found, at least in my life, that even without sex I could not stay friends with an ex. We were turning into two different people and couldn't agree on much so after our breakup, she and I did not stay friends in the long run.. But that's just one scenario in my life. I still would not recommend it anyways however.
 
not friends, but on 'speaking terms' with every single ex - with the exception of my exhusband whom i will never speak to again.
once you've past the line into intimacy you really can never be casual friends again. it doesn't work like that. that person knows your subtle nuances, your personal habits and intimate thoughts
 
Sad answer from me too. I'm on civil basis with a few of them, but I wouldn't call what we share "friendship". It just doesn't work that way. For me. Best of luck though :)
 
I'm friends with my ex-husband, and I know that would be the case even if we didn't have children together. We weren't for a while after breaking up; we worked on it. I'm glad we're there now. It's worth it.
 
I think it definitely depends on how and why it ended.

I've never been able to look at someone I had a messy or damaging relationship with and think "Gee, I could trust this person and it would do us good to remain involved as friends." Usually, those ones are a menace and need to be blocked out of my life so that I can escape the accusations, the manipulation, and the drama and just move on. Life's too short to let someone yank your chain in the name of remaining friends.

If things ended peacefully, then whether or not we remain friends depends on how well we connect and how much reason we still have to be talking to each other. In one instance we didn't have anything left to say and simply drifted apart, while in others after the initial separation period was over we found we still got along. In particular I'm thinking of the other INFJ I dated, where things ended because our communication styles made for a living hell of a relationship but currently make for a worthwhile friendship because of the actual subjects we talk about. We barely talked for a few months after breaking up, but eventually curiosity got the best of us since we were catching glimpses through our social circle and we reconnected.
 
I am actually very good friends with one of my exes. We sort of kept our distance for the first couple of months after the break up, but it ended amicably and there were no hard feelings. No one did anything wrong, it was just a long distance thing and neither of us was going to be able to move anytime in the near future so it was really the only logical thing to do. He was also the only relationship I've ever been in where I wasn't cheated on or some other such nonsense, so after the initial shock of the break up faded away, it was actually quite easy to stay friends.
 
I had a friend who claimed she was friends with all her exes yet, but when she tried to keep in touch or call one of her exes occasionally he wouldn't return her calls. Simply because you may still see someone as a friend doesn't mean they feel the same. Some people would rather just end it all together and make a new start.
 
Actually I remember a few weeks ago having a conversation about this or similar to this with [MENTION=1834]sandra_b[/MENTION] And what I was thinking was that it depends on what you had/have in common with said Ex. For example. I dated this one girl who is a tattoo artist, shes super creative and a painter. An abstract thinker, we had the most incredible conversations about art and the theory of expression and what it truly means and all manner of topics. God, C'thulu, nintendo, name it. We had that and also a very passionate sexual chemistry. But emotionally there was really very little to it. To this day she is still a close friend, and we hang out and paint or talk, she still does tattoos for me, occasionally we will "mess around" but nothing serious. Whereas an ex I was with recently I had almost no intellectual connection too, but again intense sexual chemistry but also intense emotional bonding... I cant even BE around her without feeling bad. Every terrible thing I did or said, the things she said and did, it just lingers and I cant get it out of my mind, so its easy to just avoid her. Another example I dated this girl (Betty) for 7 years... We had a super committed situation, it was somewhat emotional, but not really. She was not a sentimental type (like the tattoo Artist "Neen")So even today despite the relationship/time we spent together I am actually relieved not to be with her, and I don't mean that in a mean way towards her, its just that, we value totally opposite things in life and sometimes that shit drove me nuts.But today I can and do talk with her a lot, we have dinner and go to movies and stuff, and we talk about our relationships and our lives and we are just kind of... past this line of ever feeling like strangers again. We know each other too well.

So from what I can tell, the Exes of mine that I cannot tolerate being around tend to be the ones where I had either too much emotional tie to, or too little in common.
 
Friendly terms with most, but I wouldn't call them friends. Rather, they are people that if I happen to run in to I talk to, and occasionally we'll get coffee to catch up.
 
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