Can you eventually be friends with your ex

The break-up hs to be amicable on both sides, though. Mind you, that was forty years ago but I still remember one frankly asking for my advice when she had sex problems with her current boyfriend Any comments? Definitely, my ex is one of my best friends. I have remarried and so has he. He has been to stay with us and we all get on wonderfully. Comment posted by Phil, at 23 Jan Phil. I was trying to view comments but that it seems is not to be.

In response to the above.. I never bother with any of mine I would not avoid them but neither would I speak to one if we accidently met. I did not delete their phone numbers yu have to keep them if you want to block them. When I heard my ex-wife had died despite her attitude and behaviour during the divorce I can honestly say I felt nothing remember what you learned from the experience then put the rest in the bin.

The comments on here seem to fall quite clearly into the obvious two camps. As someone already said there are no rules here. It depends on personalities and circumstances. With others we just check in now and again. I loved reading so many positive reports of how well it can work. May those friendships continue to flourish! Comment posted by robcrawford, at 27 Jan robcrawford. You can't make any hard and fast rules.

Some people will not be able to handle friendship with an ex, it will work for others. I am in touch with 2 of my exes, and they are great friends, for whom I retain love, affection, and friendly intimacy.

There is one other ex, who is very clear she wants no contact, so I respect that even while regretting it. I've stayed close friends with all of my exes - at least for a while. We've eventually drifted apart, as with most friends, but in the beginning, we've been friends, stayed in touch, discussed the same things as before. We've even discussed our new love lives.

My family often found it strange, but to me, it's completely natural. You liked the person before; why wouldn't you now, even if you don't want to live with them anymore? All of my break-ups have been amicable, if not necessarily happy. Comment posted by Lola, at 27 Jan Lola. My first ever relationship was with my best friend, who I had been head-over-heels in love with for 10 months prior to us getting together.

It only lasted four months before he cut me off. In the space of a few weeks, he stopped returning my texts and began to act so coldly towards me. I still had to see him every day though as we went to school together.

I was determined not to give up on our friendship at least, even if he did not want to date, but that was partly because I saw it as a means of getting him back. We did not speak for the entire summer holiday and when we returned to school in September, we shared all the same classes. If it had not been for that timetabling miracle, I'm not sure our friendship would have healed. Two months later, we were once more best friends, staying up late video-chatting and soon we went to the cinema together, marking our first trip together in eight months.

Things have only headed uphill since then. It took me a further year to finally get over him but nowadays I can say with absolute certainty that we were not right for each-other. He has since apologized for the way he treated me several times and explained his actions and he remains my very closest friend to this day.

Comment posted by Peanut, at 27 Jan Peanut. One has broken ranks and has a good relationship with us but she still gets sniped at over it as do her children. Comment posted by fatboyslim, at 24 Jan fatboyslim.

Never have and never will it's just best to sever all ties and move on! I never remained close friends with my ex which I always thought was a shame because we had grown up together and he really was my best friend and I felt I had lost something special.

It would never work!! If we bump into each other then sure we have a great catch up but seeking out a 1 to 1 relationship - in my opinion, heading for disaster. Ashley Brett, a psychology researcher in her late 20s who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity , knows that struggle well. After breaking up with her boyfriend of about a year and a half, Brett stayed friends with him — and fell into an on-again, off-again relationship that lasted for more than five years.

Brett adds that repeatedly falling back on friendship allowed her to numb some of the pain of each breakup — which may seem like a good strategy, but can actually prevent future growth.

The lines are murkier for couples without children, but Sussman says those who dated when they were young, were friends first, dated casually or were together only for a short time are good candidates for friendship. Robin Zabiegalski, a year-old writer who lives in Vermont, is a notable counterexample.

The research supports that notion. Studies suggest that couples who remain in contact for the same reasons — whether those are pragmatic or sentimental — are more likely to have successful friendships, while staying in touch because of unresolved romantic desires is a predictor of negative outcomes. For much of the 20th century, she says, the assumption was that the things men and women did together were date, get married, and have families.

Adams says that began to change as more women joined the workforce and pursued higher education; while some 30 percent of American workers were female in , by women accounted for nearly half the workforce.

And when a platonic friendship between a man and woman became a more realistic proposition in its own right, Adams says, so did a platonic friendship between a man and woman who used to date.

Read: Why men are the new college minority. Other factors, like the advent of the birth-control pill and the federal protection of abortion rights in the late 20th century, made it less likely that any given sexual partner would accidentally end up a parenting partner, Adams noted—which relaxed the rules of romantic relationships considerably.

That freedom helped normalize the idea that a person could have multiple lovers or companions over the course of a lifetime, and made necessary some system of protocols for what might happen if two former romantic partners remained within the same social group after breaking things off. It was not as much like a capital-F, capital-G thing like it is now. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes.

Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. Part of HuffPost Relationships. All rights reserved. Elliott, author of "Getting Past Your Breakup". Instead, focus your efforts on processing any unresolved feelings you may still have. The thought of your ex dating someone else sends you into a tailspin.