How to Be Friends With Your Ex to Get Together Again
Can You lot Exist Friends With Your Ex? Expert Tips & Everything To Consider
If your relationship ends on good terms, information technology's perfectly reasonable to wonder if it'due south possible to exist friends with your ex. Later all, this person is likely someone you genuinely like and savor spending fourth dimension with, equally well as someone with whom you probably accept shared experiences, ideas, values, and interests. To surrender all of that only considering you lot realized a romantic relationship won't work between you ii may very well experience like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
So permit'southward talk nigh how to be friends with your ex—and when it does and doesn't work.
Is it a good idea to be friends with your ex?
Aye, it's absolutely possible to be friends with your ex. Whether it's a good idea volition depend on the state of affairs and the people involved. Some people are able to have good for you, positive relationships with their exes without any difficulty or complications, whereas others detect that trying to stay friends ends upwardly beingness unnecessarily messy or even painful.
According to licensed marriage therapist Weena Cullins, LCMFT, sometimes 2 people find they don't piece of work as romantic partners, but at that place are aspects of their human relationship that are withal valuable and can exist healthily maintained through a friendship.
"Existence friends with your ex can be a expert idea when other aspects of the human relationship were valuable to your growth, evolution, or life goals," she explains. "If you and your ex identify that y'all make amend business organization partners, workout buddies, or friends, and you are able to maintain healthy boundaries with each other, then creating an authentic friendship could work."
She adds that it can exist especially beneficial if y'all and your ex accept children together. Though she says friendships aren't necessary for successful co-parenting, it may create an easier surroundings for both the parents and the kids. "Information technology can also provide increased flexibility with managing schedules, discipline problems, and the general flow of information."
That said, beingness friends with an ex tin sometimes make it harder to successfully movement on from the relationship if there are nevertheless 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 lot've taken time to process and take the end of the romantic human relationship.
- You both have accepted that the human relationship is actually over (and sympathize why it happened).
- You feel like you have emotionally moved on from the relationship, and your ex has, too.
- You no longer take romantic feelings for each other or want to be in a romantic 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 feel attached to, dependent on, or "partnered" with ane another. You both take fully separate, independent, individual lives.
- Yous're both able to maintain appropriate boundaries and manage cornball feelings that may come without falling fully into them.
- Yous both feel totally comfortable and happy dating other people, and you authentically want that for each other, too.
- You have kids together or are in each other's social or professional orbits in some way, and you need to maintain some level of interaction with each other.
- The friendship adds something positive to both of your lives, whether that'southward fun, companionship, collaboration, or practicality.
When to cut ties:
- Y'all're secretly hoping you'll get back together.
- You however have romantic feelings for your ex, and you're having trouble moving on.
- You sense (or know) that your ex is not fully over you.
- You're holding on because yous can't imagine dating anyone else or having every bit strong a connection with anyone else always over again.
- You lot're holding on because you are scared or unwilling to untangle your lives from one another and commencement to alive independently.
- You're property on because you lot feel guilty for catastrophe the relationship or feel like you "owe" them your attention in some way.
- Your ex is occupying your time, energy, or headspace, and it's affecting your power to date other people or be nowadays in other parts of your life.
- The idea of them dating someone else makes you feel jealous, uneasy, or upset.
- Talking to them or spending fourth dimension together feels painful, tense, distracting, or inappropriately intimate.
- The friendship feels one-sided, draining, or otherwise unhealthy.
- You're having trouble maintaining boundaries and proceed slipping into old habits from when you lot were dating.
- Information technology just doesn't feel good being friends with them.
Call up, just considering you decide to go no-contact for the time being doesn't mean y'all tin't still care virtually each other and eventually come together again in the future to nurture a new friendship. Sometimes you only demand a little space first.
Tin you lot be friends with an ex you notwithstanding love?
It'southward hard to be friends with an ex you yet love, but information technology'due south possible. For some people, honey isn't something that they ever really "take back," even after a romantic human relationship has concluded. They may go along to love and care deeply most their erstwhile partners, though those feelings are no longer tied up with wanting to continue dating. Equally long as y'all wholeheartedly take that the relationship is over and are actively moving on with your life, you lot can even so maintain a friendship with an ex you love.
That said, if the love yous take for your ex withal feels intense, hot, emotional, or wistful, staying friends may make information technology hard for you to let go of the relationship and fully move on.
How long should you wait after the breakup?
There's no prepare timeline for how long information technology takes to get over a breakdown. For some people, it takes just a few weeks or months, while for others, it can accept years. It's important for both people to experience similar they've moved on—or are in the process of doing so successfully—before trying to exist friends. The friendship shouldn't hinder either person's ability to move on; if it is, information technology'southward likely likewise soon to be in contact.
Setting boundaries with your ex.
Information technology's important to prepare boundaries with your ex, whether or not you intend to stay friends. Those boundaries may include physical, emotional, time, or energetic boundaries. It's upwardly to each of you to decide what boundaries you need in identify to be able to stay friends without it becoming messy, painful, or sliding back into romantic territory.
Y'all may desire to consider:
- How often you communicate with each other
- How much you emotionally rely on each other
- How much data you share about your personal lives
- Whether you're going to share data about your dating lives or new partners
- Whether you lot experience comfortable spending time lonely together or adopt group hangouts only
- What level of friendliness is comfortable when you meet each other in person
- How much time or energy you lot each wait from one another
As for concrete boundaries, some people experience fine with sharing concrete intimacy with their exes—including having casual sex activity—only 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 it is possible if you both come to an agreement to be friends with benefits with truly no expectations or strings attached.
The key, says Cullins, is making sure that any human relationship you have with your ex isn't getting in the way of your ability to move on and (if information technology's what you want) potentially connect with other people.
"If you notice that you or your ex are unable to maintain boundaries with each other, then you should cut ties," Cullins says. "If you truly desire to move on and notice that your ex is still occupying the romantic space that your hereafter partner should have access to, and so it'southward a good idea to cut things off completely with your ex."
Tips for making it piece of work:
ane. Give it fourth dimension.
Don't attempt to rush into a friendship you're not gear up for. You'll probably demand at least a little time and infinite immediately after the breakup before you tin can start trying to be friends with your ex. "At that place has to be enough distance between the old romantic partnership and the new friendship you are trying to build," Cullins explains.
2. Make sure you lot're actually over each other.
The key to making a friendship with an ex work is making certain you're both actually over each other. Pay attending to how you feel when y'all're around your ex—is the free energy charged or tense? Is there a certain pull or attraction between y'all? Are y'all feeling a rush of butterflies or a wash of sadness when you encounter their name appear in your texts? Does the idea of them dating someone new fill you with dread? Those are all signs that in that location may still be feelings there.
Likewise, make sure you're taking seriously whatever mixed signals or signs that your ex is pretending to exist over y'all. As licensed therapist Ken Page, LCSW, recently told mbg, sometimes people lie to their exes—or to themselves—about how "OK" they are with the breakup, in part because they're but trying to rush the procedure of moving on. "We desire to be resilient," he explains, but it'south important to be emotionally honest with ourselves nigh where we truly are in the stages of getting over a breakup.
3. Brand certain your relationship is truly different at present that you're not dating.
"Many exes brand the fault of letting the friendship resemble the romantic relationship too closely. This usually doesn't work in the long run," Cullins says.
Your friendship should not exist identical to your old human relationship. There should be differences in your dynamic in terms of how integrated your lives are, how much you rely on each other, and how much intimacy you share. If your relationship is pretty much the aforementioned every bit before you broke up, then did you actually break up? Remember: Relationships without labels are still relationships.
4. Only engage as much every bit it feels good for both of y'all.
Friendships should feel skillful. In that location's no reason to maintain a friendship with your ex if it isn't really serving you or adding something positive to your life. If the chief feeling you feel whenever you interact with your ex is dread, exhaustion, heartache, or just confusion, yous don't demand 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 against your volition is hoovering yous—and that's grounds for just totally cutting things off.)
v. Accept when yous need more infinite.
While it's definitely possible for exes to be friends, for some people and some situations it just doesn't piece of work.
"Exist objective about any cues you notice that indicate that a friendship isn't possible," Cullins says. "For example, if one or both of you become jealous when the other begins dating someone new, then there may not exist enough separation between the sometime relationship and the friendship."
It's OK to determine you need to take a step back if you lot realize that it'due south too emotionally complicated to maintain a friendship with your ex. Yous can gently explain that you lot'd similar to take some more time and infinite, whether for at present or for the foreseeable future. You can wish each other well and limited that you intendance about your ex, even as y'all name your need for infinite and terminate the friendship.
And retrieve, even if you're not actively staying "friends" per se, y'all can still—and should—be cordial and kind to one another anytime your paths do cross. You don't need to actively maintain a friendship with one another to still be caring toward each other.
Source: https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-be-friends-with-your-ex
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