Friends With the Ex?

KC43

New member
This came up in GFT's blog thread, but it's also been an ongoing debate I've had over the past few weeks. There's no right or wrong here; I just want to get other people's take on it, because I'm trying to figure out whether *my* way of looking at it is wrong. (It's been heavily implied to me that it is.)

If a relationship ends, do most people stay friends with the ex? Particularly if it's an amicable thing, like you just don't have shared interests anymore, or your schedules don't let you see each other often enough, or one of you relocates, or something?

And if you (general you; if you answer, you don't necessarily have to give your *personal* way of doing things, just your opinion) stay friends with an ex in a circumstance like the above, does sex remain on the table if you and the ex happen to have the opportunity? Or does the sex end permanently when the relationship ends, regardless of whether a friendship remains?

Personally--and this has a lot to do with trust issues--I have difficulty forming close attachments to people. If I form such an attachment, it is very *easy* to break it. The only exception in my life has been S2, and that's still a sore subject, in part *because* the attachment was so bloody difficult to break.

So if a relationship I'm in breaks up, regardless of which person initiates the breakup or why, that's it. Attachment broken, no further contact, the person no longer exists in my life. I can't comprehend wanting to stay friends with someone you've been romantic and sexual with when the romance and sex is no longer a thing. It sounds excruciatingly and unnecessarily painful to me. I have no desire to even consider staying friends with an ex-partner. (I'll note that staying friends with a friend-with-benefits if the benefits stop is a different situation.)

And even if I were to set aside my usual "you no longer exist" reaction... I flat out have no concept of why sex would stay a thing if the relationship doesn't. You're EXES for a reason. If you're friends, you're friends, whatever...but how does "people get to stay in my life even if we break up" translate into "if the opportunity presents, I still fuck people I've broken up with"?

The people with whom I've been having this debate, in turn, don't seem to be able to conceptualize *not* staying friends with exes, at least in a positive or neutral breakup, and consider it "odd" that someone would *not* continue fucking an ex if the opportunity arose.

So... other people's thoughts? I'm genuinely trying to understand this...
 
I'm firmly in the staying friends with my exes camp, but also in the 'now we no longer fuck each other' camp too. As you say, usually there are reasons for a break-up, and I think I would find it too confusing to maintain a sexual relationship if I know that there was once romantic attachment there but now there is no longer. It's not that I can't or don't enjoy friends with benefits, but I think there's a difference between things having always been fwb from the start vs it being a serious relationship with emotional investment that somehow hasn't worked out. I find it easy enough to remain friends with someone and lose the romantic aspects, but for me that includes the sexy bit too. I can't even say for sure why I feel this way, except that for me when I deal with a breakup it's like I'm grieving the loss of the emotional and sexual intimacy aspects, and once that process is done, I am done being attracted to that person in that way. Perhaps if enough time had passed that sense might fade, but I think it's also been my experience that these things are mutual - if an ex wants to stick around and be MY friend, they are usually past desiring me sexually too, so it's an easy equilibrium.
 
So if a relationship I'm in breaks up, regardless of which person initiates the breakup or why, that's it. Attachment broken, no further contact, the person no longer exists in my life. I can't comprehend wanting to stay friends with someone you've been romantic and sexual with when the romance and sex is no longer a thing. It sounds excruciatingly and unnecessarily painful to me. I have no desire to even consider staying friends with an ex-partner. (I'll note that staying friends with a friend-with-benefits if the benefits stop is a different situation.)

This is me, 100%.
 
Hmm. "On friendly terms"? Certainement -- adversariality doesn't create much good.

But unless you take "friend" to mean "someone I sorta know vaguely" (rather than "one of the few people in this world with whom I feel closest"), then likely NOT. The you're EXES for a reason thing.

Sure, a few have been amicable, where we still had a lot of affection for each other, & also realised that we were starting to slowly circle the drain & our best efforts weren't helping. Given a little emotional distance, we were able to maintain a lot of what had brought us together in the first place.

And the "sex with the ex" thing: yeah, sometimes, so long as everyone's sat5isfied it's not a "let's start again" gesture. Cindy used to call me up once in a while, when she was happy with her fiancee (open relationship) & I was happily married... but she missed our dynamic, & sometimes this would lead to making out & maybe more -- last we talked, each of us was still in the other's Top Three Best Lovers.

Then again, there was another who suggested an "old times' sake" evening, & was surprised when I declined. I said, "right now, I have lots of happy memories of us. But we both know we didn't do well as a main relationship, & it'll just suck if I start missing you again."
 
For me it depends on the reasons we broke up. If they were treating me horribly, or we grew apart to the point we had nothing in common, then no, I don't see much point in staying friends. But if the romantic and/or sexual aspects weren't working, but the friendship and love was still there, I would prefer to keep people in my life. Like KC43, I have a hard time getting close to people... So once I do, losing them is awful. I don't have a ton of close people in my life, the loss of one is very noticeable and painful.

I would not be up for continued sex with an ex, though. Too confusing for me.

Should go without saying, but there isn't a right or wrong way to do breakups. There's just whatever works best for you. Personally, I have a hard time turning off love and friendship, but a very easy time turning off sexual attraction. So staying friends with exes, assuming I'd be friends with them under other circumstances, feels comfortable for me. I'd be pissed if somebody told me what I wanted was wrong :cool:
 
Like I said, for me at least, it isn't about right or wrong... I'm just in a super-analytical mood and trying to understand how other people see and do things. I don't always comprehend humaning, so sometimes I ask questions. lol
 
I do like to stay friends with some exes, but doing so is determined on a case-by-case basis. For me, it depends on both the quality of the relationship AND how/why we ended things.

There are relationships I've had that weren't all that close: we weren't in love, and they amounted to just a few months of dinners out and fucking afterwards (or in the morning, ha!). Most of those kinds of relationships were primarily about sex, though there was some affection and friendship, but I am going way back in my history before FWB was a term. When relationships like those ended (and I say they "ended" because, those kinds of relationships in my life tended to just drift apart of their own accord and we'd just stop calling each other, so there was no formal breaking-up), there was zero desire to remain friends, and so it didn't happen - although we'd politely say hello if we ran into each other somewhere. There were also absolutely no bad feelings about the relationship having ended.

Then there are relationships I've had where it was pretty much the same kind of arrangement/activities but we had more of a friendship and were part of a large circle of friends. I had two very large networks like that - in one we were connected by our profession (late '80s-early 90s), and in another by mutual interest in a particular philosophy (mid '90s-mid '00s). In those circles, I dated several men, and if things ended we would both move on and date other people in the same circle (or out of the circle - they weren't cults!) and everyone was rather open and accepting about it. We were all into talking openly about relationships, self-awareness, and sex, too, so it wasn't like we had to hide stuff going on. I went to the weddings of three of my exes in those circles.

None of the relationships I had with anyone in these circles lasted more than about 8 or 9 months, but usually it was about 6 months. It may seem like the relationship parameters were fairly casual, but we were committed for that period of time and there was a good deal of friendship and lovingness in them. We were all monogamous but had no qualms about getting together and hanging out with our "exes" and their current paramour or new spouse, who could be an already established part of our circle or a newcomer to it. I used to say I believe in recycling boyfriends. Anyway though, I did not continue having sex with any of the guys I dated in those situations because usually one of both of us were now dating someone else and none of us were poly. We just recycled. :D

Then there were the kinds of relationships where we had more rapport, more close, heart-to-heart talks, more affection and doing a variety of things together, as well as sex, and where I was smitten and hoping for us to fall in love and be more entwined in each other's lives -- basically for us to become boyfriend and girlfriend officially (in some cases, I saw the guy as a bf but he did not see me as a gf). I very likely would become extremely clingy if time went on and I wasn't seeing the kind of "gf acknowledgement" I wanted, hehe. I'll add that getting clingy never did much for any of my relationships. Anyway, when that kind of relationship ended, I was usually the one being dumped and it stung. I had to heal from it. In those cases, sometimes the guy wanted to remain friends and I couldn't because it hurt too much, or sometimes I wanted to remain friends and he said "sure" but the friendship fizzled out. So it ended and that was it, they were out of my life.

HOWEVER, a few of those I did revisit as friends after a period of time. My feelings of rejection and disappointment had been resolved and I let the past be past. I should say that I much prefer to stay friends with exes that I think are pretty damn cool and with whom my relationship was meaningful and added value to my life. If a break-up was particularly nasty and it wasn't a relationship that I treasured, hell no - I wouldn't want them in my life anymore. I also don't need to stay friends with exes with whom I had very casual relationship that had no "value added" significance for me, but sometimes we've remained acquainted because we live near each other or work in the same place and bump into each other for reasons like that, and I can always say hello. TBH, there are a lot of lovers I don't even remember. Sometimes I run into someone I remember from 25-30 years ago and I have to think to myself, "did we ever fuck or did we just make out?" I've been with a lot of men and there was a long period where I had a lot of very short-lived relationships that lasted for only a couple of months, and quite a few one-, two-, or three-night stands, so some of their faces are very vague in my memory (names? Forget it!).

But getting back to staying friends, yes, it is my preference if the guy and our relationship were important to me, but that's friendship without sex. I insisted on getting to a friendly place with my ex-husband because I couldn't see throwing away 12 years of marriage to the only person in my life I ever wanted to make that kind of heavy commitment with, nor giving him persona non grata status, just because we'd grown apart. I do not see us ever having sex again, but that is mostly because he's moved on emotionally more than I have. If that happened between us, I would have to either let it be just sex or I'd want to see if we could have another relationship together. I don't know if I could do that with him; it's too emotionally charged for me, so I'd have to keep sex out of our friendship.

There were a few times I rekindled a friendship (after a long period of healing) with one of my exes with whom I had hoped the original relationship would lead to more commitment -- and IF the rekindled friendship led to sex, then it wasn't just a friendship anymore to me, but another "later chapter" of a relationship with them. And that was okay with me, though it only happened a handful of times. I think it would be much easier for me to rekindle a sexual/friendship thing with an ex now that I am a polyamorist because, unless it was a very casual FB or FWB, when I was a monogamist I usually always wanted some kind of escalator, even if it only went to the mezzanine.
 
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For me I feel that I could remain friends with an ex, that is if we still had things in common and it was amicable such as breaking it off due to time constraints or we couldn't give each other what we needed. I don't think I could have a sexual relationship with an ex though, I feel that would make my brain go automatically to being back together and that would just hurt both of us.
 
My next husband and I have two older children together so we have to coparent but the extent of our relationship is strictly texting about custody schedules. I'd be friends with him but his wife won't allow that.

My ex boyfriend in Washington I'm good friends with, I hooked him.up with my best friend. I just spent a couple weeks with them.Last month
 
For me, it depends on how the relationship ends. I'm still good friends with Irish, but we were extremely good friends before we dated either time, and the breakups were very amicable. I still occasionally talk to several exes,and with some others, I have no idea what they're up to and I really don't care, though I wouldn't wish ill on any of them. For me to remain friends, I need some breathing space and time to shift my mind from "relationship" mode to "friend" mode.

I don't have sex if the opportunity comes up. To enjoy sex I need to have a really close emotional relationship, closer than I get being just friends.
 
My opinion is that it just depends on the situation and the people involved. Some people can keep an "altered relationship" going with an ex and that is fine, but it's not necessary. It's not like you're doing something "odd" or "wrong" if you don't want to hang out (and have sex) with your ex.
 
I have three major ex's and several minor ex's.
Ex one - together 5 years, both mono, we broke up, he became quite bitter about it and it took us 10 years to come full circle and actually talk. I have no ill will towards him and am happy we are able to talk these days but I wouldn't count him as a friend, more an acquaintance.
Second ex - together 6 years, both mono. I ended the relationship due to wanting to explore my poly side. Tried to stay friends but it was too hurtful for him. Would happily rekindle a friendship if that is what he would like but he prefers the past to stay in the past.
Third ex - together 4 years on/off, both poly. In our off periods over the 4 years we remained friends but we always slipped back into bf/gf role within a couple of months. He hurt me deeply, completely gas lighted on me and I will never have him back in my life as a consequence. I know that if he was to re-enter my life it would just end up with us back together and me hurt again and I just can't let myself get back to that place.
Of the minor ex's - I still talk to a couple of them, will catch up with them when or if time allows etc. There are no hard feelings. Don't feel a sexual spark with them so don't feel the need to sleep with them lol.
I do envy people that can have these great loves and then transition that relationship to a friendship of it doesn't work out. As much as the most recent ex hurt me I still miss the friendship and the time we spent together just hanging out and shooting the shit.
 
I always hope to stay friends with my exes. In fact I consider that to be the mark of a "successful" relationship, because I don't believe in permanence. For me, if I look back with positive feeling at a thing and know we can still see one another in public, catch up a bit, part ways with a hug...then I feel that's an interaction I've managed well.

But then I also don't "fight" with people, not significant others or anyone, and many people I know think that fighting...of the emotionally charged, screaming and yelling and throwing things variety...is normal. Screaming and crying is normal. Having relationships end in an explosion of cruel words and tears and pain is normal. Never wanting to see that person, burning reminders of them, asking others not to speak their name...normal?

I don't do any of those things. I just don't. I find overt displays of negative emotion extremely uncomfortable. Scary, even. And I question, is this big response to a breakup...did you expect that person to be your property for life? And are you now freaking out that they aren't? No one was ever my property. That isn't how relationships work.

So, "amicable" is my default mode.

But as to remaining friends... Well, it depends, doesn't it?

- Were we friends to begin with?
- Define "friendship" and how good am I (or are they) at doing that?

Old Wolf and I were never friends. We went from acquaintances, to relationship, to life-partners, family... And much as we say we're trying to "remain friends," we aren't. Not really. What we're remaining in my opinion, is family. Family bonds exist because we have kids together, and in the way you can have a relative you only see rarely and get tired of when they visit sometimes, and you wish they wouldn't call you when they're drunk and you are fairly sure you shouldn't loan them money...but they are still FAMILY.

It's like that.

I felt personally like Analyst, Fire and Hefe were mostly friends. Like most of our interactions were of the kind that good, tight friendships feel like. They were more like friends with benefits than relationships really, in practice, or so I felt. I was surprised to find that the others did not agree, and that my declaration thereof was a surprise to them. I hope the friendship can continue. I feel like with Fire and Hefe, it might...but I suspect that some of the disconnects that Analyst and I had, that from my end troubled the ability of the relationship to stand...also threaten our ability to be friends.

But I don't know, truly, if I would have felt that way if I hadn't had the contrast of Zen in my life. He didn't pull me away from them, he just has handled this whole relationship thing in ways that feel really wonderful to me. Which leads to the question...could he and I be friends if we broke up? I don't know. What went in? Some friendship, yes, but a whole lot of passion and attraction and sex and feeling and vulnerability...

If Zen or I were to "break up" with the other, there would be a lot of hurt and I don't know if either of us would want to stay friends. If on the other hand life circumstances parted us, let's say he had to move to care for his father (possible) and let's say that I could not go with him, and some time went by and another woman came into his life, we just drifted off in different directions...we could probably maintain some kind of friendship, but not a close one. For one thing, he is a mono dude and I expect any future woman in his life might feel threatened by someone like me.

And that's another big thing I prefer about poly ideology. If I tell my partner that it is just me and them, and I'm not open to sex or romance with another person, I'm gonna need them to trust me. I trust them. Because both of us are safe in telling the truth if it's otherwise. This means that I won't be threatened by my love having female friends, or exes for friends...and I expect the same.

But many Mono folk I've known, I can be friends with my ex until they find a new girlfriend...new girlfriend doesn't want him to have contact with me, wants him to be devoted to her and pretend no other has ever warmed his bed or something. Old Wolf was very threatened by my exes. I was not threatened by his. I think it's a common piece of mono-wiring to want one's partner to have no dealings with their ex, if possible.
 
I'm friends with all of my recent exes. We were friends before the relationship. It did take time to get there - usually a year or two. The qualities that made me love them are still there even if we weren't compatible romantically. I prefer to be friends with exes where possible. None of them treated me poorly, or vice versa. That's important. I can't imagine staying friends with someone who acted badly towards me. But if we were 'just' incompatible, I prefer to remain friends. It varies - I'm close with Beaker while Whip has become an acquaintance I see sporadically around town. SW and I are friends with the same crowd (I met Glow through that circle of friends, which I would not have without SW.) We hang out once in a while, catching up on each other's lives.

I do not have sex with exes. That part is done for me when we break up. I do that to have a separation between romantic partners and platonic friends. The only time I've had sex with an ex I ended up getting back together with Beaker not long after.

I think it's perfectly acceptable not to be friends after a breakup but I have to admit I find it a little sad (barring poor behavior or abuse). But people have to do what they find necessary. And I do think the 'banish the ex!' behavior is more common.
 
I prefer to stay friends with exes if at all possible. I actually live with one of my most significant exes, rory (there's 5 of us in the house in total). We were together for 4.5 years, had some difficulties finding a friend-mode, but now we're totally there. It's pretty great.

I regularly keep in contact with my other significant ex, my ex-husband. But his new girlfriend often has difficulties with the fact that he wants to keep me in his life and keep in contact. I hope she gets over it some day.

If not counting one teenage years boyfriend, there's really only one ex I don't keep in touch with anymore, Sol. We had a really intense relationship for a couple of months, which ended because we were so incompatible. We tried to remain friends, but it turned out that even that was too intense for me, so I had to let it fizzle out. Nowadays they've even defriended me on Facebook, which I find a bit sad, but also understandable. We were quite a bad a match as people.

When it comes to sex with an ex, I've only ever done it once. It was with Evan, who had left me about 6 months before that. We had hung out as friends a few times, and then we saw each other at a party and ended up in bed together. It was good in some ways, but quite sad in others. I was reminded again how good it was with him and I was sad that he didn't want to be in a relationship with me anymore. So I think it totally depends on the break-up and the ex, but I think I'll try to avoid doing that again.

Basically I seem to only have two modes of sexual feelings after a break-up: If I was left, I might still have some sexual feelings left, but the sex can make me sad. If I left the other person, my sexual feelings had most likely died already before the break-up (they have tended to do so in most of my break-ups where I've made the final decision). So sex with an ex is not a very likely scenario for those reasons.
 
The people with whom I've been having this debate...consider it "odd" that someone would *not* continue fucking an ex if the opportunity arose.

I'm not sure with whom you're debating, but in my experience, this is an extremely unusual attitude. Sure, it's common enough to kinda fall into bed once with an ex, but as a regular thing? I can't even imagine.
 
But many Mono folk I've known, I can be friends with my ex until they find a new girlfriend...new girlfriend doesn't want him to have contact with me, wants him to be devoted to her and pretend no other has ever warmed his bed or something. Old Wolf was very threatened by my exes. I was not threatened by his. I think it's a common piece of mono-wiring to want one's partner to have no dealings with their ex, if possible.

This has completely mystified me as I've gotten older. Sure, when I was an insecure young kid, the idea of my partner's ex threatened me, but that's only because I didn't truly understand anything yet: not love, not friendship, etc.

But as an adult (even when I was mono), like, I think it's a GOOD sign when people are friends with their exes. It means that they are mature enough and wise enough to have chosen good enough people as partners that they want to still know those people even when sex isn't involved anymore. It means that they are emotionally stable and mellow enough not to knee-jerk go to the "burn it all down" place just because they are hurting.

I have seen it a lot, but really don't get the typical mono mindset that not only do you have to actually not be fucking someone else, but you also have to pretend like you never even want to fuck anyone else, and almost like you never even have fucked anyone else. You basically have to pretend like the current person is the only attractive person in the whole world ever.

A person's past experiences with other people are part of what made them them—why would you not be happy and grateful for them and wish them ongoing pleasant interactions with those people? :confused:

My best friend is mono with her partner and they definitely have this weirdness going on. Like, neither one even wants to hear or know anything about each other's past partners, and if my best friend meets someone at a party that she suspects her guy may have hooked up with in the past, she gets jealous and decides from the get-go that she doesn't want to be friendly with that person. It's so bizarre!
 
This tends to be more common, even expected, in mostly heterosexual couples. Queer people tend to expect to remain friends with the ex, in large part because it's almost always a smaller community. This doesn't mean there isn't drama, insecurity and similar - just that since the 'pool' is smaller, it's unrealistic to expect a current partner to have no contact ever with any person they ever found attractive. It's actually always been unrealistic for *everyone* but straight people have the luxury of being able to avoid that reality for a while.

I also don't get it. Even when I was a happy mono person (and I was good at monogamy!), I didn't expect that. I hope it's an expectation that goes away soon. Everyone would be happier.
 
In the monogamous case, I think it's an issue of trust. "I trust you to keep it platonic between you and your ex." Does that make sense?
 
I . . . really don't get the typical mono mindset that not only do you have to actually not be fucking someone else, but you also have to pretend like you never even want to fuck anyone else, and almost like you never even have fucked anyone else. You basically have to pretend like the current person is the only attractive person in the whole world ever.
I don't think of this as typical to monogamy; I think of it as mainstream expectations that get idealized, but not typical of most mono people I have known. I've known many monogamous people who stay in touch with exes, hang out with them, fix them up, work together, whatever. I do think that kind of possessive mindset might be more common among younger people; when you have more years on you, you kind of don't care about stupid shit like that anymore. But again, that's a generalization.

The reality of most people's lives is usually much much different from the mainstream idealized version that gets promoted in books and on TV, especially when so many are divorced and parenting children.
 
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