I'm friends with some exes and not others. I've had many relationships, not all of them healthy. I think I've often mistaken intensity and possessiveness, for love and lust. When it's time to look back and reflect, I've realised I was unhappy for a reason, that there was nothing in that relationship that would make a friendship desirable.

Another obstacle in my way is that I haven't lived in the same city as an ex (who I was talking to) for many years. I have a few exes that I would very much like to stay in touch with, unfortunately we all live many miles from each other. Instead we occasionally [like] each other on Facebook.

I have made peace with all of my ex's and I think in the future, I wont let things happen that did.

I have said before how I am friends with all my exes. It does take time and I hope that my most recent ex and I can at least always be cordial.

I haven't had that many relationships, thank god :) 1 divorce.

friend with them all, mostly ;D

I am happy that I have stayed friends with the ones I am friends with! my first love, my ex husband, partners who I have cared for in my life. It's nice to see them every now and then and know they are doing well in life and I feel happy for them.

:eatinghersheybar:

For me it is important to buck up and deal and take it on the chin like an adult rather that being filled with fury and vindictiveness months after a break up,

Sure be mad a couple of weeks but then agree to be cordial and dont ask your friends to taske sides.

The negativity of prolonged anger is not worth it.

Here is to all of us resolving to treat everyone we once said we loved with respect!

It was once a principle of mine to stay friends with EXs. Then, I went to 12 Step meetings and got over it.

I have not had that many serious relationships, however there is a collection of people I dated where we decided we were better off as friends. If I liked you enough to date you then chances are you're a great friend.

I have two people that were more serious and for whatever reasons we just can't maintain a friendship. I try but the reason for us breaking up looms over and makes it difficult for me to trust them. There is a reason why they are ex's and this is often difficult to get beyond.

This is a tough one for me.

My ex-husband and I will never be friends but I never trashed him to my daughters and supported & encouraged their relationship-until he dragged his second wife around by the hair in front of them @ ages 8 and 10. Then I told him, get therapy or you will not see the girls. He chose no therapy. They did make peace with him when they turned 18 as I took them to therapy to deal with the trauma that they witnessed for 6-months. I was pleasant to him and wife #3 @ each of my girls weddings and my oldest's college graduation.

My first GF & I remained friends-no negative feelings.

My 19-year relationship taught me she was not worthy of my heart or my trust and repeatedly broke both. I was a very slow learner with that one. Can't tell you why but I finally "got it" that she is not good for my own mental health. I am not bitter or angry-just much wiser.

Forgiveness? Was almost there until her October 2011 story of terminal brain cancer, one-week to live, that turned out to be a lie. Yes, I am a really slow learner. (No, she is not on the Planet, thank god).

I believe I have finally learned who is worthy of my trust and my love. I am grateful that I have.

It depends on what happened between us and how I feel about her. If she's an ass I probably won't talk to her again only because I don't have the patience for bullshit or games anymore. If she's cool then we can be cool.

enuff said!

I came here looking for some eloquence. Frankly, enuff said! may be perfect. Now if I can only get him to never speak to me again. I just started talking to my 9 years ago ex without yelling.

I am always learning and forgetting, what I can tolerate and what I can't.

I am thinking of one ex that I loved very much, but realize I couldn't have stayed with. (Of course, it isn't someone on this site, and she probably doesn't even know it exists.)

This particular lover, "C," kept a rifle in the cabin where we stayed upstate on weekends, while her house was being built in the woods. The cabin was next to a pond, and we lit candles at night and played dominoes and talked, and the frogs were so loud by the end of the summer, we could barely hear each other.

We slept on a mattress on the floor, and the rifle stayed in the crevice between the head of the bed, and the cabin wall. Sometimes I would wake with my head butting into it.

Even if someone had appeared at the door to our cabin in the middle of the night, she wouldn’t have been able to use it—she was impossible to wake once she’d taken her “nightie-nights,” a handful of prescription sleeping pills and anti-anxiety meds for the PTSD that made her fear her brother was going to find her and kill her; hence the gun.

We took a lot of walks in the woods, and she set up tripods to photograph trees, and then began a series on mushrooms, because I loved them so much. We turned rotting logs over, and found ruby salamanders writhing in the damp ground. She’s the only person I’ve known who loved watching insects as much as I do. She could make dozens of bird songs, and collected abandoned nests, and noticed rocks, filling her bathroom sink in the City with them, water running over them to the drain, which made me a little nervous when I brushed my teeth, though I did love the rocks.

C had alpaca blankets she kept in the cabin, and we would wrap ourselves and sit on the front steps and watch the moon and the pond. We kept going up there, even when we could see our breath, and the leaves were turning orange.

I tried to talk to her about her brother, and whether it really was possible that he would look for her and kill her. Her fear made me afraid. When we broke up, I felt guilty at how relieved I was to have him, even the idea of him, out of my life. And I was glad not to wake with that gun near my head.

But I miss her.