Can You Really Be Friends With An Ex?

[funkyfemme]

I'm friends with all but two of mine. My first butch is still very much in my life and always will be. We just celebrated our "anniversary" on the 6th of this month. So yeah, you really can be friends with an ex. But I also agree with a few others here - all depends on why you broke up.

[homoe]

I agree with Funky, sometimes it all depends on why you broke up! I am still friends with my ex and now she's even my BFF! I always consider it a big ole red flag when I meet someone and they tell me all of their ex's hate them!

[Quintease]

Originally Posted by homoe

I agree with Funky, sometimes it all depends on why you broke up! I am still friends with my ex and now she's even my BFF! I always consider it a big ole red flag when I meet someone and they tell me all of their ex's hate them!

Agreed. I dated someone who was hated by all of her exes, only to later discover why.
I wouldn't hold it against someone if they hadn't remained friends with their exes however. I know myself I have tried to stay friends with certain exes but travelling and new relationships have usually put paid to that. My ex wife, for example, is now living it large in a beautiful and sunny city, while I'm married and planning a baby in a place where it always rains. We have little in common.

[AtLast]

I agree with the "why" & "how" the break-up occured in terms of remaining friends. Also, sometimes we can be attracted off the charts to someone romantically, but, find that this fizzles when one (or both) realizes that it just isn't a good match. Yet, you have a lot in common and work well as friends.

[bkisbutchenuff]

Exes can be a great resource...however, it depends on the circumstances - the foundation of the relationship and the breakup. It took many years, but my first ex, a colleague who I admire greatly professionally, is actually one of my bff's. After an 11 yrs relationship, we still have each others back. Friends are friends and for me - that equals family ...

[shiagirl]

Yes you can but at a distance lol

[Tommi]

Yes, I sure hope so, because it would be a lonely planet if not.

(counting Ex's on fingers N toes,, Yes, mostly

well, there were a few with wildly waving arms and ****** or berserk *or worse.

Really...no. no Really

[jules5041]

I think absolutely you can be friends with an ex. I definately am. I was with my ex for ten years and I can't imagine not having hym currently in my life. We both evolved into the people we are today because of those ten years. I would hate to throw away such an important friendship just because we could not make our relationship work.

Thanks for letting me share!

Jules with numbers

[Darbonaire]

Originally Posted by jules5041

I think absolutely you can be friends with an ex. I definately am. I was with my ex for ten years and I can't imagine not having hym currently in my life. We both evolved into the people we are today because of those ten years. I would hate to throw away such an important friendship just because we could not make our relationship work.

Thanks for letting me share!

Jules with numbers

I used to think the answer to this question would be "yes"...I have established friendships with ex's before but....now....I'm honestly not so sure...sad thing it is too....

Jonathan

[ruffryder]

Originally Posted by Darbonaire

I used to think the answer to this question would be "yes"...I have established friendships with ex's before but....now....I'm honestly not so sure...sad thing it is too....

Jonathan

Some people can, some can't. Sometimes it is too difficult for one or both. Sometimes it's best to move on.. all depends on the situation and how both would like to proceed. For sure, it takes time to gain that friendship back after a relationship. Most importantly is to move on and leave out the past and your relationship as you both move forward to try.

Most I have stayed friends with as there was a friendship before and during the relationship.

[Darbonaire]

"We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present."

Marianne Williamson

[Ginger]

I think another good question is, Can a person be friends with her lover's exes, much less her own?

For me, sure. Usually it's no problem. There was an ex of a lover I didn't like, only because she wanted us to lie to her current girlfriend about something, and I felt creepy about that. But in general, it's not an issue.

[Beloved]

I am friends with most of my exes. In my experience if you were really hurt you need a time of healing before you are able to do so. It's totally possible.

[Ginger]

One of my cousins is dying of lung cancer right now. Not deathbed dying yet, but running out of options. Her ex-husband has been wonderful the whole time she's been sick. She always wanted to visit NYC and he took her on a vacation there with their girls. It is tender, what they have now.

I also know a friend of a friend who has a degenerative disease and her life is very compromised now. She had moved to be near her mother, and now her ex-husband bought a house near her, so he is in the neighborhood, as well.

In the town where my dad grew up, I woman I knew a little through their church was dying, and her ex-husband from decades back, moved in with her and nursed her to the end.

None of these were situations were about getting back together.

I know if anything happened to my ex, the main one, the one I lived with for ten years, I would be there. Her current partner is jealous of me; it hurts that we can't be friends and I don't think it will happen—but if it did, if she needed me, I would be there.

[*Anya*]

It really depends. I don't think there is a hard or fast rule.

My first girlfriend and I parted friends, lost touch for a long time and recently re-connected. It was just as though no time had passed.

My 19-year ex and I, no way. Over a year ago, she came to me with a big story about a recurrence of a prior brain tumor, with a week to live.

Previous brain tumor= true. Recurrence with a week to live=not true. After running around, sucked in, helping get her affairs in order and then finding out it was a manipulation-the total end for me. Never again.

A couple of months ago she came to my door, uninvited, to tell me she had breast cancer. I told her I could not help her- if it were true but how could I believe her? I sent her away and still hope I did the right thing but she had lied once too many times to me.

Another ex and I kind of drifted apart and each of us started dating other people. We really are not right for each other but genuinely like each other. We still text and talk on the phone almost every day. She asks me femme questions and I ask her butch ones! She tells me about her dates and I tell her about mine.

I think that we might always be friends.

The one rule about relationships is: there are no rules!

[Soft*Silver]

I DO have issues about exes now because of two past experiences and have told anyone who dared come close to me that I dont tolerate imbedded exes in an "us". chrissy's ex is not a problem NOW. She tried to be, long distance. She wanted him back, yet approached me to be a friend.

She might have approached me to be her friend but I was reading her emails to him, as he showed them to me. She was telling him she wanted him back and tried to tell him how I wasnt the one for him. VERY different than what she was telling me.

Deceitfulness is painful for someone to grasp and believe about someone they once loved. Sometimes it blinds them. When a partner is blinded to negative things their ex can do, its time to leave. However, her behavior toward me hurt chrissy even more, and he saw her for who she was, not who she wanted him to believe her to be.

They had a 20 year marriage before she walked out on him for someone else. Hurt him terribly. Damn near killed him. I knew how lethal she was by this alone but she proved to be so much more lethal after the divorce thru other things she did. When I came into the picture and we became more than Missus and sub, I put my foot down and said chose now because I will never trust her because of this. He had kept her in his life because they had shared 20 years together. But there comes a time when someone proves them self bad. Unworthy of friendship. Its not an easy thing for someone to walk away from a past that held such strong strings. But wrong is wrong and if he wanted to move on, he had that decision to make. And he did.

this is what builds relationships. Momentum. Hand in hand. The two of you chose a path and decide to walk it together. If you let someone else interfere, its not to be. They dont HAVE to interfere, but if they do, your decisions about your current will determine if you stay in the past, or move together...

thankfully, not all exes are involved for the wrong reason. However, some are. and this is where the distinction lies about if one can be friends with an ex...

[VintageFemme]

I think so. If given enough to time to heal any wounds or put away any left over baggage, yeah I believe so. I am friends with all of my exes save for one, and I think I would be now with that one as well. Of course I've never been in a relationship that included infidelity or something equally as hurtful so perhaps I might feel differently if I had been, but I have learned the hard way that life is just too short to carry around anger or bitterness for too long. You have to learn to let go & forgiveness truly is freeing. And there was something that brought you two together in the first place anyhow, so in the end hopefully that something is still there and each of you can learn to love that something in a different light, together apart.

[GraffitiBoi]

I used to think you couldn't, and then I thought you could. But now I think it depends on the ex.

My ex 'J' and I cannot be friends and have actually ended our friendship for good yesterday. I won't get into the details, but I will say that trying to be friends with her got in the way of me being able to be in a relationship with anyone else. It took getting my heart broken recently to see that clearly. Lesson learned. I only wish I had learned this lesson much earlier.

My ex 'A' and I are actually good friends. We tend to forget we ever dated since there never was really any passion there. We did love each other but it was never in a romantic way. We basically were roommates with occasional benefits. She doesn't ever get in the way of me being with someone else and she never tries to control me in any way. She's like a sister to me and is the only person I have really ever trusted with anything important. We don't talk often, and see each other even less, but if I was in trouble she'd try and help or listen without judging me or lecturing me. When she needs a babysitter for her 2 year old daughter I often volunteer. So although she is an ex, I don't think of her that way. She's just another friend.

Other than that, I have no contact with any other exes. I see no reason for it. I never loved them. I cared for them at one time but that's about it.

[AzAshburn]

It really depends on the way you broke up with them. As for me, I seldom keep in touch with my exes after we decided to live our lives in separate ways. It's simply because I don't see any reasons to stay friends with them. Past is past, they were there once, the relationship didn't work so just let it be.

I did try to keep the friendship with my last ex-girlfriend, whom i was with for nearly six years before she left me for a man. Things did not work out since i still had feelings for her at that time and seeing her moving on with her new boyfriend was too much for me to bear, so i cut all the ties. She still searched for me until last year. I changed my phone number and distanced myself away from her not long after that.. Sometimes, it's not because you don't love them or do not want them in your life anymore, but you need to leave the past in the past and move forward... They are exes for some reasons anyway..

[PumaJ]

I am friends with three of my exes