There’s a dozen variations on the joke about how your ex’s ex’s ex is your girlfriend now — it’s based in the truth that our communities are often so small and insular that even after you’ve broken up with someone, they can be kind of unavoidable. How do we deal with our exes going forward? Do you have to be friends? Is it better to cut them off entirely? There’s no one answer, but here are ten from our team.
I really enjoyed reading this! Relieved to hear I’m not the only one who tends to cut people out post-breakup (often for emotional capacity reasons). I sometimes stay friends with people I casually dated, although even then I need a significant cooling off period first.
but FWIW I also have moved cities/countries/continents almost every year for the last ten years?! so staying in touch is also more difficult over distance (/I don’t have to stay on good terms because it’s extremely likely I will never see them again, ever!). There’s actually one significant ex I’d like to reconcile with, but she now lives on the exact opposite side of the world to me, and Skype is so awkward (we’ve tried).
Most of the people I’ve dated are very far away from me, and I am a *terrible* long distance friend. But I also still live with one of my ex’s because when you come from a small city and didn’t go to college in your new city and are both terribly solitary but pretty okay roommates and definitely done dating you don’t let that shit go, I guess?
Oof. You are all so smart and put together and probably handle things wayyy better than I do.
Here’s the thing. I’m incredibly loyal and also so, so stubborn. Which is normally good, but when a relationship ends, EVEN IF I’m the one that ended it, or I agree that it needed to end, I’m going to blame them and probably going to harbor hard feelings for a ridiculously long time and be mad that it’s over. I don’t like moving on. I don’t like being wrong. I don’t like hurting. I want them to regret their choices (I feel you Stef!). Is this healthy? No. Of course not. But that’s what I pay my therapist to listen to lololol.
So being friends around all those feelings is really hard! It’s something I’ve never really managed to do. I agree though that since I loved that person while we were dating, I am always going to care about/love them on some level, whether friendship is possible or not, but that feeling of caring is hard to weigh out against never wanting to see them ever again. But I do care!
I definitely strive for the “stay friends,” unless they were really abusive or toxic.
Thanks for sharing.
When I was with my ex wife of 12 years I didn’t get how people could go from being in a long term relationship to not even being friends, but I’m not friends with my ex because of the way she ended the relationship. Also because of what Heather said of not having the energy for many friends. And I’m not friends with the woman I dated for 18 months after that.
I do miss that my ex wife and I had a very similar outlook in terms of politics, religion, science, ethics etc. Like I think the only thing we disagreed on was assisted dying. And I just miss that if I’ve had a conversation or heard or read an article that I disagreed with I could just tell her about it and know she’d agree with me. I have friends I have a lot of overlapping opinions with, but they’ll always be something we don’t agree on or that they don’t really know much about or have an opinion on.
This made me do some thinking. I’ve had a couple relationships where I look back now and am so embarrassed by how immaturely I handled the break up- basically being moodier/more passive agressive to the point of them initiating the break up conversation. I wish I could reach out and apologize, but we’ve all moved on so let the past be the past…and I’ll just have to be remembered as a shitty ex-gf, which is fair. The couple of exes I’ve stayed friends with have been the ones where the relationship came to a natural end. I guess I initially liked staying in their orbit post-break up because it was comfortable, but ultimately realized we actually do work out better as friends.
So much of how I relate to exes has to do with having friends/acquaintances in common and tip toeing around that. I always randomly meet people who know people I’ve dated.
Over the years I have learned to be diplomatic because it’s safe to assume that the things I say about my exes will get back to them. If an ex I’m not friends with anymore comes up in conversation with an acquaintance I generally try to describe them as generously as possible, or avoid saying much at all for the ones I deeply regret dating.
“I’m just not a person who can talk to very many people a day and make many plans in a week and have my phone just ding-ding-dinging with alerts and texts. I have many good pals, a few very close friends, and my partner, and that’s really all I have the emotional capacity for. I’m literally that Sam Weir scene in Freaks and Geeks: ‘I don’t need another friend. I already have two. I mean, how many more friends does a guy need?'”
Me, same!
I technically only have one ex, and we’re best friends, with no transition period since the breakup (that was probably not the best choice)
Look at me living that lesbian stereotype!
This was good to read and well-timed!
As someone who writes about my relationships (yay personal essays and memoir), a test (of sorts) of how the relationship went down and the state that I consider us to be in is whether I will send them pages prior to a piece’s publication – and, on top of that, if I would actively ask for their input IN the pages. I have an upcoming book project in which several exes figure pretty prominently, so I will 100% be reaching out to them because I can’t imagine not, at the bare minimum, asking them if they wanted to see pages to do a fact-check. And with an ex-partner who I was with for many years, it only levels up, because I will actively be asking for her input once the project is further along.
My most recent breakup (not in the book) was a situation where it was such a complete dumpster fire where there is basically no respect anymore, on either side, which is sad. This is the first breakup where it’s someone who doesn’t get pages and who I also have no guilt about not running shit by. Some people you just cut out and it’s fine.
I only have one real ex. Haven’t seen or talked to him in 13 years, haven’t been officially married to him in 17. He has his good points and I hope he’s happy. With someone else. Far away from me. If I ever run into him again I’ll be civil.
When I’m feeling generous I can slightly miss the fun times we had and think it might be all right to have him as a casual, occasional, distant friend again. But I don’t plan to ever initiate that, and would respond only quite warily if he tried, because that relationship was frankly toxic and miserable and while I learned a lot from it, boy goddamn howdy do I not miss it. Even writing this comment has gotten me all tense!
I do slightly regret disappearing from his little sister’s life. I liked her. But she was younger enough and far away enough that we were never that close.
OK. Time for a few deep breaths and to go to the park with my kiddo on her last weekday of spring break. :) Hurray for learning from bad relationships and then having good ones!
i also had an ex rewire my brain (i’ve been thinking of it as i downloaded their consciousness onto a usb and then plugged that into my own brain and ran that operating system for a while) and we’ve been broken up for almost two years and i still sometimes catch my brain running a piece of that code and it fucking sucks. i felt really insane for a while after that relationship. luckily i’ve had the space and ability and sheer power of will to re-rewire my brain to the way i want it to be, more or less.
this is such a good analogy and also i hate that i relate
love you, friend <3
Thank you so much for this commentary… I’m going through a situation with my ex, a straight, cis dude whom I broke up with 8 months ago. I still feel guilt about doing the dumping / leaving, and I tried to do it in as civil and as compassionate a way as I could possibly conceive of. He asked me if we could still be friends, and i said yes because that came totally out of left field, and I didn’t see it coming. Now, he’s sort of taking advantage of the fact that I still answer his calls and occasionally will still see him as a friend. He keeps trying to wedge his way back into my life, and simply refuses to acknowledge or respect the fact that I’ve realized I’m attracted to women, and never was that attracted to him in the first place. We’ve had “that talk” about three times now!! It’s just another example of how men are just raised (for the most part) to believe the world is their oister while women (for the most part) are raised to believe our mission in life is to make everyone else happy and comfortable!! But you see, it’s almost impossible to just cut him off because we’ve been friends for, like, 10 years! I really want to have a girlfriend in the future, and to move on! I think I’m going to have to be more explicit and forceful the next time we have “that talk”. Oh, I have so much to learn about relationships, and I don’t feel confident or competent at all when navigating them. I’m so afraid of dumping or leaving someone again in the future because, at my core, I’m just a loner, and I wanna’ “drive” my own life!
Thank you so much for sharing all of your perspectives! This is so so relevant to me right now. I’ve always been the cut-it-off-and-never-look-back type but I also had no idea what I was doing and was probably letting my trauma brain run the show ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So, this time around I’m trying to be emotionally healthy and talk shit out instead of making decisions out of fear. Looking to all of you who have stayed friends with your exes as inspiration! I’ve never done it (or even attempted)! Here’s hoping.