Can you stay friends with your ex?
Remember that not all breakups have to be completely toxic and terrible. It’s a myth that people always have to completely sever ties with a person that they once have had a romantic history with. That’s not always necessarily the case. If people approach things correctly, it’s perfectly fine to stay friends with an ex. There’s nothing wrong to it so as long as there is no malice or bad faith involved in the equation. Even the couples who don’t have happy breakups still have the potential to maintain a completely platonic friendship after. There is always a chance to turn a completely ruined romantic relationship into a healthy innocent friendship that is built for the ages.
It just takes a great deal of maturity on both sides in order for things to really work out in a healthy manner. The logic seems to work. You would never really date anyone you don’t enjoy spending time with, right? The same kind of rationale applies to friends as well. You wouldn’t really be friends with anyone you don’t like to hang out with. It makes no sense for you to want to cut ties with someone you enjoy being around. Just because you couldn’t make things work on a romantic level doesn’t necessarily mean that you wouldn’t be able to make things work on a platonic level too.
You don’t always have to let go of a potential friendship just because you have had romantic history together. It’s all a matter of playing your cards right. At first, it might seem completely impossible to be friends with an ex (especially when the wounds of a breakup are still fresh), that is rarely ever the case. Not to say that you should be friends with ALL of your exes; it’s just that you shouldn’t think it to be an impossibility to maintain a friendship after a breakup. So if you’re interested in staying friends with an ex, here are a few tips to help you out with that.
1. Make your separation as clean as humanly possible.
While it can be impossible to avoid a dirty break up sometimes, it’s not necessarily going to be an unsalvageable situation. Leave things out in the open and always try to end things on good terms. Ideally, you won’t be harboring any ill feelings as you move in with your individual lives.
If the breakup is still fresh, the best course of action to take would be to try and forget that you and your ex were ever a thing. You don’t want to be keeping tabs on what your ex is up to if you really want to try to forget. So go ahead and mute them on social media if you have to.
3. Take some time to be apart from one another.
Time and distance are great tools for helping emotional wounds heal. If you want to get your relationship back to a healthy place in a friendly sense, then you really need to take some time apart to recover.
4. Use this opportunity to reflect on what you really want to come out of this.
Take some time for yourself. Reflect on how you want to move on. Think about the steps that you need to take to get to the place where you want to be.
5. Plan out a meticulously platonic hangout session.
So you are both okay now. You are both open to the idea of being friends even after breaking up. That’s great. Plan out a friendly hangout session ideally in a nonromantic setting in the presence of other friends as well so as to diffuse any potential awkwardness.
6. Keep things as innocent and light as possible.
There’s no need to allow old heavy emotions to resurface. Keep topics of conversation light and innocent to avoid any unnecessary drama.
7. Don’t fall back into old habits.
Refrain from engaging in any habits that you both used to do back when you were together. Get rid of all pet names that you may have set for one another. Think of this as a brand new slate for the both of you to start over.
8. Don’t engage one another in any flirtatious advances.
This shouldn’t even be a remote possibility. Don’t flirt with one another. Friends don’t flirt with each other. That’s not normal friendly behavior and it would be best for you to refrain from doing so.
9. Don’t give in to potentially jealous behavior.
It might be weird seeing your ex get over you and perhaps even start a new relationship with another person. You shouldn’t let it affect you or influence your behavior much. Try to stifle those feelings of jealousy as much as possible.
10. Let go of the idea that you used to be romantically involved with one another.
Forget that you used to date. You are starting a new friendship and that’s all you really need to be thinking about at the moment.
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