Can people successfully be friends after being in a relationship with each other? This article will help you understand the realities of being friends with an ex.
A break up can be a difficult thing to deal with. There are so many emotions that both people will experience. The person who got dumped will often feel an intense rejection,
while the one doing the dumping will often feel an equally strong sense of guilt over the pain they are causing.
During these times, it is common to hear that old phrase “We can still be friends.”
Is it possible to be friends after a break up? Or is this just a way to let someone down easily without hurting them?
First of all, I’m going to say that it is not impossible to be friends with an ex after you two break up. However, this is usually quite difficult, especially at first. Right after the break up there are lots of feelings and trying to be friends after a break up will often be difficult.
More often than not, the person doing the dumping will say the old “We can be friends” line as a way of letting you down easily. You see, they often feel intense amounts of guilt over breaking someone’s heart.
No one likes to think of themselves as a bad person, so they will often just use the old friends line as a way of dissipating their own sense of guilt. Plus, they think it will probably take some of the sting out of the break up for the person being dumped as well.
If you really want to stay friends with your ex, I recommend that you take a period of at least one month after the break up where the two of you do not speak or see each other, if possible. This will help you work through the feelings of the break up on your own and allow you to avoid the drama of fights or those uncomfortable on-again-off-again relationships.
Whether you did the breaking up or you simply got dumped, you should focus on healing the emotional wounds of the break up during this time. Take time for yourself and learn how to be happy again as a single person.
This will make things much easier after the one month period is over and you start seeing your ex again as a friend. Keep in mind though that your ex will eventually start dating someone new. This will probably stir up a significant amount of emotion within you again, so make sure you’re ready to cope with the feelings of jealousy or desperation that often come out of these circumstances.
It isn’t impossible to be friends with your ex after a break up, but it is usually very difficult. I’m not going to tell you that it isn’t worth it, because there are many good friendships that have formed after the end of a relationship, but I’ve also seen a significantly higher number of crushed and hurt people whose “friendship” just kept them in a dramatic dance of negative emotions like jealousy and rejection. If you want to stay friends with an ex, make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons and not in an attempt to keep your ex close in the hopes of winning them back or out of a sense of guilt in hurting them when you dumped them.
A true friendship is the result of shared interests and a mutual respect of one another, not an unspoken sense of guilt or rejection.
