My last serious boyfriend and I dated for six years. In that time, we experienced a lot of milestones and firsts together — college graduations, first jobs, promotions, second jobs, two major moves and some pretty heavy family and personal struggles.
After six years and so much history with him, I think it goes without saying that I was entirely devastated when we broke up. It took me a REALLY long time to get over that break up. I dated other people, but I was never really ready to open myself up to someone else so completely again. Until about a year ago. So what changed? When he and I broke up, we maintained contact. We lived in the same neighborhood (let me also add that we both lived 1500+ miles away from our families and most of our good friends) and had countless other personal and professional connections. Our breakup was messy and without getting into too many details, I’ll just say that while we both knew it was over, neither was willing (or able, really) to let it go. We kept seeing each other for months post-breakup and continued to be a shoulder for the other to lean on when they needed it.
After a few months of this up and down, back and forth craziness, I couldn’t take anymore. I stopped picking up the phone when he called, and didn’t return texts or emails. I felt like a little piece of my soul died every time I saw his name pop up on my computer screen or my cell phone, but I felt the exact same way each time I was with him, knowing that we were no longer together and that our feelings for one another had shifted. We didn’t see each other or speak for nearly three months (a momentous feat in such a small town). Another wrinkle in the situation: we had shared assets that we needed to figure out how to handle. Shared bank accounts, shared storage space and other items that we had acquired over the years that we had to sort through. As much as I didn’t want to, I HAD to see him at some point.
When I finally felt as though I had enough strength to sit through what was sure to be a lengthy conversation with my now ex (and once I knew my liver could again handle the excess amount of alcohol that would be necessary for this conversation, too), I finally picked up when he called and we made plans to meet up.
As I anticipated, our conversation was painful, incredibly lengthy and very, very drunk. The part of the conversation that I did NOT expect was when we both somehow decided that we wanted to try to be friends. (Looking back, I blame it on the multiple pints of delicious, dark beer — it gets me every single time). Both of us wanted to give it a shot, because through the hurt and confusion and anger, we still somehow cared for one another.
We continued to talk every now and again over the next several months and occasionally met after work for dinner or some drinks. At one point, I actually thought MAYBE we could make this friendship happen. Fast forward several months, countless conversations, some awkward encounters and a few major MAJOR fights and I had begun to question whether or not we could make this work… and moreover, why I wanted to. It was hard. It was painful and trying to maintain a friendship with my ex was making it almost impossible to completely get over the hurt and move on. I spent a lot of nights wide awake and thinking about countless questions. One seemed to always linger longer and ring louder than any other:
Can ex’s really be friends, and should they be?
If you truly care (or cared) for someone — especially someone that you were sleeping with — how does one simply push aside the romantic feelings that once existed to maintain a simply platonic relationship? Is it truly possible, or to many ex’s that maintain friendships simply mask those feelings that may still exist in some form? Can you ever move on and really invest your time and heart in someone new if you’re still holding on to a piece of a past relationship by maintaining a friendship with your ex? Is it fair to potential new partners? In trying to hold on to a friendship with an ex (or ex’s), are you being unfair to yourself?
Life & Love 