The Key to Staying Friends with Exes

Do as I say, not as I do.

I have a friend who has always managed to stay friends with her exes. If I’m honest, I thought that was weird. I didn’t have any exes I wanted to remain friendly with after the relationship ended, which probably said a lot about my relationship history. But then, I did. I suddenly understood the desire to keep someone in our lives even when the relationship status shifted out of the realm of romance.

I had a relationship with someone who became my favorite person and very best friend. I loved everything about him. I wasn’t blind to his faults, but it was just a part of the bigger picture. And I loved the bigger picture. I’d never felt that way before about anyone I’d dated — like our relationship was built on a stronger foundation than just romance.

So, when the relationship ended, I wanted to be able to keep the friendship. Because otherwise, I would lose my lover and my best friend all at the same time. It seemed like too much. Even though I still loved him, I tried to shift the relationship from love to friendship. If that sounds impossible, it was.

It’s probably easy to see that it didn’t last. I couldn’t keep the friendship, as much as I wanted to. I did try, but I failed in so many ways. We managed to make a complete mess of it.

The Key to Staying Friends with Exes

So, this is the part where anyone reading should do as I say, not as I do. I learned from that experience of trying to be friends and failing, and I’d like to pass on those lessons. I do believe it’s possible to keep former lovers as true friends — my friend has proven this time and time again — but guidelines can help us as we transition.

Keep Being Honest

Here’s where I screwed up. In that transition, when I was brokenhearted, I didn’t want him to see me broken. To be fair, I never like for people to see me cry. I spent a lot of time on calls that were muted on my end so that he wouldn’t hear just how hard of a time I was having. From the moment, he broke my heart, I stopped being honest with him.

Part of this was a deep need for privacy in my grief, but another aspect of hiding my feelings was to protect his. I didn’t want to make him feel bad. I respected his choice even if it wasn’t my own. I wasn’t trying to make him responsible for my feelings. But what I should have done was to be honest about mine.

If we want to make that transition, we can’t protect them from our pain. If they truly want to stay friends, they’ll need to sit with that discomfort as we shift the relationship. We can’t build a true friendship on lies or half-truths. If we want to truly make the leap friends, we need to stay honest about what we’re going through. This also includes when we start dating again.

Take a Break First

Honesty is important, but I truly wish I’d given myself a break first. There’s a reason the no-contact rule works for breakups. It gives us a chance to heal and detach from the relationship. Without a pause or break in between, it can be confusing to stay in contact. It can give us — the brokenhearted — a sense of false hope when the only thing that seems to have changed is our relationship status.

I highly recommend asking for space and taking a break before trying to resume a friendship. It can make this transition easier, even if it doesn’t feel that way initially. We need that time to feel our feelings fully and to process the relationship. It’s just too much to ask someone with a broken heart to proceed as if nothing has changed when, in fact, everything has. I wish I’d asked for that time — and been brave enough to have taken it.

Decide on the Boundaries

Let’s be honest: we don’t always want to hear about the other person moving on. If that’s the case, we need to be clear about what we’re open to hearing and what we’d rather not. I would have liked to have known he was dating before scrolling through their selfies in his feed. It would have been far less jarring. Discussing some boundaries, particularly in the beginning, can help make a transition from a romantic relationship to a friendship.

Those boundaries should also include future relationships. It’s not fair to ask someone to be our friend only while we’re single and then toss them aside the second we enter the next relationship. We need to discuss boundaries upfront about how to maintain a friendship even when one or both parties have moved on with someone else. What will that friendship look like? How will we explain it to the next person? We need to think this through because feelings are messy, and we need to make sure we’re making good choices as we heal.

Be Honest with Ourselves

I wasn’t just dishonest with him. I was dishonest with myself. I wanted him to change his mind. I didn’t see him as just a friend, and as much as I acknowledged his right to change his mind and see me differently, I kept hoping he would change it again. Sometimes, we need to be honest with ourselves and admit that maybe we want to be friends but can’t quite manage it yet.

I miss that friendship. I miss having my favorite person to laugh with and talk things over. But I don’t think being friends immediately after the breakup was the right choice for my mental and emotional health. I should have been honest with myself about that. As much as I wanted it, I just wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t be ready for a very long time.

We should also be honest with ourselves when we can’t do it. If I had truly considered the cost of trying to stay friends, if I had been honest about my feelings, I would have admitted that I just couldn’t do it — even though I wanted to. It wasn’t in my best interests, and it didn’t help my healing.

There are also relationships I’ve had where the other person wanted to maintain a friendship when I didn’t. That requires a level of honesty with ourselves, too. Sometimes, the hurt cuts too deep, and we don’t want to continue that contact after the romantic relationship dissolves.

The Shift from Lover to Friend

I’m a sucker for a friends-to-lovers romance story, but I’ve never loved the reality of going from lovers to friends. It’s a painful process. It requires seeing that person in a whole new light, and it also involves being willing to see them move on with someone else. We can’t all do it, and that’s okay.

It’s okay not to want to be friends with exes. It’s okay to want a clean break from the people in our past. And it’s also okay to want to stay friends if possible. We get to decide what feels right for us.

Don’t do what I did. Don’t try it while hiding your true feelings. Don’t do it in hopes that they’ll see how wonderful you are and change their minds. Do it when you’re ready — or don’t do it at all.

I sometimes wish I could go back and tell myself to stop trying so hard to hold it together. I wish I could give myself permission to go ahead and fall apart, even if it was hard for him to witness. I wish I was brave enough to be honest — and braver still to have protected my healing heart a little longer. My heart was broken when the relationship ended, and it broke even more when the friendship — built on the lie that I was okay — fell apart.

It’s possible to be friends with exes — if both people value the friendship and would like it to continue. I truly believe that. But I also believe that it takes care moving forward. It’s not something we can just jump right into and be okay. The truth is that sometimes it’s just not going to happen, and we have to learn to make our peace with that, too.