Sample Email to an Ex You Want to Be Friends Again
Tin can You Be Friends With Your Ex? Expert Tips & Everything To Consider
If your relationship ends on good terms, it's perfectly reasonable to wonder if information technology's possible to be friends with your ex. Subsequently all, this person is probable someone you genuinely similar and relish spending time with, likewise as someone with whom you lot probably have shared experiences, ideas, values, and interests. To give up all of that just considering you realized a romantic relationship won't work between yous 2 may very well feel similar throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
And then let's talk almost how to be friends with your ex—and when information technology does and doesn't work.
Is it a good idea to exist friends with your ex?
Yes, it's absolutely possible to be friends with your ex. Whether it'due south a good idea will depend on the situation and the people involved. Some people are able to have healthy, positive relationships with their exes without any difficulty or complications, whereas others detect that trying to stay friends ends upward being unnecessarily messy or even painful.
According to licensed matrimony therapist Weena Cullins, LCMFT, sometimes two people find they don't work every bit romantic partners, but there are aspects of their human relationship that are still valuable and tin can be healthily maintained through a friendship.
"Beingness friends with your ex can exist a skillful idea when other aspects of the relationship were valuable to your growth, evolution, or life goals," she explains. "If you lot and your ex identify that you make meliorate business partners, workout buddies, or friends, and y'all are able to maintain healthy boundaries with each other, and then creating an authentic friendship could work."
She adds that information technology tin be especially beneficial if you and your ex accept children together. Though she says friendships aren't necessary for successful co-parenting, information technology may create an easier surround for both the parents and the kids. "It can as well provide increased flexibility with managing schedules, discipline problems, and the general menses of information."
That said, being friends with an ex tin sometimes make it harder to successfully motility on from the relationship if there are still lingering romantic feelings for each other or if tension arises when y'all both start dating other people.
When you can stay friends with an ex:
- Y'all've taken fourth dimension to process and accept the finish of the romantic relationship.
- Yous both have accepted that the human relationship is really over (and understand why it happened).
- You experience like you have emotionally moved on from the human relationship, and your ex has, besides.
- You no longer accept romantic feelings for each other or want to be in a romantic relationship.
- Your relationship to each other no longer feels emotionally charged; it feels similar energetically to your other friendships.
- Both you and your ex can spend time together without information technology feeling painful, tense, distracting, or inappropriately intimate.
- Yous no longer feel attached to, dependent on, or "partnered" with one some other. You both have fully dissever, independent, private lives.
- You're both able to maintain appropriate boundaries and manage cornball feelings that may come up without falling fully into them.
- You lot both experience totally comfortable and happy dating other people, and you authentically want that for each other, too.
- You have kids together or are in each other's social or professional orbits in some way, and you need to maintain some level of interaction with each other.
- The friendship adds something positive to both of your lives, whether that'south fun, companionship, collaboration, or practicality.
When to cutting ties:
- You're secretly hoping you'll go back together.
- You nonetheless have romantic feelings for your ex, and you lot're having trouble moving on.
- Yous sense (or know) that your ex is not fully over you lot.
- Y'all're holding on because you can't imagine dating anyone else or having as strong a connexion with anyone else ever again.
- Yous're belongings on considering you are scared or unwilling to untangle your lives from 1 another and start to live independently.
- You're holding on considering you feel guilty for ending the relationship or experience like you "owe" them your attention in some mode.
- Your ex is occupying your time, free energy, or headspace, and it's affecting your power to date other people or be nowadays in other parts of your life.
- The idea of them dating someone else makes you feel jealous, uneasy, or upset.
- Talking to them or spending fourth dimension together feels painful, tense, distracting, or inappropriately intimate.
- The friendship feels ane-sided, draining, or otherwise unhealthy.
- You lot're having trouble maintaining boundaries and keep slipping into old habits from when you were dating.
- Information technology just doesn't feel good existence friends with them.
Remember, just because yous make up one's mind to go no-contact for the fourth dimension beingness doesn't mean y'all can't still care near each other and somewhen come together once again in the future to nurture a new friendship. Sometimes yous simply demand a little space offset.
Can you be friends with an ex you still dear?
It'south hard to be friends with an ex you nonetheless love, but it'southward possible. For some people, honey isn't something that they ever really "take back," even after a romantic relationship has concluded. They may continue to honey and intendance deeply about their sometime partners, though those feelings are no longer tied upward with wanting to continue dating. Every bit long equally yous wholeheartedly have that the human relationship is over and are actively moving on with your life, you tin still maintain a friendship with an ex you love.
That said, if the dear you have for your ex still feels intense, hot, emotional, or contemplative, staying friends may make it hard for you lot to let go of the relationship and fully move on.
How long should y'all wait after the breakup?
There's no ready timeline for how long it takes to get over a breakup. For some people, information technology takes simply a few weeks or months, while for others, it can take years. Information technology's important for both people to experience like they've moved on—or are in the process of doing so successfully—earlier trying to be friends. The friendship shouldn't hinder either person's ability to move on; if it is, it's likely too shortly to be in contact.
Setting boundaries with your ex.
It'due south important to set boundaries with your ex, whether or non y'all intend to stay friends. Those boundaries may include physical, emotional, fourth dimension, or energetic boundaries. It'south up to each of you to decide what boundaries y'all need in place to exist able to stay friends without it becoming messy, painful, or sliding dorsum into romantic territory.
You may want to consider:
- How frequently y'all communicate with each other
- How much yous emotionally rely on each other
- How much data yous share about your personal lives
- Whether you're going to share information about your dating lives or new partners
- Whether y'all feel comfortable spending time alone together or prefer group hangouts merely
- What level of friendliness is comfortable when you lot run into each other in person
- How much time or energy you each expect from one another
Every bit for concrete boundaries, some people feel fine with sharing physical intimacy with their exes—including having coincidental sex—but that varies widely depending on the people and the context. Cullins warns that having a sexual relationship with an ex often blurs the lines dramatically, only information technology is possible if you both come to an agreement to be friends with benefits with truly no expectations or strings fastened.
The key, says Cullins, is making sure that any human relationship you have with your ex isn't getting in the way of your ability to movement on and (if it's what you lot want) potentially connect with other people.
"If you discover that you or your ex are unable to maintain boundaries with each other, then yous should cut ties," Cullins says. "If you truly want to move on and find that your ex is even so occupying the romantic infinite that your future partner should have access to, then it's a proficient thought to cut things off completely with your ex."
Tips for making it work:
one. Give it time.
Don't attempt to rush into a friendship you lot're not prepare for. You'll probably demand at least a little fourth dimension and space immediately after the breakup before you can showtime trying to be friends with your ex. "There has to exist enough distance between the old romantic partnership and the new friendship you are trying to build," Cullins explains.
2. Make sure you're actually over each other.
The cardinal to making a friendship with an ex work is making sure you're both actually over each other. Pay attention to how you feel when y'all're effectually your ex—is the energy charged or tense? Is there a certain pull or attraction between y'all? Are you feeling a rush of butterflies or a wash of sadness when yous see their proper name appear in your texts? Does the thought of them dating someone new make full you with dread? Those are all signs that there may all the same be feelings there.
Likewise, brand sure you're taking seriously any mixed signals or signs that your ex is pretending to be over you. Every bit licensed therapist Ken Page, LCSW, recently told mbg, sometimes people prevarication to their exes—or to themselves—about how "OK" they are with the breakdown, in part because they're just trying to rush the procedure of moving on. "We want to exist resilient," he explains, but it'due south important to be emotionally honest with ourselves almost where we truly are in the stages of getting over a breakup.
3. Make sure your relationship is truly different now that you're non dating.
"Many exes make the fault of letting the friendship resemble the romantic relationship as well closely. This commonly doesn't piece of work in the long run," Cullins says.
Your friendship should not exist identical to your sometime relationship. There should be differences in your dynamic in terms of how integrated your lives are, how much y'all rely on each other, and how much intimacy you share. If your relationship is pretty much the same equally before you broke up, so did you actually suspension up? Remember: Relationships without labels are still relationships.
4. But engage as much equally information technology feels good for both of you.
Friendships should feel skilful. There's no reason to maintain a friendship with your ex if it isn't really serving you or adding something positive to your life. If the main feeling you experience whenever yous interact with your ex is dread, burnout, heartache, or merely confusion, yous don't need to continue going along with information technology just because they're your ex. (And an ex who keeps reappearing in your life and drawing you dorsum into their orbit against your will is hoovering you lot—and that's grounds for simply totally cutting things off.)
five. Accept when you need more space.
While it's definitely possible for exes to be friends, for some people and some situations it just doesn't piece of work.
"Be objective near whatever cues you notice that bespeak that a friendship isn't possible," Cullins says. "For example, if one or both of you get jealous when the other begins dating someone new, then there may non exist enough separation betwixt the old relationship and the friendship."
Information technology's OK to determine you need to have a step back if you realize that it'south too emotionally complicated to maintain a friendship with your ex. You tin can gently explain that you'd like to take some more time and space, whether for at present or for the foreseeable futurity. You tin wish each other well and express that y'all care virtually your ex, fifty-fifty as you proper name your demand for infinite and end the friendship.
And remember, fifty-fifty if you're non actively staying "friends" per se, you can still—and should—be cordial and kind to one some other someday your paths do cantankerous. You don't need to actively maintain a friendship with ane some other to still be caring toward each other.
Source: https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-be-friends-with-your-ex
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