very interesting...maybe it all comes down to how the relationship ended?? obviously it it's messy you're not going to be eager to maintain any kind of "-ship"...and whether or not you were friends before you started dating.
sure. It also depends, I think, on how far you went on the relationship spectrum. If you were friends, dated for a few weeks, and it just wasn't working, it's probably fairly easy to get back to a good friendship. If you were engaged and say it ended OK, it still might be hard to get back to a friendship even if you had a strong one prior to getting involved.
To tell the truth (and so Esteban doesn't feel like he was the only one vulnerable on this thread!) there was an ex that I was great friends with, we dated, it ended. It was bad at least on my end since I was one heartbroken little lady. But for a long time (once I got over the heartbreak) I wished we could be friends because I missed what a special friendship we had. I had to accept that, at least in our situation, this wasn't possible.
Too messy. So much time has passed that perhaps it could be OK but now out of respect for my husband, I just don't think it would be appropriate. My husband, by the way, is fantastically NOT jealous and has no problem with me being friends with guys in general but geez, you gotta have some boundaries. And he knows the whole story so he would definitely not be OK with it!
thank you for sharing that....and you're right it is important to have some boundaries....all this talk makes me think of the closest thing i had to a relationship and even though we get along still whenever we cross paths i know it's smarter to keep it at that and not pursue hanging out on a regular basis.
sure. It also depends, I think, on how far you went on the relationship spectrum. If you were friends, dated for a few weeks, and it just wasn't working, it's probably fairly easy to get back to a good friendship. If you were engaged and say it ended OK, it still might be hard to get back to a friendship even if you had a strong one prior to getting involved.
To tell the truth (and so Esteban doesn't feel like he was the only one vulnerable on this thread!) there was an ex that I was great friends with, we dated, it ended. It was bad at least on my end since I was one heartbroken little lady. But for a long time (once I got over the heartbreak) I wished we could be friends because I missed what a special friendship we had. I had to accept that, at least in our situation, this wasn't possible.
lol...i've been waiting for a good time to pop in here...
I've been here before--I wished we could be friends too, but I had to realize that in order to "get over" it, I had to cut ties. And it worked. For me, it was not possible to stay friends, and I'm okay with that.
Now, 5 years later, we've become "friends" on myspace, but we never even keep in contact--no emails, no comments. I'm perfectly fine with that!
Yep, I think AustinPiggy is right, when you've moved on and you're with someone else, consideration for who you're with has to be made. I'm lucky that my girlfriend doesn't want anything to do with her ex's, but she's been really understanding with me being friends with one of mine, and despised the other one so much because she wouldn't leave me alone.
I had to be quite forceful to cut her off, I don't think subtlety would've worked at all, I practically had to spell out that I didn't want anything to do with her. Every so often even now, 3 years on, she still sends me text messages asking how I'm doing, or wishes me happy birthday/christmas/easter/new year, I've stopped replying now.
I'm all out of courtesy and manners where she's concerned.
in all seriousness Esteban it was interesting to hear both a good and bad experience......i imagine it's harder to stay friends with an ex than it is to cut 'em off completely?
It takes effort, cutting them off is easier long term but you feel like shit for doing it.
There's a depend factor there too . my kids' mom and I get along great but another ex of mine i'll still go to a show with once in a while but most often we cancel out but weirdly still inform each other of art events , shows , movies . I think it's cause that was an area of great interest for the both of us .
.....do you ever get frustrated by the 'trigger' things? like songs that you know they liked? or foods/stores etc, etc......i use to get really upset (this was obviously before i was "over it") whenever i was reminded of this guy but now i just kinda laugh and i'm sure there's things that remind him of me. we were close so it's impossible not to have stuff like that.
.....do you ever get frustrated by the 'trigger' things? like songs that you know they liked? or foods/stores etc, etc......i use to get really upset (this was obviously before i was "over it") whenever i was reminded of this guy but now i just kinda laugh and i'm sure there's things that remind him of me. we were close so it's impossible not to have stuff like that.
That stuff bothered me before I was over it but now that I've been with my husband for so long all my "things" with exs are way long ago so I just feel neutral about the trigger place or thing. But sometimes a person from my past (boyfriend or just friend) will float into my head and I find myself wondering how much I randomly float into other people's head due to some old inside joke or thing in common.
