Does breaking up mean you can never be friends again? Let's take a look at why our current breakup script is outdated.

Can exes truly never be friends? It’s time to challenge our outdated breakup mindset.

How to Be Friends with Your Ex: When, Why, and How to Make It Work

How to Be Friends With Your Ex

Before we start, I want to state the obvious: if you’re leaving a relationship on bad terms then the following advice on how to be friends with your ex likely won’t pertain to your situation. Most of us have all been through breakups that are so painful that there is no path to future friendship. Sometimes a partner does something that’s so fucked up that repair isn’t on the table. While it sucks, it does happen. I’m not trying to tell you to put aside your rightful anger and hurt to be friends. What we’re going to explore today are the other cases - where mismatched needs, poor communication, or other benign factors caused the relationship to end. 

Why Romantic Relationships Aren’t Always Meant to Last Forever

The end of any relationship can be rather painful, but what makes it worse is the monogamous 

expectation that romantic relationships should last forever

. Encoded into mainstream understandings of romantic relationships are lofty promises that for a relationship to be successful people need to commit to one another no matter what. Mainstream relationship advice often quips “If you’re not dating to marry, you’re dating to break up” as if short-term relationships lack value. The goal of dating for many people is marriage which includes “til death do us part” vows. While the underlying vow to be together through tough times helps create an aura of security for some; we can’t ignore how those words cast breakups as not only failures but as broken promises. If you’re in a monogamous relationship and you’re simply desiring sex outside the relationship, it might be time to consider a new relationship dynamic or a 

The glaring problem with the expectation of forever is that you can’t ensure that a relationship will last, no matter how good it is now. When we view breakups as broken promises or failures, we add a level of shame and blame to the ordeal. Someone must have done something horrible to cause the end of the partnership. To be fair, sometimes that is the case, but often it isn’t as black and white. But when we insist that one person assumes fault, taking on the bad guy position, we rewrite the relationship story focusing on the end rather than recognizing the years and decades of good that preceded it. Often each person insists the other is to blame, it wasn’t them who caused the problem, they aren’t the one who ruined everything. Not only is this expectation unfair to each person, but it also doesn’t reflect reality. 

In many cases, two people who were initially compatible, who shared years of fun and love, over time outgrow the relationship. Sometimes people come to realize that they feel stuck in habits that have solidified over time. Leaving the relationship feels like the only way to honor the differences that have developed. That doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone is in the wrong. However, when we culturally expect people to stay together forever, these differences or changing needs can turn sour as each person attempts to change the other rather than recognizing an incompatibility that is inherently no one’s fault.

How to Be Friends With Your Ex When Life Is Deeply Intertwined

Beyond the emotional toll of a breakup, if you’ve merged your life with your partner, leaving the relationship can be complicated. Parents may agonize over the impact that a breakup could have on their children. Finding separate housing can be unnecessarily stressful. And for those who have joint finances or a partner that has stayed home, the economic implications can feel like an enormous hurdle. 

It’s no secret that under neoliberal governments, many people live in rather alienated and varying levels of precarious economic situations that don’t permit them to make relationship decisions without factoring in how they will impact their material conditions. If you have isolated yourself into your romantic partnership and neglected your friend and community relationships, it can feel even harder to leave a partner. We all want to feel supported, especially when we’re going through major life changes. But if your partner has been your primary and sole support system, even while the relationship was deteriorating, fears about being alone during a hard time can be reasonably deterrent. 

What intensifies this situation is that most normal breakup scripts, encourage exes to completely cut off contact. As we mentioned earlier, if you subscribe to the notion that one person must be in the wrong to justify a breakup, then the prospect of remaining connected can feel impossible. However, by challenging these assumptions, we can create a more flexible set of expectations that prioritizes each person coming out of the relationship as harmoniously as possible. Changing up the breakup script can reduce the cost of exit, which ultimately empowers both people to leave if things no longer work.

I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations about groups of queer people, however, it must be said that because women-loving women are a minority, we tend to congregate and intermix. Especially in smaller cities, it’s not unusual for a friend group of lesbians to have all dated or hooked up with one another. While it may be a stereotype, I have certainly been in communities that can be mapped onto The L Word style Chart. I bring this up to point out that while there are certainly some exceptions, generally queer women have a slightly different approach and understanding of breakups that can be useful for others to learn from. 

When we belong to a small community, that we can’t easily replace, there is at least theoretically a level of responsibility that emerges. This is especially true when it’s culturally acceptable for people to date each other’s exes. Couples understand that if they treat each other in horrible ways during a breakup, it has the potential to impact their entire group and social network. In best-case scenarios, a close-knit community can provide support to both people who are breaking up and create expectations of respect and ultimately friendship following the end of the romantic relationship. If you know that you’re going to continue seeing your previous partner and still wondering how to be friends with your ex, you may be forced to be on your best behavior even if the breakup feels painful. And I see this a lot in my own queer circles. Exes continue to be in contact and even hang out regularly following breakups because they share the same community. 

Of course, sometimes this intermingling turns extra toxic. I will say this tends to be the case with younger groups of queer who are perhaps more prone to sensationalism and drama. I’ve heard many cases of friend groups ostracizing one person after overblown allegations came out during a breakup only for them to be disproven years later. I’ve also heard friend groups break off into factions each defending one over the other. Young messy breakups are inevitable, but I’ve noticed that for the most part, over time community-centered values become more crystalized and members try to be more even-tempered to protect the network of relationships. Maturity does take away some of the reactionary edges. 

Clearly, there isn’t one blanket answer to the question of whether exes can be friends or not. Some people have vitriolic responses to their current partner even texting an ex. Needless to say, these folks won’t take my advice, and it’s not my goal to change their minds. However, I know that many people deeply love one another even if the relationship isn’t working anymore. It can be excruciatingly painful to imagine the person that you’ve shared so much of your life with completely disappearing from your life. The potential to remain friends, co-parents, or friendly acquaintances can ease the pain of a breakup.

What is crucial to this process is setting clear expectations ahead of time. I’ve noticed that a lot of straight people say they will “stay friends” as a disingenuous pacifying hypothetical when they break up. But if there is a real desire to remain in each other’s lives, it’s important to be clear. Each person must be respectful as the relationship ends, give each other space following the breakup to mourn and process their feelings, and follow through on the commitment to reconnect and resume a platonic relationship afterward. What ruins this process is when both people let their emotions get the best of them and act in hurtful and ugly ways. Or they underestimate the amount of time they need away from one another.

It’s especially helpful to define some shared values that you both want to protect throughout the breakup. For example, if you have children then committing to work together as loving co-parents can be instrumental in reshaping the nature of your dynamic. If you both share a similar passion, continuing to do that activity together can help preserve your connection after a breakup. If you share a friend group, then clarifying that you don’t want your breakup to create fractures can help everyone be on the same page. Whatever it is that you want to preserve, being explicit and setting this as a goal can give you both a sense of direction. 

Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee that a romantic relationship can successfully be transformed into a friendship, even if this is the sincere goal of both parties. I’ve had a relationship that was primarily built on friendship turn sour and fizzle after a breakup even though I was very confident that we would remain integral parts of each other’s lives. And conversely, I’ve said what I thought were forever goodbyes to a partner only for them to remain a close friend. We can’t always predict what will happen. 

What I do think is important is giving ourselves the option to stay friends. While it’s still a taboo for many people to have exes in their lives, this ideology doesn’t have to endure. There are countless reasons why we may want to remain close to people we have been in relationships with in the past. Accepting that exes are not evil assholes who want to cause us pain or steal us away from current partners helps us have a more sane attitude toward breakups. We can’t prevent the end of relationships, but we can create healthier options afterward if we want. 