5 Times It Makes Sense to Stay Friends With Your Ex

Breakups are rarely easy, and they can seem even more complicated when you want to stay friends with your ex. While sometimes, the simplest way to get over the end of relationship is a clean break, that's not the obvious path for those who still want the other person in their life.

But do you want to maintain this relationship for the right reasons, or because you're not quite ready to move on? Every situation is different, so let's explore some of the times it makes sense to stay friends with your ex (and the times it's time to let them go for good).

Your Friendship Preceded the Relationship

Close friendships can sometimes develop into relationships, and even when they don't work out, that friendship doesn't necessarily have to end. Since you were friends before, that may actually be a more familiar and comfortable baseline for you both to exist within, and you may slip back into that rhythm surprisingly easily after a breakup. When you've already supported and cared for each other for years in a platonic way, a split might not be good enough reason to change that, as long as you're both in agreement about what you want out of the continued friendship.

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Also read about: 5 Reasons You Should Be Thankful for Your Ex, Even If You Hate Them

 

The Romance Fizzled in a Healthy Way

Sometimes, relationships end because you realize you're not actually interested in each other in a romantic sense. Physical and emotional attraction can be unpredictable, and it can take some time together to realize that you're not romantically compatible or you simply don't have the same priorities or values for a partnership. When you're both on the same page about this, agreeing you'd both be happier in a completely platonic relationship, there's little chance of accidentally sparking the romance back up.

It's also much easier to stay friends if things ended in a healthy, amicable and respectful way—not in a shouting match or with toxicity and drama. When there are no hard feelings and you have closure about the breakup, carrying on as friends can be totally uncomplicated.

 

You Both Plan to Stay Single for a Bit

One of the reasons being friendly with an ex is so complicated is because you don't only have your own feelings to consider. Whether you or your ex starts quickly dating someone new, that friendship can introduce a lot of unneeded conflict and security on an undeveloped partnership. Trying to balance this new relationship with the existing friendship can get complicated, fast, with both typically suffering as a result. Things are so much more straightforward when you're both happy to be single for a while as you rebuild. Give it time to really figure out what it means to be friends again before you mess up potential relationships or leave the old behind to focus entirely on the new.

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Also read about: 5 Ways to Get Over an Ex

 

You Want to Stay in Each Others Lives (Without Needing Each Other in a That Way)

Before you jump into staying friends with your ex, make sure you're keeping the friendship going for the right reasons. This should be someone you genuinely like spending time with in a fully platonic way, not someone you hope to rekindle a romance with, or whose presence you crave just because you're feeling lonely or rejected. It's unhealthy to keep someone around to basically pretend you're still in a relationship with them. If you're still seeking closure or to resolve some kind of hurt caused by the breakup, that's not what friendship is for. In that case, being too invested in those aspects of the relationship might be precisely why you need to let them go.

 

You Have a Mutual Understanding

Above everything else, this kind of friendship with someone you previously dated only works if you're both on the same page about things. You have to both be fully ready to move on from the relationship, and emotionally mature enough to deal with whatever baggage that might bring to being friends. Together, you need to agree to move forward and not fall back into old habits, just being there for each other and setting aside any feelings that might arise. Chances are that things are going to change a little bit, and you need to be ready to adapt to whatever this  platonic friendship looks like, and to speak up if anything is off or the ground rules need to be clarified as you go.

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Confused about the end of a relationship? Click HERE to get some advice on what to do if you regret breaking up with your ex.