Can a woman truly be friends with an ex boyfriend?
After a good amount of time from a a mutual breakup, can a man and woman truly be just friends?
In some cases, yes. I'm currently on friendly terms with two of my exes. It took some time to get to that point, but we can talk to each other without it being complicated. My most recent ex I wouldn't want to be friends with because we didn't have a good break up, he has way too many issues.
Generally speaking the best friendships between exes occurs after there has been a large gap of time since they broke up. They've both moved on to being involved or married to other people and bump into one another.
They exchange email addresses and drop each other a line from time to time. Even with that in most scenarios their contact is often done without their current mate's knowledge. One of the main problems with the exes can be friends arrangement is oftentimes their current mates/spouses don't approve of it. The only exception is if they had children together. Even then they want them having limited contact.
In fact this is one of the reasons why many best friendships between "platonic male and female friends" tend to drift apart.
Someone falls in love with a person who objects to their friendship. Most people will choose love over a "platonic friendship" with the opposite sex.
Having said that it is probably unrealistic to expect to go from "red hot lovers" to a brother/sister friendship. Rarely is their instance where both people want to end a relationship at the same time.
The person who initiated the breakup offers friendship as a "consolation prize" as not to feel like the "bad guy" and the hurt person accepts it with the hope that one day they might reconcile.
It's not a "real platonic friendship".
They can be friends as long as the attraction they had for one another is gone.
It depends on the personalities of both you and him....the reason(s) for the break-up.....and how much time has passed since it's been over.
One of my exes is also a very good friend. It wasn't that way immediately after the break up. I was the one who walked away, but it was due to numerous screw-ups (lies, games, etc.) on HIS part.....so I was disgusted and angry for a while.
Then after some time, when I came to the realization that the break-up was a blessing in disguise, we were able to have conversations and I let bygones be bygones. It was his loss anyway.
I've maintained a decent relationship with my ex-husband although he runs hot and cold. (some things never change) One minute he'll be happy & pleasant.....the next he's a nasty p-r-i-c-%......that's when I just walk away.
I don't think it's possible for exes to ever be really close friends.....because if you could do that, you'd not have broken up to begin with...doesn't that just make sense?
It depends on the persons involved. I am a long distance friend with a high school boyfriend. We include our spouses in our friendship and discuss everything openly. It is a friendship where we talk about the past and about current happenings. I know many women who had bad breakups and will have nothing to do with these exes, even if the ex desires a friendship. One friend had a boyfriend, a divorce and remarriage to her ex husband. Sometimes reuniting, or keeping a friendship with someone from the past can cause problems in a marriage or in current relationships. We all make choices and hope they are good decisions.
by Shanaaya Taneez 8 years ago
Hmm what would be the perfect birthday message for an ex boyfriend??its been 1 yr we r not together..its his birthday cming..we dnt usually talk but when we meet we still say hi hello... I want to wish him happy birthday and plz I need the perfect message wishing him all the joy and all ...
by Blondy2 9 years ago
The ex boyfriend wants to set me up with someone he knows, should I do it?My ex boyfriend and ex good friend are now dating for a month now and I have had no contact with either one of them . This bothers me because they both betrayed my trust in them. The ex boyfriend has found someone...
by Blondy2 12 years ago
The ex boyfriend has now become friends with your good girlfriend. Is it possible to be friends?I am trying to get over my ex boyfriend but now he has become friends with a good friend of mine, who I see on a frequent basis and we share a larger circle of friends among us so that makes it a little...
by Ashukah 15 years ago
I haven't been contacting my exboyfriend at all since he broke up with me about three weeks ago. I did call him a couple of times to talk about our friend that recently passed away. He was the one who broke up by the way. Anyway, I was on Facebook earlier and I did not talk to him, but he started...
by brokenhearted 10 years ago
My Ex boyfriend says that he doesn't want to be in a relationship with me should i jus move on?I'm jus wondering should i keep waiting for him to want me back or should I jus move on because its been 4months and he tells me the same thing all the time he doesnt wanna be with me so would all the...
by Ashukah 15 years ago
My boyfriend and I have recently broken up three days ago after a 2 year and 7 month relationship. He says he is stressed and doesn't really know what to think/feel. The stress is from our best friend dying with cancer and some people who are giving him crap for various reasons. It's just a variety...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |