disneychrista
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2002
Can you truly be friends with an ex after an amicable break up?
I think you can be reasonably friendly.Can you truly be friends with an ex after an amicable break up?
I am friends with ex-girlfriends but haven’t been married with children / divorced.
I find this alternate question amusing. So, this person was the most important person in your life, and now you want absolutely nothing to do with them? How does that make sense?
Even weirder to think about hanging around with somebody you dumped and everybody supposed to be acting like (s)he wasn't hurt. Honestly, the only way I can imagine anything like this working (not including the co-parent situation) is if the relationship was fairly low-stakes to begin with and both parties mutually agreed it wasn't working.It doesn't make sense to me to want to stay in touch with someone who rejected you. Too painful.
But do you actually talk to and see these people on a regular basis?Sure! I'm Facebook friends with an ex-wife and two old girlfriends.
No, we all live far apart now.But do you actually talk to and see these people on a regular basis?
Very, very often those outside-looking-in have NO CLUE what's actually going on in other people's relationships, especially if they don't really want to know. It's one of those things you just have to let go of because there's no way after the fact to have your side given a fair hearing. I'd imagine in your case the death of their family member makes them even more prone to canonize him as saintly even if at one point they did have a more realistic picture. And really - who cares what they think? It may sting a little if you lost relationships that were important to you amongst his family, but there's really no winning this one.I think it would be very difficult. I am not friends w/any of my ex's. I have not seen my first husband in 23 years. If I saw him now, I would be nice to him. I am at the point where I don't really have any ill will against him. I feel as if we were both just too young to "play house" and it MIGHT have been just a little bit to blame for the way things ended up. I have no idea how he feels though. I am just at the point where I don't hold any anger over what went on in our marriage anymore. If I saw him today, I would be fine with it, and I would have no problem being nice to him. I do not think I would want to socialize with him on a regular basis, that would be too weird though. I have crossed paths w/his father before (even in recent years)... we have had nice conversations. I actually like my ex-father in-law quite a bit.
My second husband is now deceased, so ever having a friendly relationship is not an option. He passed away within a year of the divorce. We parted on bad terms, and there is no way to repair that. If he were still alive, I would not want to be anywhere near him. When I left, I did not even tell him where I was living (although he did somehow manage to find out). I have heard that his family has been talking "poo" about me saying that I am like the most evil person in the world for this whole divorce. I am sorry things turned out the way they did, but there was not any way I could live with him and endure the things he was putting me through any longer. I stayed with him much longer than I should have, and put up with much more than I should have.