Hey Captain,
Long time reader, first time, etc.
I (he/him) was recently broken up with. She(/her) and I met about six months ago, and though neither of us was in a place to have a quickly-escalating relationship (we only ever saw each other about once a week) we had a strong connection and great chemistry, and I, for one, was getting very attached.
She broke up with me a few weeks ago, saying she was still very fond of me but there were two reasons not to continue:
1. She's headed into a perhaps years-long period where she doesn't feel able to sustain an intimate relationship.
2. The fact is, though we were very, very good for each other in this brief period of our lives, when the day comes that she seeks more of a long-term partner... we're probably just not super compatible for that, for a variety of reasons.
I don't think she's wrong. I miss this relationship terribly, but I think it probably has run its course.
She and I would both really like to remain friends. But I'm pretty sure that for me, at least, I need to both grieve what we had and thoroughly let go of the hope that I'll have it with her again someday before I can have a genuine friendship with her.
What I'm wondering is... how will I know when it's time? What are some things to practice, or avoid, so I can "get over" this, well, as quickly as possible? I realize the futility of trying to rush my feelings, but I guess I'm also hoping I don't have to wait the same length of time as our entire relationship, or longer, to start a friendship with her.
She's left this ball firmly in my court, so it's my own ability to process all this that I'm worried about.
It feels like I have to reach the point where I don't really care if I have any kind of relationship with her again in order to have a friendship. Which is weird and frustrating! It feels like some kind of ancient parable, where in order to have what you desire you must first stop desiring it.
I don't really want to stop desiring it, though. I guess I will, in time. Is it just that simple? Or is there more to becoming friends with an ex? It's not something I've done successfully before—there were always either too many hurt feelings, or one or both of us weren't actually over each other. I truly do want this person as a friend, even if we can never be more than that again. I don't want to screw this one up. What do I do? Or not do?
Signed,
X
Dear X,
You were together for six months? Here is my prescription:
Tell her you'd love to be friends, but you need a clean break before that will really feel like a good idea, so you'll be in touch in a few months.
Give yourself a few weeks to be sad and mope and listen to sad songs.
Then mute her socials and her number and spend the next six* months focusing on every aspect of your life that does not revolve around this lady. Resolve to excel at your field of study or work. Catch up with friends and family. If you have the means and the time, go visit people who are important to you who live far away. Get really good at some aspect of caring for yourself and daily living, like becoming a kickass home cook or setting up your living space exactly how you want it. Pick up a new sport or hobby or art project, or resurrect an old one. Volunteer for a cause you care about. If you feel ready to start dating again, go ahead and do that.
Every time you feel tempted to linger on her Instagram or other feeds or text "just to check in," make it a habit to make plans with somebody else in your life who is a source of joy and connection. She's not the only person who will ever like you, and everything that made you a cool, interesting person when you met her is still yours.
*Six is not a rule, merely a starting suggestion that you can take, leave, or adjust on the fly as you wish. **ALSO NOT A RULE, just a suggestion for starting point purposes.
At the end of the cooling off period, here's where you start:
- You will eventually meet for an awkward coffee or lunch or an after-work drink. For best results, pick somewhere brand new to both of you. This is not the time to revisit old favorites, like the park bench you first made out on or the candlelit bistro a block from the apartment where you used to fuck each other all the time. Where would you take a friend you've never thought about That Way? Go there.
- If you run into her naturally in the course of living your life within that clean break period, it's okay. Nobody broke quarantine, it just means that you have stuff in common that isn't just about dating each other, like mutual friends or being interested in the same activities. Hold onto this thought, it will come up again. If you're engineering opportunities to "just run into her" on purpose, then that's a sign you probably need another six** months. 😉
- You will likely overthink everything about this first meeting, before, during and after. And while it's admirable to want to avoid hurt feelings and keep the weird feelings you offgas to a minimum, you're gonna feel what you feel when you feel it. Just know that going in. You're both risking weird feelings because you think that the friendship that comes after will be worth it. If it turns out to be worth it, the weird feelings will dissipate and be replaced with mostly good ones. If it's not worth it, they'll dissipate because you got the hell out of a situation that made you unhappy and uncomfortable. Feelings are just information. You let 'em come in and you decide what to do about them later.
- Neither of you seem like assholes, so I predict the first hangout will go basically fine and everyone will be okay.
- Old Business: There isn't any. If at any point you are tempted to resurrect the zombie relationship so you can learn why it didn't work, aka "doing a Hi-Fidelity," it is time to go home. If you're like "Oh crap, I am still so in love," then you probably need another 60-180 Days of Not-Summer to detox. Lesson learned!
- New Business: "What have you been up to lately?" is where you wanna go, not the past. If you followed my previous instructions, you'll have stuff to tell her. And if you haven't been haunting her social media feeds, then she'll have new stuff to tell you.
- New New Business: If you've started dating someone since you broke up, it's okay to include that as part of the general update. Keep it simple and light. "I started dating someone a couple months ago, his/her/their name is ______, they're really into _______." Do not go on and on or interrogate her about her dating life. If there's stuff she wants you to know, trust that she'll tell you. If there's stuff she wants to know, trust that she'll ask you.
- There is no guarantee that you'll bounce right back to being friends after this initial meet-up, even if it feels like it went very well. The first hang is for breaking ice and seeing how everybody does with that.
- If it goes very well in the sense that you end up hooking up, know that it happens sometimes, and please also know that it does not mean you are getting back together. Every reunion tour is a retirement party until there's a next one. If it goes that way, be safe and have fun. If you're plotting to make it go that way, add a month to the clean break countdown.
- "We should totally do this again sometime" is not a promise or a plan. Never was, never will be, isn't now. You'll do this again when somebody attaches a date and a time to an invitation that the other person says yes to, and not before.
- Going forward, one of the easiest ways to forge a friendship with an ex is if there is some context other than "remember when we banged and I fell in love and you didn't so much" where it makes sense to keep interacting. What do you have in common with your other friends? What do you and she have in common with each other in terms of interests? All that stuff that made it hard to make a clean break is now the soil you can plant this new friendship in. You've got an extra ticket to see the band you both like, or you need a buddy for free night at the museum,, or you're both going to [Mutual Friend 1#]'s party, or [Mutual Friend #2] is getting the band/Trivia team/improv troupe/game night back together.
- From there, it will work or not work like any other budding friendship. Does it spark joy? Does it work in the day to day? Is it easy to be around each other, and worth it to both people to put in the effort of staying in touch and making time? As long as those things are all true, you'll be friends and the context you originally met in will stop mattering because what came after bloomed into its own thing.
- Bonus Pro-Tip: Once you're friends, if you end up hanging out with mutual friends or meeting new people, stop referring to her as your ex and definitely stop introducing her that way. Anybody who really needs to know that you dated once either already knows or will learn it eventually some other way.
- Sometimes you want to be friends, and you do all the right stuff to make it possible to be friends, and it still doesn't quite gel. It hurts too much. It never gets past the awkward stage. Or it does for a while, but there's just not enough glue to hold together the kind of friendship that goes beyond the *like* button on each other's good news and funny memes..If you don't already much stuff in common other than The Relationship, and it feels like work to make a friendship work, then eventually entropy will take over. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. It will mean you've both moved on.
That's my list. It's not the only way to do it, but it's the best way I've found so far. It's officially the cruelest month where we celebrate poetry as a nation, so here's an old favorite:
Friendship after Love by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes, and torments, and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze,
He beckons us to follow, and across
Cool verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete.
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