When your ex wants to be friends, your ex wishes to downgrade from a romantic relationship to a non-romantic one. He or she wants you to know that romance is over, but that he or she may still have some use for you. Your ex may want you to reduce his or her guilt, provide emotional or financial support, give validation, satisfy his or her sexual needs, or help battle boredom.
If you fall into the friendship trap, you’ll settle for what’s second-best for your ex and the worst for you. You’ll keep your ex close to your heart and struggle to disconnect from your ex. Your ex’s presence and behavior will constantly remind you of what you’ve lost and make you think you must find a way to impress your ex and get another chance with your ex.
What friendship won’t tell you though (at least not initially) is that your ex doesn’t want you to crawl back into his or her heart. Your ex asked for friendship solely because he or she wanted to keep you around as a familiar person to spend time with. You already know each other and have a connection, so your ex doesn’t want to get rid of it because of the breakup.
He or she thinks it’d be a shame to not speak just because the relationship didn’t work out.
Your ex doesn’t know you’re eager if not desperate for reconciliation and that friendship will be extremely difficult. Friendship may be possible for your ex because your ex has detached and perhaps even developed feelings of guilt, but it will be impossible for you. As long as you have feelings for your ex and want your ex back, pretending that everything’s fine and that you’re happy to be friends will be challenging, painful, and inauthentic.
It will make you obsessed with obtaining your ex’s validation and directly or indirectly convincing your ex to come back and love you.
Sooner than later, anxiety and fear of losing your ex will get the best of you and force you to take a more active approach with your ex An approach that includes flirting, complimenting, gifting, overextending conversation, asking for favors, or making a move on your ex.
You’ll get tired of taking things slowly with your ex because the pain will be difficult to ignore and urge you to reconnect with your ex before your ex forgets about you and moves on with someone else. As a dumpee, you’ll essentially want your ex to validate your importance and help you stop hurting and feeling unwanted.
If your ex wants to be friends, you’ve got to understand that you’re not required to accept the friendship offer. You don’t owe your ex friendship and various relationship benefits. You can just say you’re not ready to be friends and that you need more time to figure some things out. If you’re afraid of saying no to your ex, you can always say something like, “Sure, we can be friends. But right now, I need some time to process things. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.
It doesn’t matter whether you accept the friendship or reject it as long as your ex gives you space and time to get your life together.
Under no circumstances should you start acting like friends and thinking your ex will help you get over the breakup or take you back. If you downgrade to friendship, you’ll instantly shoot yourself in the foot because you’ll starve yourself for your ex’s validation and keep hoping your ex will have a change of heart.
Sadly, that’s unlikely to happen. When you put your life on hold for a former partner and make yourself overly available to him or her, the dumper will most likely take you for granted. He or she will see that you’re willing to accept his or her terms and act like you never dated. This will show you’re happy to stay friends as long as you get to hold on to your ex and feel somewhat validated and in control of your life.
No matter how tempted you feel to talk to your ex and be friends, remember that friendship will make your healing worse and allow your ex to string you along. Friendship will make you wonder why your ex hasn’t discovered your romantic value yet and how much longer he or she needs to have an epiphany and fall back in love with you.
It will make you ignore the fact that your ex won’t fall back in love with you just because you’re on good talking terms and that something or someone else will have to make your ex regret leaving you. This could be anything or anyone who shows your ex that he or she won’t be happy without you.
Typically, it requires something painful for dumpees to reflect, mature, and regret leaving their ex. Friendship doesn’t make their ex regret leaving at all.
I know you want to influence your ex directly through friendship and/or communication, but unfortunately, you don’t have that kind of power. You lost it when your ex decided the relationship wasn’t making him or her happy and abandoned you. That was when your opinion stopped mattering to your ex and prevented your ex from investing in the relationship.
Bear in mind that reconciliations happen when dumpees accept the breakup, let go of control, and allow their ex to get hurt and realize their worth. They occur on dumpers’ terms when dumpers explore other options and fail miserably. Failure and pain then incentivize them to think about the past and want what they previously took for granted.
Dumpees like to believe their exes return solely for them, but that’s not the case.
They come back for themselves first and their exes second. They do what’s best for them, not their ex.
You may not like to hear that, but reconciliations are nothing more than contingency plans. Dumpers return to exes when all other roads suddenly close and leave them with no choice but to walk back to their ex. They often say they missed their ex and realized they still loved their ex but forget to mention what failure triggered their sentimentality and cravings for love.
Was it another romantic partner or some other unmet expectation?
Anyway, you should avoid friendship with an ex like the plague. Remember that friendship will let you learn things about your ex’s new life you don’t need to learn. It will give you a lot of unnecessary information and keep you preoccupied with your ex’s life longer than necessary.
Every time your ex is busy and acts differently from what you’re used to, you’ll imagine the worst (that your ex is getting to know someone else) and drifting further away from you. Your ex will indirectly trigger your anxiety and make you want to stop him or her from moving on and living a happy life without you.
So don’t settle for friendship with an ex you love and want to be with. Agree to friendship only if you’re over your ex and can handle seeing your ex with someone else. If you’re okay with your ex dating other people and asking you for advice and support, you can be your ex’s friend.
Just keep in mind that your new partner probably won’t like it. Most people don’t understand friendships with exes and feel scared, unprioritized, and disrespected. They imagine all the things you did with that person and fear that you’re focusing on the relationship with an ex from the past rather than them.
This post is dedicated to dumpees whose ex is asking them to be friends. We talk about why your ex wants to be friends and what you should do if you still have feelings for your ex.
Why does my ex want to be friends?
There are many possible reasons why your ex wants to be friends. The most common explanation is that your ex misses you or rather the non-romantic aspects of the relationship and wants to keep you in his or her life to a minimum degree. Your ex probably wants to talk to you at times for old times’ sake and rely on you for certain emotional needs.
Needs that only you can fulfill.
In simple terms, your ex wants you in his or her life only as a friend because your ex lacks people he or she is close to and has a strong emotional connection with. You used to occupy most of your ex’s time, listen to your ex, resolve your ex’s problems, relieve your ex’s stress, satisfy his or her cravings, and help reach daily and long-term goals.
Now that you’re gone, something’s missing. That something (or rather someone) is a person who made his or her life easier and better. You were a big part of your ex’s life and have quite a history with your ex. Whether you were together for months or years, your ex remembers that you used to provide certain benefits and activate certain emotions.
The relationship wasn’t always great, but there were a lot of good memories your ex remembers and feels grateful for or nostalgic about. Good memories are parts of the relationship your ex doesn’t want to forget. He or she wants to remember them and talk about them with you.
That could be one of the reasons your ex insists on staying friends.
Another possibility is that your ex has unfinished business with you. If you have your ex’s belongings, owe your ex money, have kids together, share a house or a car, or have mutual financial or moral obligations, your ex probably needs to stay in touch with you to talk about unresolved matters. Until your ex stops feeling tied to you, your ex will want to keep you in his or her life and reach out to discuss unfinished business.
He or she will ask for friendship or reach out to prevent you from growing apart and making important decisions without him or her.
Some dumpers ask for friendship because they’re afraid their ex won’t be fair and let them see their kids or pay them back. They think that if they treat their ex well, they’ll have a higher chance of getting what they need from their ex. And that’s probably true. But what they don’t know is that some dumpees intentionally scare dumpers to bring negative reactions out of them.
Negative reactions validate brokenhearted dumpees and give them a sense of power and control.
It’s also possible that your ex just feels bad for hurting and leaving you and wants you not to feel discarded. If that’s the case, your ex may have offered friendship as a way to reduce your anxiety and pain. By telling you he or she wants to be your friend, your ex showed you that he or she likes you enough to continue chatting.
Whether your ex wants to be your friend out of pity or respect is hard to say. Usually, it’s a combination of both. Dumpers feel guilty for putting their ex through hell, but they still respect their ex enough to offer friendship and talk about non-romantic matters.
I don’t think most dumpers want an ego boost from their ex. Their ego had been boosted enough already at the end of the relationship when they determined they didn’t want to be with their ex. The ones who want to feel important are dumpees as they often get their self-esteem and confidence crushed and would do anything to see their ex care about them.
Dumpees ask for friendship to feel at least some control over the breakup and prevent themselves from losing their sanity.
So if you want to know why your ex wants to be friends after the breakup, it’s because your ex thinks he or she can benefit from it in some way. Your ex respects you, doesn’t feel threatened to the point of having to block you, and thinks friendship will help him or her move on with a clear conscience.
Your ex has no idea that friendship will be hard for you, him/her, and your new partners.
Having said that, here’s why your ex wants to be friends with you.
Can exes ever be friends?
Exes can be friends. Usually, they need to wait at least a few months to process the separation and stop expecting different things from each other. If they attempt to get close before they’re emotionally capable of doing so, they tend to pressure each other and bring out the worst in each other.
If dumpees accept friendship prematurely, they get their hopes up and stay anxious. And if dumpers agree to friendship ahead of time, they feel emotionally overwhelmed and tempted to ignore or block their ex.
Exes in general need time to process the breakup and figure out if they even want to be friends. Sometimes they think they want to be friends, but they’re actually just lonely and afraid of being alone and having no one to talk to. Post-breakup friendship isn’t recommended, nor something most exes can do. Most exes’ unprocessed feelings come rushing back as soon as they get back in touch and try to restore the connection.
Dumpees feel unfulfilled and desperate for validation whereas dumpers feel guilt-tripped, annoyed, and incapable of taking care of their wants and needs.
If you’re contemplating being friends with your ex, remember that friendship is possible for you only when you get over your ex, give up on getting back together, and feel ready to support your ex. Support includes talking about your ex’s new relationship and giving him or her healthy and genuine relationship advice. If you don’t want your ex to date someone new and can’t support your ex like a true friend, you shouldn’t agree to friendship and act like a friend.
You should adhere to no contact and stay far away from your ex.
Exes can be friends only when they both want the same things and let go of romantic expectations and the romantic and sexual benefits they can provide to each other. If someone has different interests, cravings, and feelings, and wants to get back together, they can’t be friends because they make each other feel unwanted feelings.
Some exes stay friends despite wanting the opposite things from each other. They stay unhappy for months until the anxious person (the dumpee) fully accepts the breakup and gives up on getting back together. The dumpee essentially stays obsessed with the dumper and experiences a lot of unnecessary pain.
Instead of being honest and admitting that friendship isn’t in his or her best interest, he or she sees friendship as an opportunity to get closer to the dumper. Little does the dumpee know that friendship makes dumpees fall into the friend zone and that it makes it even harder for them to impress their ex and get back together.
When dumpers friend zone their ex, they get used to being around their ex and feel no desire to get back together. They can’t reconcile because they lack a good incentive. A good incentive is reflection caused by failure and pain.
I strongly encourage you not to be friends with your ex just to be closer to your ex and get another chance. It won’t lead back into a relationship. All it will do is make you more desperate for your ex’s love and cause you to make breakup mistakes. I also discourage you from settling for friendship if you like your ex as a person but aren’t ready for it.
Your ex may be ready, but the dumper tends to be ready first. He or she doesn’t have to deal with rejection and improve his or her self-esteem. If your ex likes you as a person (a friend), your ex won’t mind waiting a bit for you to recover.
Whether you need a few months or a year or 2, your ex will be okay with giving you the time you need to process things. Your ex won’t try to rush you or accuse you of being selfish unless he or she lacks breakup knowledge and empathy.
All things considered, get yourself back before you attempt to get your ex back as a friend or a partner. Make sure you enjoy your life and that you can handle seeing your ex with someone else.
Does your ex want to be friends? What do you think about your ex’s friendship offer? Let us know below the post.
And if you’d like to talk to us about your ex’s reasons for wanting to be your friend, check out our coaching services and get in touch.
My name is Zan, and I’m a writer and a breakup analyst. I write relationship and breakup articles and strive to strike a harmonious balance between empathy and realism. If you appreciate my content, feel free to leave a comment or support me by buying me a ko-fi.
