Can You Be Friends with Your Ex?
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If you're wanting civility with someone who wants drama, it doesn't work. And I know you know who I'm talking about, right? You know you've tried in situations to be the civil one, to be the peaceful one, to be the conscious one. But because they didn't want that and they didn't want that from you and they didn't want to mirror that, it didn't work out that way. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm your host Jay Shetty. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm so grateful that you've decided to reconnect whether you're hiking, walking, walking your dog, cooking, driving to or from work. Thank you so much for being here. I was speaking to a friend the other day and she asked me this question.

She said to me, can you be friends with your ex? And my response was, who are you talking to? And it's one of these questions that I get asked a lot. And when this particular friend asked me this question, there was a part of me that was worried, but there was a part of me that was open. And I think it's because for years, my quick response has been, no, not really.

And then I realized how different this question was for people who had kids together, for people who had shared friends together. There were different versions of it. And I think often we can discount or dismiss the opportunity without recognizing the factors. So I thought it was important to do an episode about it because I think it's a lot more complex and subtle than we often give it credit for.

Now, before we even get started, there are grounds for not being friends. Before exploring this question, I want to establish some ground rules. Not every ex deserves friendship. Did your relationship end in a peaceful manner? Did your ex treat you well? Are they dangerous, volatile or toxic and an untrustworthy person?

Were you ever mistreated or did you ever feel unsafe? Were you disrespected or taken advantage of emotionally, sexually or financially? Were you lied to or cheated on? If any of these things are true, I would avoid even considering becoming friends with your ex.

But assuming things ended kind of mutually and acceptably, or as well as possible considering you did call it quits, here's a rule of thumb. You're more likely to be friends with an ex if you and your ex had a nice breakup. But here's the thing. It will still always be complicated.

Even if things ended well, understand that becoming friends with an ex is a tricky, landmine-filled journey. How could it not be? I mean, romantic relationships usually have their origins in friendship before they evolve into something deeper. You're now asking two people to maintain the friendship part of their relationship minus the romantic or sexual angle.

But it's not as simple as going back to the friendship origins of your relationship. Friendship, companionship, and above all, trust are all core elements of romantic love. Ensuring you know the difference is one of the primary challenges of becoming friends with your ex. I was on the talk the other day at Today Show in LA, and they asked me this question as well. And what came out for me was emotional maturity and romantic clarity.

Emotional maturity. Do you both have enough maturity to not be envious when you see the other person with another person? Do you both have enough emotional maturity to let the other become who they want to be, not who you wanted them to be?

And romantic clarity. Are you both truly aware of the boundaries that now exist physically, sexually, and in terms of intimacy? Or is one of you secretly hoping that you'll be able to make something happen when the other person's guards down? All of these lead to a lack of trust. They lead to a lack of stability in a friendship or in a relationship.

Now, here's what the science says about becoming friends with your exes. A 2017 research study shows that people chose to stay friends with their exes for four core reasons. The first is security. They make us feel good and show us that even in the wake of a breakup, our lives haven't been completely turned upside down.

Right. We're all looking for security and safety. And our biggest concern genuinely is who am I going to call at 7 p.m. tonight? Wait a minute. Who am I going to text first thing in the morning? All of those things we think are emotional and they are, but they're security based. It's not necessarily love or romance. It's a sense of safety and security which humans desire so deeply.

And often we desire it so deeply that we stay in a situation, even if it's bad for us, we want to elongate and extend something, even if it's unhealthy for us, because it makes us feel falsely safe. Think about a time in your life where you've stayed somewhere because it fooled you into believing you were safe in one way or another.

So one of the reasons we stay is security. The second reason is practicality. You like your ex and your ex likes you. And both of you value each other's presence in your lives. And this is a sense of like comfort or ease. So a lot of us are constantly trying to move toward comfort and ease, the path of least resistance. How many of you have stayed in a job, a relationship, a

See, as humans, we almost seem to lose our way. And it's interesting when you think about the pursuit of purpose that we're all ultimately challenged to go on.

One of the reasons we don't take it is because we're just looking for security and safety. One of the reasons we don't take the pursuit of purpose is because we're just looking for ease and comfort. And it feels in the short term, much easier to do these options. And the truth is, it is in the short term. It just isn't in the long term. And

And when it comes to a breakup, you just think, well, if we just stay friends, at least things are still practical, not understanding the complexities that come with that. The third reason that people want to stay friends with their ex is civility, otherwise known as keeping the peace. If you're walking down the street and you see your ex coming your way, you don't want to have to dart across the street to avoid having an awkward encounter, right?

It's just normal. Again, the path of least resistance. How do I create a world in which I have no conflict and no tension and no stress? By the way, I recommend that. Sometimes we create too much drama in our life. Sometimes we...

basically are the directors of drama in our life, almost like we're directing a dramatic, tragic movie and we just find everything to cause tension and stress. So wanting civility is not a bad thing. I get it. But

But often if you're wanting civility with someone who's wanting intimacy, it doesn't work. If you're wanting civility with someone who wants drama, it doesn't work. And I know you know who I'm talking about, right? You know you've tried in situations to be the civil one, to be the peaceful one, to be the conscious one. But because they didn't want that and they didn't want that from you and they didn't want to mirror that, it didn't work out that way.

And the fourth reason, and by far the trickiest, has to do with unresolved romantic desires. You still want to be with this person.

You haven't gotten over them yet. You don't know if you ever will. And you're thinking to yourself, if I stick around for long enough, they'll come to their senses that I was the one, I was the best one, and they'll finally realize what they're missing out on, right? I'm just going to convince them. I'm just going to stick around long enough until they change their mind. And I know I can do it, right? I know I can do it. Now, that one's a very, very tricky one because we're almost...

kind of creating an expectation without having that intention shared openly. And that's a really interesting position to be in. I find a lot of us have expectations without setting that intention. If you have an expectation that you're going to get back with someone and they've kind of told you, hey, this is not happening,

sure you might be able to coax, persuade them for a day or two, but it's going to be a hard battle. And because you're walking into it with a preset expectation, you're setting yourself up for failure because you're setting yourself up to be let down. There's four ways to know that you're not ready to resume a friendship with your ex. The first one, your feelings are strong and

and conflicted. In other words, you might still have romantic feelings for your ex, or you're thinking about your ex more than you'd like to, more than feels healthy. If so, pause, hold off, and postpone any attempts at establishing a friendship until those feelings simmer down or pass. You still meet up occasionally.

If you're intent on establishing a friendship with your ex, by definition, that means the two of you are no longer romantically or sexually involved. If you are, I don't have to tell you how complicated a factor this is and how much more difficult it makes it for you or your ex to move forward.

Now, number three, you're secretly using friendship as a means to get back together. This is probably the most common one. And you and your ex broke up for a reason, probably more than one reason. And using friendship to reestablish a romance doesn't address or solve those problems.

Being friends with an ex can trick you into thinking that you didn't really break up. The whole thing was a dream and the future will be different. It's important to be honest with yourself and remember that your ex probably has the same strong feelings.

Remember that if you broke up with your ex, that means something about your relationship wasn't working for you, your ex or both of you. If you're trying to be friends because you secretly hope your renewed friendship will lead to a renewed relationship, you may be holding on to false hopes.

Only try to be friends if you can honestly live with the truth that the two of you are no longer together. Now, the fourth reason is you feel bad and hope that making a friendship is a get out of jail free card. Now, maybe you did the breaking up, right? Maybe you're the one who left them. And now you're trying to, I see this with a lot of my male friends, where they'll break up with someone and they'll be like, I don't want to be the bad guy.

I don't want to be seen as the bad guy. I don't want to be seen as that one. So I'm going to work hard on building a friendship up because that way, at least you won't hate me. And really, I'm like, well, you're kind of making that person maybe hate you more in the long term because you're doing it for all the wrong reasons. Maybe you feel guilty and maybe you fell in love with someone else. Maybe you found someone else. Maybe you're moving on.

So you have to ask yourself, who does this friendship benefit? Am I doing it only to make me feel better about myself? If so, don't. Right? Think twice. Too many people try to stay friends with their ex because they want to be seen as a good person. You broke their heart, you found someone else, you moved on. But you don't want to be seen as a bad person.

So you want to be friends with them so that they see you as a good person. And so you're only doing it to make yourself feel better about yourself. You're not doing it because you truly want to be friends with them. And that's only going to hurt them more in the future. It might feel good to you right now based on how you're perceived.

But not only your perception, how they feel and their heart will be deeply hurt in the future. And I think this hits very closely to why I partnered up with Match. And what I really found was I wanted to create a space where people could connect based on their values. And this was really, really important to me because I feel that everything I'm saying here is because we don't realize that

that our core values have such a big impact in terms of long-term success. If you ignore core values, you're thinking in the next five months. If you take on core values, you're living in the next five years. And for anyone who's interested and invested in building a long-term, long-lasting, powerful relationship, this mindset is huge.

93% of match members say that shared core values are a crucial indicator of relationship success. Now, let's imagine... Sometimes life can seem challenging and overcoming problems can seem impossible. But when you focus on your problems, it can keep you from seeing the good in your life. One thing that helps me when I need a change in perspective is acknowledging the small wins in life.

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Connecting changes everything. AT&T. That your motives are pure. How do you even start becoming friends with an ex? So, right, I'm going to imagine for a moment, say that you've answered all these questions, you know, like, I'm genuine. This is where we all, I care about them. This is how it's going to have to work.

The first thing is you need to take time. Healing after a breakup takes a while. It's rarely a question of ending a relationship and two weeks later meeting your ex for an effervescent brunch down the block. And your ex does too. And by the time I'm not talking about, and by time I'm not talking about a week, a month, or even three months. Experts suggest allowing anywhere from six months to a year before you even consider getting in touch with your ex.

And even then, don't assume that because you've allowed so much time in your head to go by, that everything's going to work out just fine. It may or may not, but more about that in a bit. Time is just another word for readiness. And readiness is another word for recovery and self-awareness. Think about it this way. You've just lived through the death of a relationship. As

As with any death, you need to give yourself the latitude and introspection to grieve, adjust to a new identity and begin moving forward. Let's see if we can define what ready means. And the best way to do that is by defining what it doesn't mean.

Ready doesn't mean you won't have contact with your ex until you meet someone new and you can show your ex how stupid they were because how amazing you are and how much better your life is now that they're not a part of it. Ready means you've been extraordinarily honest with yourself, that you can see things clearly, that you've done the work necessary to move on, that you have grieved the loss of your relationship and maintained what was great about it and what you learned.

Everything I just said also goes for your ex. It's not just about you. A friendship won't work unless both people are honest and trust each other. Not just over the course of a single conversation, but as a prerequisite of the renewal of your friendship. With honesty as the foundation, here are some of the issues that may come up for you and how that same honesty can help nip them in the bud.

Now, one of the first things is unfinished business. Are you and your ex really in the past? What are your motives in trying to become friends? Are you trying to show him what he's missing? Do you really want to know what's going on in her life or even who your replacement might be? These are all natural human responses after a breakup, but that doesn't mean that can sustain a friendship. Be honest with yourself and with your ex. Are

Are the two of you really through? Or do you find yourself stalking them on social media and playing music you associate with them and that you used to play together? By the way, stop doing that. Or is it that you're too cool for school? Are you interested in reestablishing a friendship with your ex because it feels like the mature, grown up, calm and collected thing to do?

After all, being friends with your ex communicates to everyone how much of an adult you are, what a good person, how you're willing to put the past behind you and separate love and desire from friendship in a truly awesome human evolved way. Well, here's my advice to you. It's okay not to have a grown-up reaction to a breakup.

It's okay to acknowledge that it's just too difficult, that you need longer than a year, and that you might not ever reach a place in your life when you and your ex can be friends. I was speaking to a friend the other day and he said, the day I moved on from my ex was the day I admitted to myself that I would never move on. Let me take that again. They said the day I moved on from my ex was the day I admitted that I would never move on.

Accepting that I may never get over them is what helped me move forward. Admitting to myself that I'll probably always think about them is what allowed me to stop thinking about them. Realizing

that I may never ever fully disconnect or detach from that relationship is what really allowed me to let go. Think about that really, really carefully. It's not pretending to move on. It's not faking moving on. It's not making it up or doing it because it looks good or people will respect you. It's actually being honest with yourself and authentic with yourself. And I get it. That's scary. It's hard. It's challenging.

but it's the truth. Now naturally what we often do is we wonder what others, mutual friends, family members might think. If you and your ex were a couple for a long time, no doubt you have friends in common or an established friend group, as well as a relationship with each other's families. In the wake of a breakup, it's inevitable that some of those friends will take sides, ditto for family members. For the sake of keeping the peace, it's natural to want to maintain those friendships. You

To act as though nothing has changed and that everyone, including you and your ex, can still be buddies. After all, it's a small town where people are bound to run into one another and you don't want any weirdness. As for family members, you don't want their mom or their sister to think badly of you. Maybe you have a close relationship with the family that you don't want to give up. Unfortunately, friends and family members can be casualties of a breakup. Something big has happened and your friends are coping with the fallout too.

And I think this is the hard part where almost your friends are acting like it's harder for them than it is for you. If you've just been through a breakup and you have mutual friends and your friends are making it out that this breakup is harder for them than it's harder for you, then those are not your real friends. You need friends who recognize that this loss is so deeply hard and difficult and challenging for you that they're there for you regardless of how it affects them. Because while they are affected,

you're the one who's going through the most of it. And I just really want to put that out there because I think too many people kind of feel like they've got to be there for their family, be there for their friends, be there for everyone else when you're the one who's really grieving the loss.

Now, one of the big ones that's come up for a lot of people I've talked to is the complicating factor of pets, right? Maybe you brought a cat together or a dog together and you're used to spending time together on the weekends, three of you, lazing around or hiking or watching a bad movie while the dog or cat lazed in your lap.

Well, one of you has got in custody of that animal and it's probably difficult, if not wrenching for the person who's now not only without a partner, but without a much loved pet.

And that creates a lot of complications too. So for any one of your friends who's struggling and wants to be friends with their ex, I just want you all to have a bit of empathy for the fact that there are so many factors. Now, also, when you remember, it's not all about you. There are two people here, both of whom are probably dealing with very intense feelings and memories, all of which will be triggered when that person comes back into your life.

You might be completely okay and cool with you and your ex being friends, but have you considered them and the ways your reappearance in their lives might affect them?

You may want a friendship with your ex, but they still want a relationship. You may be over your ex, but they still want to be with you. You may have moved on, but they haven't moved at all. Just because you're ready to be friends, don't force that person into more discomfort. They've already been hurt once, this will only hurt them twice. Remember, it's not all about you. They're in this too.

Now, if you do get this far in this situation, you have to establish the new rules of engagement. Like what does friendship even look like? So as everyone knows, there are countless ways of communicating ranging from social media to texting, to calling, to liking a comment. And when you and your ex were romantically involved, you were probably in communication across the board all day and night, long conversations, short and on social media.

Now, it's different, right? We all know that a flirty late night text message can lead to a situation where one or both of you slips and the next day you find yourself waking up in your ex's bedroom. You have to create ground rules. Now, the problem is when both of you don't respect it and that's what you want to spot early. Does someone really respect the ground rules or are you always pushing them to do that? You might agree to text each other or email or you could decide it's calls only.

But here's the second thing. Try it out before you decide whether it works or not. Right now that you're back in contact, practice it, try it out and recognize where that person stands on respecting your boundaries. Now, I also want to address this. What about children?

A wise person I know once counseled her two daughters that they should, of course, feel free to fall in love with and marry whoever they want, but they should be extremely careful about choosing the person with whom they have children. Now, why exactly did she mean this? Well, she knew, and any person with children out there will confirm it, that the person you have children with is part of your life for, well, a lifetime.

And in this case, the choice of whether to be friends or even polite and civil with each other is often decided on behalf of the children the two of you share. In which case, friendship may take a longer time to develop. And at first, I recommend proceeding carefully and with as much detachment as possible.

I've seen friends with exes flourish, and I've seen friendships with exes go south very quickly. Sometimes you'll find that minus the romantic or sexual entanglement, the two of you don't have all that much to say to each other. In other cases, the absence of romance and sex can be clarifying and remind you that friendship and honesty and caring served as the basis of that relationship.

I hope for your sakes that you fall into the second category. But if you don't, I have one last piece of advice to share with you. You don't have to be friends with your ex.

no matter how guilty you feel about it, no matter how bad they make you feel, no matter how much your family or friends think it's the right thing to do. You don't have to be friends because you've both been hurt once and you don't want to hurt them twice. Thank you so much for listening to today. I hope this episode helped you. I hope it helps you heal. I hope you send it to a friend who's struggling right now. And thank you for being here with me on purpose.

And remember, I'm forever in your corner and always rooting for you. Hey, everyone. If you loved that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Laurie Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation. If it's a romantic relationship...

hold hands. It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely. This podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering licensed therapists you can connect with via video, phone, or chat. Here's BetterHelp head of clinical operations, Hesu Jo, discussing who can benefit from therapy. I think a

A lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody.

There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody. Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit BetterHelp.com today.

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