Dear Ethan

Is there any chance to be friends with the one you once loved? And, is it necessary to be friends? I wanted to and tried, but always failed, I don’t know why……

Thank you!

Friends Are Best


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Dear FAB

The old “let’s just be friends” is a time honoured tradition in relationship breakups. Can it happen? Has anyone’s friendship ever survived a loss of love?

The simple answer is Yes, it can happen. Of course nothing is ever as simple as the simple answer.

The longer answer depends greatly upon what kind of relationship you had, what kind of breakup it was and what you were before the relationship. To be honest, it doesn’t often work, at least not right away and maybe not forever. In the beginning there are still lots of feelings clouding our minds and many of them are not good feelings. If you have broken up with them, probably there was a reason and most likely not a good one. If they broke up with you, you are probably feeling very hurt and unhappy by this.

The most important thing for the ‘Let’s just be friends’ idea to work, is time. If the breakup wasn’t a happy, mutually agreed upon breakup, you’re going to need time. Time heals all wounds is what they say and while the sadness of losing one you love never completely goes away, it does get better with time. Right after a breakup people should take some time apart to think and get over the sadness a little. Chatting online a little is probably ok, but meeting face to face is not a good idea, as those who are sad already will only be sadder after seeing the other person again.

Time is one issue, another is personality. If you are a jealous person or the other person is a jealous person they are not going to be happy seeing you with other people. This will create a great deal of anger and resentment and can easily kill a freindship, if either one of you is a jealous person, it’s much better to just move on after the breakup and don’t stay in touch. Here’s a good test, imagine the other person kissing, and I don’t mean a kiss on the cheek, I mean full and strongly kissing another person. Angry? Jealous? Sad? homicidal? If yes to any of those, break off communication and move on.

Another issue to keep in mind is were you friends before the breakup. If you were friends it might be easier to go back to being friends again, but this will depend on the above mentioned personality issue.

There are many other issues that come into it as well like do you enjoy the same hobbies, do both people actually want to still be friends? Do you have the same group of friends? and many more smaller parts to think about.

So basically, yeah, it’s possible, but it’s also unlikely. I’ve had a relationship become friends after break up but the friendship is not the same as regular friends because you will always have the past feeling between you. But it is definitely possible if both sides of the breakup agreed together it was a good idea to stop dating and it happened on friendly terms.

However, if you have broken up with the other person you should know that many people want to stay friends because they think they can win you back. Don’t lead them on, make sure everone knows it’s really over before thinking about friendship. And if they broke up with you, don’t make the mistake of thinking you can win them back, you’ll just end up in even more pain later on when they make it very clear it’s really over.