Friendship between a man and a woman is possible. It has a number of conventions and features, it differs from same-sex friendship, but it does occur. Is there friendship between ex-lover, lovers, spouses? Is it possible to communicate in a friendly manner with a person with whom you recently shared a bed or spent romantic evenings? Let's figure out what relationship psychology thinks about this.
Friendship between ex-lovers
Relationships between lovers are always accompanied by friendship. This is their essence: an easy and pleasant pastime. Lovers do not need to resolve everyday issues, although family and work problems can always be discussed.
Is friendship possible between lovers after a breakup? No. If partners decide to end the relationship and not meet again, then there is no point in maintaining friendship. In the event that the lovers were married to other people and separated due to exposure, friendship cannot arise.
Take time to recover
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Serious relationships require partners to be committed to each other, and breaking up after such an emotional investment always hurts.
Give yourselves time to adjust to your new life away from each other. This will take some time, which you will spend in separation and rare communication. You will be able to work through all the pain from the breakup and put yourself back together, but separately from your ex-partner. This works best when both you and your ex know what to expect, which means you're both aware of what type of communication you'll be comfortable with and with what frequency.
Eventually, you'll naturally form a different social circle and re-build relationships with mutual friends that don't involve "couple hangouts" and "double dates." You may even be able to find time to do the things you always wanted to do, but for some reason you felt like your previous relationship was getting in the way.
It may also happen that after a while you realize that the two of you do not need this friendship, and allow each other to happily go their separate ways. But if you decide you want to keep in touch, you'll need to get some personal space first. Once you reconnect, it will be a little easier to see yourselves as separate individuals and not feel responsible for each other.
Friendship between a guy and a girl
Consider a situation where a guy and a girl were in a full-fledged romantic relationship, but were not married. Is it possible to remain friends after breaking up in this case? More likely no than yes.
More often, separation in a couple occurs on the initiative of one of the participants. In this case, the second participant finds himself alone with his feelings and with a broken heart. For him, maintaining friendly relations is painful and dangerous. What does this mean:
- creating hope that everything will work out and the couple will reunite;
- painful feeding of remaining feelings;
- inability to build new relationships.
In this case, there is no subjective separation. The partner who still has feelings does not have time to realize what happened. He continues to perceive himself as part of the relationship, but at the same time he suffers, because he has to listen about the new relationship of his former lover.
And it also happens that relationships turn into “extended friendship” with sexual contact or courtship, unquestioning submission, fulfillment of all desires and whims (women more often continue to use the masculine power of their former partner, and men are more often interested in the sexual aspect). One of the partners understands the other’s dependence on him and takes advantage of this. But this only further traumatizes the one who is still in love and attached. Such relationships are unhealthy, neurotic in nature.
However, there is a condition under which friendship is possible: the fading of feelings and personal changes on both sides, friendly and calm relationships before parting. Then the partners complete this stage and calmly enter into a new relationship. And the previous closeness, warmth and care, shared experience and memories help them perceive each other as relatives, close people.
What questions should you ask yourself before agreeing?
For men:
- What do you want from this relationship, what prospects for its development and results do you see?
- What feelings do you experience and experience towards your chosen one in the past?
- Will you be able to communicate with your partner without experiencing sexual desires and sensual attraction towards her?
- Are you sure that you will not be jealous of the girl for her new relationship and boyfriends?
If your ex-partner has left you but wants to remain friends, ask yourself:
- Do you suffer a lot because of this?
- Are you ready to do anything not to lose him, do you still love him very much and your goal is to get him back? Or do you want to become real friends?
- Do you want to take this opportunity to spend more time with him for friendly communication or to bring him closer and make him change his opinion about you?
- Will you be able to make such a decision at a distance, refusing the friendship option and breaking contact with a loved one forever?
Friendship between spouses
Every second family in Russia gets divorced. In marriage and after it, the relationship between spouses develops differently: some become enemies, some become business partners, and some become best friends. Yes, you can maintain a good relationship after a divorce, but under several conditions:
- the separation was a mutual decision;
- the marriage did not end in betrayal or betrayal (people simply decided that there was no further path for them);
- there was no emotional, sexual, or physical violence in the marriage;
- the former spouses still have a common business or a child.
If the divorce was a forced measure or one of the spouses was abandoned, then there can be no talk of friendship. It will not be possible to build a good relationship even if the marriage or divorce process was so difficult that just the name of the former partner causes a surge of negative emotions (disappointment, resentment, anger, fear).
Separately, it is worth considering the divorce of spouses who have children. In this case, they should try to maintain, if not friendly, then at least business relations. Of course, provided that one of the parents does not threaten the life and safety of the child. If someone is a good parent but a bad spouse, then this is a problem between two adults. The child should not suffer because of their differences. He has the right to communicate with both parents. But provided that parents can communicate normally with each other.
Interesting fact: 43% of women and 60% of men dream of having a sexual relationship with their ex-partner. This is not surprising, because during marriage people study each other inside and out, they know the characteristics and preferences of their partner. This is what sometimes becomes a stumbling point in friendship. A good relationship combined with nostalgia - and now you find yourself in the same bed again. But this is no longer friendship.
Love comes first
When young people fall in love with each other, they feel an unprecedented surge of strength: hormones are raging, energy is overflowing, the brain refuses to work in the right mode, butterflies flutter in the stomach, and the heart rushes to run a hundred meters. During this period, lovers are very happy and literally project endorphins - hormones of pleasure and happiness - onto others.
Then events begin to develop in two directions: young people get married or move in without marriage in order to start living together. In both cases, life together begins between them, characters are grinding together, a showdown begins, and the first quarrels break out. During this period, newly-made families either immediately collapse or continue to exist, acquiring children, joint property and a common household.
However, couples who have lived together for a long time are not immune from a breakdown or divorce in the future.
When friendship is impossible
Regardless of what kind of relationship people were in, friendship after separation is impossible if:
- irritation and resentment remain, at every meeting you want to prove something, make your partner bite his elbows;
- passion is alive, people are drawn to each other;
- one of the participants is attached to the other, in love with him;
- jealousy arises;
- Nostalgia torments, memories cause severe pain.
Psychologists recommend ending all relationships if possible after breaking up. If this is acceptable, then it’s even worth changing your place of work and your social circle. Or step aside for the first time, until all emotions subside and perception and thinking are restructured.
How to maintain friendships after a breakup
- Take a break and stop communicating for a while to let your emotions subside.
- Be honest with yourself: illusions that everything will be the same as before, and hopes that do not come true, will ultimately bring even more disappointment.
- Avoid things that remind you of you as a couple. And especially don't flirt.
To be friends or not to be friends after a breakup is your choice. But be careful not to fall into the abyss of passion and become a participant in unnecessary drama.
Afterword
To maintain a good relationship after a breakup, you need to have great inner strength and wisdom. This is the ability of mature individuals. You can remain friends only if you completely get rid of resentment, irritation, and anger. You need to recognize and remember the positive things that this relationship brought, find the strength to accept and let go of the negative experience, learn from it, and admit your responsibility for what happened.
Sometimes ex-partners improve their relationship after some time. And immediately after parting, they give each other the opportunity to analyze what happened, accept, weigh, evaluate objectively.
A break up
The breakup of a relationship rarely occurs by mutual consent; usually, one of the partners initiates the breakup. As a rule, this happens when one person has fallen out of love, and the second continues to love. Therefore, all breakups are always painful for any couple. Once loving people quarrel to smithereens and disperse, angry at each other, or agree to remain friends.
But is there friendship between exes? Or are these just attempts by the abandoned partner to ennoble himself and the desire of the abandoned person to return the relationship back?
"Let's remain friends"
This phrase can be said both by a person who has decided to leave a relationship and by someone who continues to love. The first one wants to smooth out the awkward moments of parting, the second one is grasping at straws. Can such a proposal be sincere?
Let's look at what friendship is. This is also a type of relationship, and quite close, based on common interests, mutual trust and affection. And if partners have them, what pushed them to break up? On the Internet you can find many different statements on this topic. Here are two of them:
To remain friends, you have to be friends."
People who were able to remain friends after breaking up could also be a couple.
What are we talking about here? About how friendship cannot be planned. It either exists or it doesn’t. Then what reasons encourage yesterday's partners to make such proposals and even try to implement them?
Modern research
Helen Fisher, a famous anthropologist, has conducted research that completely supports the point of view that it is impossible to remain friends immediately after the end of a relationship. Her experiment involved 15 people who had recently experienced a breakup. Under MRI control, they were asked to look at several photographs: completely strangers and former lovers. The subjects' brains reacted to familiar faces the way experienced drug addicts would react to heroin or marijuana after a long period of abstinence.
That is why the main motive for many at this stage is not a real desire to remain friends, but a manic need to control the lives of their exes, to be aware of what is happening with them.
Roy Baumeister, a psychologist from Florida, believes that offering friendship is beneficial to those who leave their partner. It seems to relieve some of the guilt, but is not the key to real sincere communication. Ex-lovers weakly support each other, do not strive for understanding and rarely help in difficult situations. This is confirmed by a study by scientists at the University of Connecticut.
Leave past quarrels behind
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Of course, this is easier said than done: most relationships already have some kind of disagreement built into them, which can be difficult to get rid of soon after it ends. You and your ex won't soon forget the personal sacrifices you had to make or the minor troubles you went through.
You may also harbor resentment over the breakup itself. It's important to remember that if your goal is to remain polite and friendly, you need to act accordingly. This can be as simple as saying hello to each other when you meet, or offering your help when you know your ex needs it.
When you meet again, he will not be a different person to you. Triggers will inevitably pop up in your head that will make you remember past quarrels. Just remember: now that you've broken up, you no longer have to prove who's right and who's wrong. If the reason for the quarrels is no longer relevant, focus on the need to improve the relationship, and not on the desire to prove that you are right.
see also
15 tips for those who want to strengthen and prolong relationships
Offer (but don't force) friendship
Lifehacker.com
Even if you want to be friends after your relationship ends, your ex-partner may have a different opinion on this matter. Or he may not be ready. Be mindful of how much time it takes for the two of you to feel comfortable seeing each of you move on with your lives. Just let your ex know that you want to be friends and be friendly to show it, but don't force your friendship. Here's what Brittany Wong writes about it in The Huffington Post:
“You may be ready to continue playing PvP together in World of Warcraft a few months after your breakup, but your ex may not feel the same way. Gently bring up the topic of friendship and respect any decision your ex-partner makes. Even if he/she is not yet ready to resume the relationship.
Don't know how to ask that same question? One Reddit user suggested a good idea: "Instead of ending a relationship with 'Let's be friends?', leave the door open with something like 'I still want to be friends.' I'll be there if you want. This is not a commitment, but rather a soft offer.”
When your ex is ready, he will accept your proposal. In the meantime, it’s better not to rush things. Give him the final say and try to ease any pressure your ex may feel about whether to go along with your wishes. Each of you must make an individual decision, and whatever it may be, respecting the choice bodes only well for both the present and the future where this friendship is possible.
Friendship proposal from a man
Finally, let's look at the partners' options. So, he initiated the breakup. During the farewell explanation, the guy offered to remain friends. After reading the article, it becomes clear: most likely he has a feeling of guilt for the current situation. How should the person who received this offer act? Should I agree?
The girl must understand: first of all, she should worry about her feelings and experiences. If she gives her consent in the expectation that the person responsible for the breakup will in the future atone for his sins and provide her with all kinds of support and help, then this is a delusion. No one is ready to live with a constant feeling of guilt. In the end, psychological defense will work, and the man will find a reason to reproach the woman for.
The best option is to take a break by asking to completely eliminate contact for a certain period. Once the pain goes away, a solution will come.
