Not sure what's going on with my ex

[MostFamousMonkey]

I posted about him when we split up two months ago. It was me who broke up with him, mostly because of our age difference and just being at different stages in our lives. No infidelity, no EA/DV, on either side.

He's an all round great bloke who's never been one to play games, and this is why I'm a bit confused now.
When I was telling him I had to end it, he told me he loved me at least twice, and then he made a point of asking me to please not contact him to give him time and space to get over it. I understand and respected that so I didn't contact him at all.
Anyway, he tried to call me a couple of times last week. I'd deleted his number so it came up as a number I didn't know so I let it go to VM. He didn't leave a message the first time, second time he did and said he was going to email me.
In his email he told me he still loved me, told me he wanted to do whatever it took to make me happy, basically he was saying whatever our problems have been we can find ways to work through them.
I wrote back saying I really didn't think there was a way to work things out and it was over for me. He then replied two days later with a complete u-turn, saying how he's dealt with how he feels about me (was still in love with me 48 hours prior !) and now is ready to be just good friends and he'd really like us to stay in contact if I wanted that too.

I'm actually not ready to be friends with him, although I would like us to be friends in the future, because I do still have feelings for him and I'm working on getting over him. How has he managed to to go from being in love with me to just wanting friendship so fast? Is this some sort of red flag I should be concerned about?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I think he's just struggling with his feelings tbh. At first - probably because he was upset - he thought it would be best to go no contact. Then he changed his mind to 'faint heart never won fair lady' and had another shot at getting you back. Then he's compromised that, if he can't have you as a girlfriend, he'll settle for friend..... which, like you, I think is far too soon and therefore a pretty lousy idea. I'm not really seeing a red flag... just the usual vacillations of a break-up

[MostFamousMonkey]

Thanks Cogito, you make perfect sense.

I'm not seeing it clearly of course, because I'm too closely involved and wasn't sure if he was trying to play games which would be out of character.
I think continued no contact is the way to go until we both are genuinely ok with 'just friends'.

[MostFamousMonkey]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how long is it likely to be before we can be just friends? I was married for so long I've forgotten about break ups like this.
If you're now friends with someone from your past, how long did it take you to get to that point?

[DorisShutt]

I have only one ex as a friend and it wasn't a serious relationship, nor a long one (maybe 2 months together as a proper couple). We were also friends before we hooked up which possibly made it easier to go back to the previous state IYSWIM.

That said, it was about 6 months before the awkwardness disappeared and we got over the uncomfortable silences and the rushing to say something and talking over each other. It was maybe a year in total before we could be real friends and not have to watch what we said.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

I think the answer is 'only when you're ready'. Maybe this year, next year, some time, never. I'm still friends with someone I went out with when I was 16 (circa 18th century) but where all my other old flames are concerned there are very good reasons why they are exes.