Friendships with exs when you're married

[lostlondoner]

I'm happily married with two children. However I keep having dreams about ex boyfriends!!!! What is this all about???

Being Freud I think it's because our sex life at the moment is a bit neglected to say the least with young kids, no family support etc

Anyway it got me thinking about my exs. I'm friends still with the first two of them, on fb at least, though I haven't seen them in years. One I chat to fairly regularly though he is a bit of a d1ck, so I doubt I'd meet up properly. One was a bit mean to me (always one!) though were cool now. One I will never see again I'm sure, though we have mutual friends still as it was a long relationship. The last one I haven't seen or heard from for years as he's not on fb.

Would it be really bad to message him and see how he is? It probably would wouldn't it. I don't want anything to happen. It's more it would be nice to catch up and have a laugh and reminisce about being young. He was lovely - just not right for me. It probably wouldn't be fair on him would it? I doubt he has feelings now (9 years later) but it's a bit selfish of me.

I do feel quite old and knackered at the moment and find my identity is a bit lost - feel a bit like I'm just mum as opposed to lostlondoner

I don't really know why I'm posting this, just airing my thoughts. Basically does anyone else wonder what their ex's are up to? And tell me it would be a bad idea to get back in contact!!

In general I don't see a problem in being friends with ex's. But in this case I'm not sure on your motivations. It seems like you are looking for some excitement to feel like a "woman" instead of mum. This is the wrong way to go about it.

It would be wrong because you are actually looking for some validation from outside your marriage. It suggests you want an affair.

I think friends is fine if you are both comfortable with it. However, getting in touch with someone 9 years later is a bit weird. I've been very good friends with exes but it started very soon after the split and not all those years later.

Getting in touch with exes is a bit of a no no I think. Would you tell your DH before you contacted your ex?

I bumped into an ex 27 years on, we ended up having an affair.

What do you want out of getting in touch with your ex?

Friends with exes is fine if you've always been friends. Rekindling a friendship with an ex for validation, which it appears it what you want, is really not advisable.

I'm friends with an ex and have been since the day we split, 6 years before I met DH. He's part of our lives now and I still have a great friendship with him. However I haven't maintained friendships with other exes and therefore getting back in touch when I'm happily married - even during the hard times- would be seeking something outside of my marriage. I wouldn't be happy with DH doing it so I wouldn't either.

I dream about an ex regularly. Just before I started ivf I dreamt I was looking for him to make sure he was ok with it. Weird!

We are friends on FB and have chatted on there a bit and I phoned him once and we chatted for ages but I came off the phone very sure I had done the right thing by ending things with him. And we split years ago. I’ve been with DH since 1988!

We occasionally tag each other in something on FB related to music and something we used to go to together.

Wouldn’t be interested in actually meeting him though.

There is a bit of a difference between remaining friends and looking someone up years later.

I'm not sure I would be happy with my DH randomly contacting an ex; however we both have ex's we are friends with because we always have been.

I'm not going to contact him. It would be weird. YY to some validation though. Get so fed up being "mum" all the time. I miss being desired sometimes that's all. 😞