Can you ever be friends with you EX?

[Oakleaf40]

My husband and I are separating after 19 years together, His decision. We have two teenage children and a business together. We haven't sorted anything out regarding the business or moving out etc. I know this isn't going to be plain sailing its difficult enough to deal with him wanting to separate but he has this attitude of we can be best friends ? lets be friends!!
19 years together wants to separate and be best friends? Am I going crazy!! All I want to do right now is scream, how can he think that I am just going to say yeah sure lets end our marriage and be best buddies!!!

Men are morons 🙄 obviously for the sake of your children you will remain civil and that's the way it should be.
As for being friends, maybe somewhere further down the line you may be able to achieve some kind of friendship (again for the sake of the kids) but right now being friends is the last thing you need.
I'm sorry about your marriage, after 19 years you must be devastated x

But you have a business together ? Will you still be in business together ?

I know someone who is best buddies with her ex, they have a teenage daughter, it’s just that they can’t live together as they are so incompatible.

I separated from dp 4 weeks ago we was together 10 years and have two dc together. He moved out 2 weeks ago and we've managed to stay friends. I know it's early days though but I really do want to remain friends with him because we were literally best friends and did everything together. I've helped him with choosing furniture for his new home and been round his to let the builders in while he was on holiday. Our decision to split was mutual though we just weren't getting along and the stress of life was too much to handle. I realise your situation is different.

Tell him no, not now, you need space from him.

You're allowed to have your feelings and he's pushing for "friendship" to alleviate his conscience.

I would try for amicable, but that doesn't mean being emotionally available as a friend or anything. In years to come, you might rebuild a friendship, but right now it's not what you want or need.

It depends entirely on the person, my best friend was my closest friend for six years before we had a relationship, our relationship ended but we are still extremely close. It works for us, but it doesn’t for everyone, you need to prioritise whats best for you.

I was married to mine for 19 years also . The difference is I was the instigator to seperate.
We did not remain ' friends ' , in fact I have not seen him for years . I do ask my adult dd about his well-being and also his side of the family but I would not be surprised to hear that he never asks about me .

I think it depends on why you are separating. Is there somebody else involved? Is it a mutual split. If you still love him and he’s got another woman then a friendship isn’t going to work

He isn't involved with another woman as far as I know. We have not got along for a while and I do admit we haven't been happy because we struggle to communicate well as we are both hot headed and stubborn so when we disagree on issues it becomes a lot bigger if you know what I mean. We attended counselling for a few weeks but I have to admit it was awful. The lady just sat and basically let us talk about the same thing over and over each week. It was bloody awful!! She gave us nothing to work on. I have asked him to try Relate as they are specialists but he totally refuses to. I am devastated.

That’s very sad that he won’t try Relate. It sounds like he’s totally checked out of the marriage. Being friends isn’t going to work because you are going to need time when you don’t see him to be able to move on.

This is difficult.
We had been married for a similar amount of time and have a business together and I had optimistic ideas of being friends.
The business makes the situation unusual because you have to communicate.
My ex has behaved really badly and I am very uneasy around him now. It is about 6 months on and I’ve finally come to realise the only way through this is with minimal contact.
Kids are okay. We’re working on it and (unpopular opinion) I reckon we are better as separate parents than joint. Always were to be fair.
I hope that some years down the line we can have some sort of friendship, I don’t want the kids ever feeling awkward about joint family events.
The business? We are keeping it going. Not sure how sustainable it is in the long run.
Good luck x

When children are involved you will need to be civil and maintain some level of contact but not necessarily friends. I would struggle to see my spouse move on with another woman particularly if he instigated the split.

When I dated, I never remained friends after breaking up. I did not want to know anything about them, who they were with. I had friends who remained friends with exes and could never understand how they managed to. Some hung around in the hope there would be a reconciliation. I am extremely black and white and selfish.

Totally agree

One of my exes is my best friend, we're currently on holiday together.

But it sounds like you need a break from/have had enough of your ex. You don't -have- to be friends with him, not in the sense where you see each other all the time, at least. And some times friendships take time to heal/recover.

You could reply to him something like 'I need some time to myself at the moment.'

If he's really angered you, obviously you mightn't want much to do with him at all. Then as Faith50 says, just be civil for the kid's sake. xx

I'm also currently on holiday with my ex.
No kids involved, but we do run a small business together.
We never lived together, so didnt have the problems of finding somewhere else to live, and we do both have our time away from each other.
Giving 'being friends' a go was a joint decision - I'm going through the menopause, and right now dont feel I could be interested/bothered with dating again.. not sure how I'll feel when he meets someone else, suppose our friendship would change and we'd have to discuss what happens with the business.. but for me, right now, being friends is working...

My ex said the same thing. That he could pop round for dinner sometimes and we’d still be friends. I told him to go fuck himself and that if he wasn’t able to give me what I need I wasn’t providing him with a hot meal and somewhere to do his Disney dad-ing!

8 years later and I’d say we ARE actually friends, he does pop in for dinner sometimes and we happily spend time together with the DCs.

He stays at my house when I go on holiday with DP and quite often sorts out odd jobs while he’s here like cleaning the oven and changing light bulbs that I haven’t got round to doing!

He recently moved to another country for work and when he left in tears, I gave him a big hug and told him he could do it, I was also very tearful (mainly re the kids but I had also got used to having him around). When he was having relationship problems with a previous GF he came round and spoke to me about it and said I was the only person who really knew him, opened up about his depression etc. (That sounds like a line when I see it written down. But there has never been any suggestion of us getting back together, we’re both clearly happier apart, but it’s nice for the DCs to see us being friendly to each other.)

It takes time to get to that point though. You need the distance and to establish a new coparenting relationship outside of the marriage before you can build a new relationship as friends. Don’t feel like you have to rush it because it can be done - most of us who have a decent relationship with our ex have stumbled across it via some animosity and upset, not planned it from the outset!

I have managed to be friends with an ex and he has supported me post break up at some really tough times (bereavement, illness) with friendship and being someone I can ugly cry in front of.

I think we managed to stay friends because we never fell out, the break up was so very sad because we loved each other but just had different values in many ways - work ethic, family dynamics, him needing a rocket up his arse and me needing to chill the fuck out!

The only way we made it work was by having 6 months post break up of no contact whatsoever, so we didn't get into the getting back together / one more night etc that I've had with some exes.

I don't know how it would work though in a relationship with kids because obviously you can't not have contact.

I would say though unfortunately he has kept our friendship (which is a chat maybe every few months if something has happened eg family friend ill as we had five years together so we both part of the other family at one point) hidden from his current girlfriend and the minute I found out he said she had an issue with me and I was like of course she does I don't fucking blame her because you've made it one by keeping secrets!

Said I wouldn't speak to him any more if that was how he was behaving. So we ended up going for dinner the three of us and it was actually quite, we both took the piss out of him for certain things and she could see there was no physical / sexual tension between us.

However after a while she started (quite fairly) having an issue with me again because he went back to not mentioning he'd spoken to me on the phone then she'd found out.

Anyway, we don't talk anymore because I don't want to be that ex girlfriend who falls back on a nice ex when I need someone to talk to, at the expense of another woman's confidence and security.

So I think try to think ahead a little - if you're too close now it will be a real ouch when one of you starts seeing someone I think. And makes it harder to decide when is the right time to tell them - are you telling your friend or the father of your kids (same person but different roles)

I think in your case have a breather - civil and kid chat for a few weeks at least while you get your head around things. I'm sure you can build your way up to a type of friendship in your own way. Sending positive thoughts!

Thank you.

No

In my experience, people that offer to be friends, do it to ease their guilt and are keeping you as a fall back for when their new relationship, goes to shit

Exes can end up as friends...but people don't get to decide that you're going to be when you break up, only time will tell in the end if a friendship will work out.

My parents separated when I was 7 (or 8??) but never officially divorced. They own both of their houses jointly & still merge the majority of their finances (admittedly this is a bit weird but it works for them). When I was a child we probably saw my dad 2-3 times a week, though I lived with mum. They still see each other perhaps every other week and we get together as a family every 3-4 weeks. They’re absolutely best friends but not romantically involved (in fact, mum would be completely delighted if dad got a girlfriend because to our knowledge, he’s not had one since they separated). We also always spend Christmas together and dad stays the night on Christmas Eve & has done since they separated. It is totally possible but it is unusual - my parents are certainly unique in how they’ve approached their separation 😬

Wow. Thats amazing, my situation is probably going to be very similar, we both cant afford to move out, we have a large property that we can get space from each other. Who know. Thanks for sharing

YANBU. Some people can, but it very much depends on the circumstances. All this "must be friends for the kids sake" is just not always possible for everyone.

My friend ended her marriage after quite a while of them both trying. He was hurt, but accepted it and they have both since remarried and are friendly enough to attend events together when necessary.

Another friend felt betrayed by their spouse and no way will they be friends, one party even refusing to communicate at all at one point.

My XH said when he left that he wanted us to be friends, still have family days out, come round for tea etc........ he wanted us to remain FB friends etc, but he just didn't understand that his leaving out of the blue totally and utterly destroyed me. I couldn't be anywhere near him whilst he played out his affair with his best mate's wife and I sank into the depths of depression and had months of counselling. Now he is married to her and I don't want to be anywhere near them. I can't hide my feelings enough to be able to be fake with them for anyone else's sake.

I admire people that can be friends though, but we are all made of different stuff.

I’ve recently separated from my husband/ partner of 20 years and he too immediately suggested we would be best friends. It’s hard though as I get so angry with him for what he’s doing to our child....I guess at the end of the day we’ll be friends as we have to co-parent for another 15 odd years....

I think it takes time. I had a really tricky relationship with XH for 2-3 years after we split, then it got easier and 20 years down the line we all (including my DH) all pile down the pub. He even came to our evening wedding reception. Not saying it was always easy, but keeping the children at the forefront and letting him have them when at times I knew he was trying to push my buttons, helped. I seem to remember thinking that I had them 10 days out of 14, so could afford to be a bit generous. It paid off and we have a lovely relationship now, where we randomly occasionally ring each other up to say how proud we are of DC.
Looking back, it was awful for the first 2-3 years, then got difficult again when they were teens and didn’t always want to go to his, but I put my foot down and have to say I made them go as I really wanted them to have a good relationship with him . He really respected my stand on that, they then grew out of being teenagers and that really helped.
Maybe it makes a difference when you split, for us the children were very young (5 and 3), so perhaps it was less difficult ,as they were less aware of change.