rebuilding friendship with ex

[Sarakelly232]

my boyfriend of a year recently met up with his ex who he moved to the city with. I was ok with the meet up intiallly as i thought it was a one of. He came back and says they are finaly able to be friends (they broke up a year before we met and stayed in contact as they ended amicablly but he said it was too hard for them to be friends during this time) he now claims they can be friends as they have both moved on and our in different relationships and has suggested that he will meet her once a month or so going forward. I have said i need to think about it. Does this sound like a healthy friendship? the fact they are only starting this friendship now makes me anxious.

to those of you who have stayed friends with ex partners (no houses, kids etc) does this sound normal/healthy? would you expect current partners to be ok with it?

Nobody needs to talk to their exes unless they have a business or kids together, it is unacceptable when you’re in a relationship,

Sorry but I disagree with @Moobae

If your ex was a good person, there is no reason for them not to stay in your life. You liked them so much once that you had sex with them. Without the sex, don't you still like them? If you don't then you chose badly. And a decent new partner should understand. And it sets a fabulous role model for DCs if they are involved-

My ex and I are friends and we had a horrible volatile relationship but we have both moved on and grown up. People are surprised, it wasn't easy but it shows a great deal of maturity. We share a lot of the same friends, we were always going to end up at the same places or parties or funerals.

It’s early days with my relationship with my bf but we both have an ex we need to communicate with as we have children with them. I don’t have a problem with that, and don’t expect him to. I don’t think I’d have an issue with any other ex, I guess if you shared a life with someone it’s nice to be able to remain friends. I don’t have any ex’s who I’m friends with apart from father of DC, not sure if my bf does but he has a ton of female friends which I’m fine with. I wouldn’t expect to tell him I’ll have to think about whether he meets an ex monthly, very controlling. I certainly wouldn’t be impressed if he told me he was thinking about it if I announced a monthly coffee or something with an ex. That would be it for me, I draw the line at a partner telling me what I can do

This is a tricky one and you'll get differing opinions. I can think of times in my life I wouldn't be able to handle this, and others when it would be no problem, and it would be related to how secure I felt in a relationship.

But you certainly can't help your feelings on this, and they are perfectly valid and not right/wrong.

My ex Bf was at my wedding and I was at his. I still visit his mum and step dad.

I once attempted to rebuild a friendship with an ex, but I suspect her dh shut it down, as it was around four days after I made the suggestion, so I suspect she had discussed it with him.

I’m not sure why you would need to be friends with an ex.. seems a little odd. If they were already friends when you met maybe it would be different. Once a year would probably be enough!

I don’t really understand why they need to meet once a month and why that should already be the plan. Why do they need to be so involved in each other’s lives? You say there are no shared children and no shared property. Some people may be cool about it but to me it smacks of being very likely to lead to further romantic involvement. I think it’s disrespectful of your relationship and a bit concerning that he wants to do this, apparently without bringing you into the equation.

It's odd to me I wouldn't want to be in touch with an ex unless you had to because of kids. There's a reason an ex is an ex lol

Once per month sounds weird. Why not just meet occasionally?

I agree.with others. There is no need to be friends with an ex.

Someone you've realised you're incompatible with, like as a person and just make the decision to be friends instead is one thing but a relationship that was so difficult or ended so painfully it needs to be 'worked on'? What is the reason for that?
Why the need or desire to work on building that friendship when you're in a relationship with someone else? Why the need to formalise the friendship into meeting up once a month?

I have a friend who needs tainting friendships with her exes. Many of her friends are exes. But she is also in therapy for people pleasing tendencies (she can't bear to think people don't like her) and she wants to be friends with everyone - even exes who have cheated on her, taken advantage of her, just not behaved in the way a friend would behave.

I have another friend who wants to be friends with all his exes. In his case, he hopes that they might change their mind and want more but he also has people pleasing tendencies, cant bear the thought of losing people from his life however crap the relationship was, poor boundaries and is in therapy for that too.

In short, I know a few people whose relationships morphed into friendships but no emotionally stable, boundaried people who decided to meet and 'work on' being friends with an ex and certainly none who did that once they were in a relationship with someone else.

I completely disagree with what most of the other posters have said. If the relationship was based of friendship and mutual values and interests but simply wasn't working out romantically, then there is every reason it could become a decent, long standing platonic friendship. There is no reason to banish a decent, supportive person from your life just because society (and mumsnet) has decided you must not and should not be friends with an ex partner.