Can exes still be friends?

I’m a 17-year-old who easily falls in love. (Well, I guess most teenagers do.) I had a boyfriend last year. He courted me for eight whole months even if our relationship lasted for less than two months. I realized that having him as a boyfriend was a huge mistake. I broke up with him for many reasons. The first was because he was too possessive. Second, he was aggressive. Third, he has this big attitude problem that was more than I could take. I’m okay and single again. But I don’t think my ex has moved on. I really want us to be friends again, just like before, but I don’t think he’s willing to talk to me ever again. Plus, I think he thinks that I dumped him for another guy, though I really didn’t. All I want is for us to be friends.  It just seems so difficult and I really have no idea how we can start talking to each other again.

Ms. Taken

 From the sound of things, your ex has put up this wall between the two of you as a defense mechanism. He obviously liked you a lot to court you for eight months (that’s a pretty long time for a teenager), and when things didn’t go according to plan after a couple of months, he probably had a hard time figuring out why. You could see that he had a lot of faults (hey, nobody’s perfect), but he probably still liked you and maybe didn’t even see his faults as being major enough for you to leave him (we’re all pretty blind to our own imperfections in relationships). Some guys (and girls) find a certain degree of possessiveness as being a good thing. They believe that partners that are a bit possessive or jealous are just afraid of losing them and it’s a sign that they care. I personally have a hard time understanding that as it often makes for a pretty strict and one-sided relationship, but there are certainly many people who think that way and your ex could be one of them. Maybe he thought his possessiveness was endearing in some way?

Aggressiveness is never a good thing, but once again, it is sometimes hard for an individual to recognize his or her own faults. The same could be said about his attitude problem. Now, you may be wondering why I’m bringing this up when the problem is remaining friends with your ex. The point I’m trying to make is that from your ex’s point of view, he may not see any valid reason for the two of you breaking up. From his side, maybe he thinks he’s done the right things to make it work. He courted you for eight months, then (in his mind) showed that he cared by wanting to know where you were and worrying about you being out with other people etc (protective in his eyes, possessive in ours). Then for you to want to break up with him after only two months, it may not be surprising for him to think that maybe there’s a third party involved. Have you been hanging out with any other guy in particular since then? Even if it’s just a friend? Your ex may have seen the two of you together and jumped to the wrong conclusion.

That could be one reason why he doesn’t want to talk to you at the moment. If he feels like you just traded him in for an upgraded model of a boyfriend, then he could be feeling very hurt and used. After all, he has just devoted 10 months to you in the hope that things would continue for a while. I’m not saying you should feel sorry for him and go running back, or even feel guilty about the breakup at all. Things happen. People get together, and then they break up. No biggie. The problem is that one of the people invariably gets hurt in the process.

Now there are different ways of dealing with a painful breakup. Some people get sad and miserable, others try and block out the pain and immerse themselves in work or play to get through it. Some go for a rebound relationship to get over their past love, and then there are those that direct blame to explain their misery. This could be what your ex is doing. He was hurt, and if he really does think that you left him for someone else, then he is going to heap that blame on you. If that’s the case, then it shouldn’t be surprising that he doesn’t want to talk to you.

However, there is also another possibility, and one that could be the most likely. He may be hurting from the breakup, but instead of directing his anger, maybe he’s just dealing with it in his own way, bit by bit. He could still care about you quite a lot, and that’s why it hurts him even more when he sees you around. Put it this way. Imagine someone really close to you that you love, like a parent or sibling. Now imagine if they left you for some reason, saying they didn’t want to be with you anymore. That would hurt, but what would make it that much worse would be if you still had to see them 5 times a week, but pretend they weren’t related to you anymore. You would still look at them and think of all the fun times and fond memories you had together etc. But then what would happen if you saw them treating someone else the same way they used to treat you? It would hurt even more, huh? Now imagine you having to talk to them every day and pretend everything was normal and you’re just friends. Could you do that? Some of us can, and others can’t. I’m guessing that your ex is one of the people who has a lot of trouble with it. This is obviously a more extreme example of the situation the two of you are going through, but the principle is similar.

Basically, there are two things that he would need to become friends with you again, and even then it’s not a sure thing. Firstly, he needs to know all of the facts. That means pulling him aside (i.e. away from your barkada so that you can both speak honestly) and having a D&M (hey! No dirty thoughts! D&M as in Deep and Meaningful conversation). Explain that there really is no third party, and that things just didn’t work out for the two of you as a couple, but you’re confident that things would work really well as friends. I know that the "I hope we can still be friends" line is such a cliché, but in these cases, if spoken with sincerity and backed up with an honest effort on your part, it could help.

Secondly, he’s going to need some serious time away from you to rebuild his emotional defenses such as ego, confidence and trust. At the moment they are all just being propped up by his defensive wall of unfriendliness against you. Don’t rush things and give him some time to adjust to this new reality. It may take months or even years depending on how hard he fell for you. In some rare cases it may be impossible, but that’s a chance you have to take if you really want to be friends again.

So now is the time to just be honest with yourself about why you still want to be friends. Is it because it feels uncomfortable in the barkada when the two of you aren’t talking to each other? Or do you really value him as a friend that you don’t want to lose? If it’s the former, then you only want to be friends for your own comfort, and maybe it’s better to just leave things as they are and be civil to each other. But if you do really miss him as a friend, then you’ll have to be patient, and every now and again make a small overture of friendship to see if he’s ready for it yet. It’s amazing what kind of emotional wounds time can heal, and I think that if you truly value his friendship and are willing to wait long enough, it’ll manage to fix this one too.

Marc

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