We had been seeing eachother for a little over a year and had recently moved in together earlier this year, but it wasn’t until this past month that I noticed he wasn’t as affectionate as before. Turns out he was talking to someone else online and blantly lied to me stating they were a man. I was too hurt by this because I had previous knowledge of this person full knowing they were a woman. After our fight he had claimed he would stop talking to them, but that clearly didn’t happen. He has never met this person irl, but his actions still bothered me tremendously. Turns out he was “in the processing of breaking things off” with me, his words to her. I ultimately broke things off so I wouldn’t have to wait and wonder when he would actually break up with me. In the end, he still wanted to be friends and still cared for me, but I can’t feel the same about him when he just threw me to the side. We share a lot of common friends and interests, but that doesn’t excuse what he did and how I still feel. I just don’t see why he would even want to be friends after wanting to get rid of me.
tl;dr i broke up with my boyfriend because he was going to leave me and now he wants to be friends
5 comments
No…he is not your friend.
No you don’t need to be friends, pretend to be friends, nor answer his texts, talk to him, listen to him etc. you don’t have to acknowledge him at a party. Nothing.
No apologies no explanations to him or friends
Carry on.
So “I want to be friends” can be blow-off language. It’s a nice thing you say when you’re breaking up to ease things. I makes you sound like the bigger person, too.
Or it can mean, “I want to be friendly” – that is to say, you run into each other at a party, you want it to be low drama, to be able to chat and enjoy yourselves like you would with other friends.
It can also mean, “I want to be friends.” But you don’t owe him that. You should choose to be friends because being friends serves you, not because it’s something they want. And also most couples who break up and end up being friends go from partners to friends by way of a period of very reduced contact and interaction.
So, even in the BEST of circumstances, where both people truly want to be friends and they had a strong friendship before trying to date, you need a period of full separation and as close to no contact as you can to allow yourself to heal and “reset”. It varies person to person, but it’s generally at *least* eight weeks of separation before you can reasonably approach being friends together.
And honestly, it doesn’t seem like he would be any sort of a friend to you. There’s no benefit to you here. Firmly tell him that you’re not interested and you’ll be moving on with your life.
Thank you all for the comments, I really wanted to make sure I was making the right decision by not succumbing to being their friend after everything that happened.