Relationship length: 1.5 years
Ages: Me (F): 21 (M): 24
So I dated this guy for a year and a half. It was a messy relationship, and I’m trying to cope through a lot of the problems. With that being said, he was a huge part of my life and he was there through the hardest year of my life. So I really want a friendship. We had plans to take a day trip, and meet up to drive together. I live with my mom and sister, who had both been sick. My mom had a 102.5 degree fever, and I didn’t want to leave her until her fever went down a little. I had extended family checking in on them an hour after I left, but I didn’t want to leave her until her fever went down. So I texted my ex I was running late. Admittedly, I didn’t communicate how late very well. I told him I’d text him when I was leaving, but it was miscommunicated that meant that he should wait to leave until he got that message. He called me when I sent the “I’m leaving text” mad that I hadn’t left yet. I explained why I was running 40 minutes late (yes I know how terribly late that was) and felt like I had a good excuse, but he didn’t believe so and wanted to leave without me. I wouldn’t surround myself with friends like that typically, but he said this would be a normal reaction by one of his friends to this exact situation. Should I try to be friends with him? Is the friendship worth it? Was his reaction a normal reaction to me running extremely late under the circumstances I was?
A couple of other things:
-He keeps telling me he loves me even though we’re broken up, but this didn’t feel like love.
-He claims to be a family man himself, but if that’s true you’d think he understands the care I have for my own family?
Tl;dr: I want to stay friends with an ex who helped me through the hardest year of my life, but on our first outing as friends he got made at me for being late due to helping family. Should I still try for a friendship?
3 comments
He’s too comfortable, and what I mean by that is: there’s too much history between you to the point where he feels safe telling you off.
It’s just one of those things really. A friendship has boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. At the moment the boundaries are blurry.
It sounds like he has an agenda of his own and he’s not going to listen. He either wants to get back with you, or stop you from seeing anyone else.
You had a good reason for being late, but it sounds like you handled the situation pretty poorly. “Hey my mom’s sick, I’m going to be here for a while, I’m sorry this is last minute, you can wait if you’d like but I dunno how long it’s gonna be”. That took me less then a minute to write and shows consideration for the other party’s time and effort. The reaction “I’m leaving” and being upset seems reasonable given being ghosted in a parking lot for 45, while waiting for something he was probly really looking forward to. It’s perfectly reasonable to want to care for a family member the same way it’s perfectly reasonable to be upset when someone stands you up. If him being upset led to bad behaviour “e.g. berating, yelling at you,” I’d say maybe re evaluate the friendship or have a talk about what happened and what parts “you ghosting or him berating” are outside the boundaries of what you’d both expect from a friendship.
don’t be friends with an ex it never ends well.