This is a throw away account as I am needing advice from others who might have had or are going through a similar experience. I am trying to remain friends with my ex after we recently broke up after being together for about 4 years. Before we ended things, he was the person I envisioned marrying and am having a hard time accepting that we wont spend our lives together. I want more and it kills me to be apart, but I don’t want to lose him from being in my life either.
Here is some brief background information for context: We lived together for 3 out of the 4 years, and had a cat together. We had religious differences as I am Christian and he is not and I am extroverted while he was more introverted. Along with those differences, he would mention having issues with me being busy hanging out with my friends and planning too many things, but he wasn’t interested in joining much of my activities since they included people he wasn’t the most fond of (plus, because he was more introverted, I knew that he wouldn’t be as outgoing as myself, but it didn’t really bother me). Overall, it seemed like we had a really good relationship. We had similar interests, humor, and really enjoyed spending time together. As time has gone on, some differences in how we live our lives started to cause some incompatibility issues and even a little bit of resentment. He says he still loves me, but had started to become unhappy in the relationship, a little resentful, and felt like things weren’t working out. I wanted to keep dating and try to work through things, but since he felt like we already did that, he didn’t feel it would work out to continue. It also sucks and is confusing that he didn’t seem to want to stay with me and work on things, but says that he loves me and wants me in his life too.
Has anyone else been through this? What did/do you do, and how do you remain just friends with someone you love?
6 comments
My advice is don’t even bother trying to be friends. Just move on.
The answer is, you don’t.
You don’t. Cut contact and move on or you’ll be stuck and suffering forever.
You’ll never be able to fully move on if you stay friends.
Going through a really hard break up right now. A part of me wants to keep her in my life but I know it’s not healthy. Maybe you guys can be friends years down the road, but being in love with him and wanting him back you will be miserable if you stay in contact.
Don’t do this to yourself.
Break it off completely. There just isn’t any other way. You have to move forward with your life. I am so sorry….