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My ex insists on being friends

heartbrok3n
heartbrok3n

My ex and i dated for 7 years and we just broke up last friday. We had been dating since we were 15 and he felt that we were going to get married because things were great honestly. I am about to graduate and move back home and we were finally going to be in the same city again. I had just spent a week with him before we broke up and had an amazing time. he said he felt that he didn't know if he needed to see what else was out there, but he didnt want to still be dating when i come home adn fly out to my graduation and then in the future he realizes he does need that time to date around and see what else is out there before he can feel comfortable settling down. He said he didnt want to end up hurting me more in the long run. That was just a recap, he previously had said lets be friends i said maybe after some time has passed and he said okay but then two days with no talking he texted me (last night) asked how i was doing and said he couldnt stop thinking about me. He said i never talk to him anymore and that i am the closest friend he has, and he doesnt want to lose me as a friend. The thing is i cant be his friend until i am over him, and i dont know why he is so adamant about being my friend. I know he cant be over me after not even a week, and he wants to see what else is out there he cant talk to me about other girls, and either way our friendship wont ever be the same. He said can we talk once a week, and i said no, when really i am hurt that he doesnt miss more than the friendship. I have heard exs always come back and i thought that it would at least be some months or even a year before we became actual friends, but he doesnt even miss anything but the friendship. can he possibly be over me so fast? Why does he want to stay friends right now, does he want to keep me interested so he can get everything out his system and come back? I really dont think he wants me back ever which hurts the most. I mean i think we are really done this time but a little part of me was hoping hed miss more than just talking to me. I told him he can wish me happy graduation if he wants which is a bit over a month away, but until then he can have absolutely no contact. I know a month isnt enough time for me to get over him buti am hoping that he will forget to reach out and then ill know that it was all a matter of breaking the habbit. I'm sad because I dont want to lose him but i am no where near over him, and i wanted him to miss more than the friendship am i wrong for that? I know i need to focus on myself and healing myself and not be worried about him but it is so hard. I just knew what he was thinking, any advice?

brighteyed8
brighteyed8
When I read your post, a lot came to mind. My last relationship was just a hair short of 5 years and we were together from the time I was 19 until I was almost 24. It was the biggest, hardest loss I'd ever gone through at the time. I still think a tiny piece of me still loves him. Every situation is different, but my ex and I had a rocky relationship and we ended things because it was just getting to the point where it was toxic for us to stay together. He ended up moving to Florida to be with his family and find himself again (we then lived in Ohio so it was a big distance between us). Since then, we've reconnected a couple of times, even once this year (we broke up in October 2016). But it took me a long time to finally get over him and move on, but I was so worried about whether or not he was getting over me that I forgot to focus on myself and I think that's why it took me so long to really move on.

I think it sounds like your ex wants to have his cake and eat it too. He doesn't want to be with you yet he expects you to be friends. I'm not sure how your relationship with him was.... was the breakup a long time coming? Did your relationship become on-and-off all the time? Perhaps he has a different way with coping with the situation and maybe he had started to move on while you were still together... I know that sounds terrible but some people do that.

If I were you, I'd lay down the law and tell him you can't be friends because it's just too hard on you. Tell him how you're feeling about everything and don't hold back... what do you have to lose at this point? I would tell him you're bothered that he wants to see what else is out there and that you're hurt that he doesn't seem to miss anything more than your friendship, but tell him exactly what you wrote here... that you just need to have time to yourself without contact from him in order for you to move on. He can't expect you to sit around and wait on him to figure out what he wants. Maybe it'll work out eventually, maybe it won't... but you definitely don't deserve to be questioning what you mean to him.

I've been in similar shoes so I know how painful this can be. If you need someone to talk to, please don't hesitate to send me a message. Best of luck to you.
Community Leaderbobinmaine
bobinmaine
This reminds me of the old song by Lobo, "I love you too much to ever start liking you, so don't expect me to be your friend".

This is a carbon copy of a relationship I had with a girl and it lasted for two years. She found someone else and so she dumped me but she wanted to stay friends which was hard for me. She would talk about intimate details with her new lover and it hurt so bad to hear those things, OMG! It was excruciating but she didn't think anything of it. I had to tell her I couldn't have any contact with her at all.

Long story short, she contacted me about 3 months later, and she wanted to get back together again. By then, I was seeing someone else who I eventually married so I had to politely decline which was easy to do because of the time that had passed.

You seem like a very nice person with a big heart and you will find someone else, I am sure, and I agree with you. Tell him no contact unless he is interested in a serious relationship. You have every right to do so.

God Bless
jojored
jojored
Well, not all ex's come back, some of us can say 'thank god!' to that. And I believe yours shouldn't. He's hurting you by trying to hold on to a "friendship". It's a lot selfish for him to dump you and then still want to be friends, keep you on the line like a fish he's caught on his fishing pole but refuses to unhook and throw back. Yet he's not ready to fry you up for dinner. You're just swinging in the air on that hook and line, not free to breathe in the water yet not mercifully dead yet. Just in the middle suffering.

I say throw him back. Maybe in the future he'll realize he does miss you in his life for all the right reasons, but you shouldn't hold your breath believing this will be the case. You've got to more on with the assumption that the two of you are over.
Misred
Misred
What stands out to me is this was a long distance relationship for a long time after????? So I'm thinking a break up has been on his mind awhile now. So he has dealt with it much longer than you have.....in other words he's gotten a head start. The calling and contacting is just his guilt. I say stick to your guns and break off contact for a while. Tell him youre not mad, don't hate him, that you just need some space
heartbrok3n
heartbrok3n
I really appreciate all of the reply's everyone is right. I can't be so focused on him that I am not focusing on myself. I think what makes it even tougher on me is that we were great before we broke up. I had just spent the week before with him on my spring break and it was great. He left me I love you notes for me to wake up to, when he left early for work, told me how he couldn't wait for me to move back home, and even talked about potentially moving in together!! That is why I am so thrown off guard is because I really wasn't expecting it. After we talked he said he realized that the week was great and almost perfect he said that if we were together when I move back home we would end up married and he didn't know if he needed to go out and see what else was out there. He said he didn't;t want to continue dating me and then 3 years I'm ready to settle down and he realizes he never got to date around. I mean I understand his point of view but it definitely doesn't make it any easier on me. He has tried to come back and be friends but I told him I need lots of space before I can decide if I even want to be friends, but he kept saying that I was his closest friend and he didn't want to lose me as a friend to. I don't understand what the point of being friends is? What is there to talk about, and its not like we are about to just hang out like the best of pals. Especially when he is interested in other girls, the thought of him with someone else makes me sick. I'm just tired of feeling sad and confused. I wish at least he would leave me alone. he wanted to date other girls fine but do that and leave me alone, don't try to keep me in your life so I can be a witness to that, have mercy on me, I was still just as in love with him when we broke up as when we were dating, so its like I'm sad that we aren't together and then I'm also sad for the future we will never have.
heartbrok3n
heartbrok3n
It was a long distance relationship for almost 4 years now, but since I am in college and we are from the same state we would visit each other pretty frequently. I usually saw him every month, which I know in the scheme of things is no time, but for winter breaks id be home over a month, I'd spend 4 days weekends here and there. I was home every thanksgiving and Christmas, and he'd come visit me during the semester as well. Then all of that to end just over a month before I graduate and was coming home. we did long distance almost 4 years to break up at the very very end. When I had just spent my spring break with him. 8 days of constant laugher, we made dinner together, tried to do couple workouts, binge watched this is us, just hanging out what we do best. He even said he could hang out with me like that forever. Does he even know what forever means?
jojored
jojored
It also may be that his "forever" was always more figurative, while yours was more literal. Different interpretations of the same relationship.
TotalRegret
TotalRegret
Simple question: What do YOU want? You get to decide the boundaries you're comfortable with, nobody else! If you want him to be bff then that's ok; if you don't want anything to do with him, then that's ok too. The point is that you get to decide based on what you want. It may well change over time, but figure out what the boundary is for you today.
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