The Brutal Truths about Breakups: Why Being Friends with Your Ex is Self-Sabotage

The idea that being friends with your ex is healthy needs debunking. From Rachel and Ross in “Friends” to Carrie and Mr. Big in “Sex and the City”, we see this dynamic fail again and again. Even though Carrie and Mr. Big ended up together, their post-breakup friendship blatantly impacted Carrie, even compromising her self-respect. While every situation is different, the impact is often the same: maintaining contact and attachment, when you should be detaching, is detrimental. Albeit staying friends with an ex can seem mature, it often leads to unresolved feelings, prolonged emotional turmoil, self-doubt, and hindered personal growth.

Let start off with the first stage of being friends with your ex: the emotional fallout. This causes unresolved emotions, cognitive dissonance, and delayed recovery. The blurred line between platonic and romantic relationships leads to residual desire and emotional dependence, essentially making it harder to move on because frequent contact triggers suppressed emotions. Maintaining a friendship with an ex only encourages repressing feelings of longing or jealousy. This undoubtedly slows down healing, where staying friends will give you false hope of reconnecting. No contact is essential for emotional recovery.

The second stage of maintaining a friendship may involve the development of toxic dynamics. One partner may want reconciliation, while the other enjoys the lack of commitment, leading to a sticky friends-with-benefits situation. This undoubtedly creates a power imbalance, leaving one party taken advantage of. Some ex-partners use this dynamic to control emotions, repeat toxic patterns and keep you stuck. “Breadcrumbing” limits your ability to move on, causing regression rather than progress- they’re doing just enough to keep you there and available. Also, friendships with exes can often act as a safety net, preventing both parties from pursuing new relationships or personal growth.

Lastly, maintaining a friendship with your ex can directly harm future relationships as it can make new partners feel uneasy or intimidated, leading to distrust. The emotional energy spent on an ex takes away from new relationships, with unclear boundaries making it hard to value new connections on their own terms.

Although maintaining a friendship with your ex may seem honourable or mature at first, it is actually a means of avoiding detachment, which is healthy for no one. Therefore, I will conclude with my personal response to the question of whether someone should maintain a friendship with their ex. The answer is simply no. Putting your emotional health first should always take precedence over maintaining communication with a former partner as it gives you the opportunity to move on. 

Letting go of your ex is a commitment to your own development and happiness, not an act of animosity.

Words by Almaz Amanuel