Staying In Touch

I’m sure most of us have gone through the experience of getting over an ex. Occasionally, a break up is long over due, and time spent mourning the loss of the relationship is minimal; the desire to stay in touch is non-existent. But often the post break up process is just that: a process. It involves a mix of emotions that fluctuate from minute to minute, one moment you’re glad to be rid of your former mate and excited to go out and party as a single man/woman, the next moment you’re sad and/or lonely. “Staying friends” can often pro long the process. I’ve observed that when exes decide to remain friends, a lot of the expectations that were put in place during the relationship remain after it ends. Thus, comes the inevitable feeling of disappointment each ex-partner feels when their former significant other fails to live up to those expectations. Fails to return phone calls, fails to make time for those coffee/lunch dates set up so that former couples can “catch up.”


However, the pact to remain friends is often inevitable. Most people will advise former partners to end all contact with their exes(often sound advice), but lets be real, most former couples stay in touch or at least try to, especially given that most couples begin their relationships as friends. So then comes the complicated part of staying in touch. Navigating the line between too much contact, so that you’re unable to actually get over the former relationship, and no contact, leading to the loss of a friend. Since I make no claims of being a relationship expert, I’m opening the floor up to the readers of This Woman’s Work. Do you have any guidelines you follow when communicating with an ex after your relationship ends? Have any of you actually adhered to the rule that you must cut all ties to actually move on? How much communication is too much?

 
 
 
posted by
Bourgeois