Are you open to just being friends with an ex? Do you think they want the same kind of friendship? Today, Jay’s diving into a question we've all probably wrestled with at some point: can you really stay friends with an ex? He kicks things off by laying down some ground rules, pointing out that not every ex is friendship material, especially if there was any toxicity or harm in the relationship. For those open to trying a platonic bond post-breakup, he highlights the real-life complexities and the level of emotional maturity it takes to make it work. Jay also brings in some interesting science, sharing that studies show people stay connected with their exes for reasons like security, convenience, keeping things civil, or even unresolved feelings. But each of these reasons can get messy, and Jay explains that often, the urge to stay friends might have more to do with wanting a sense of safety or familiarity than with genuine friendship. In this episode, you'll learn: How to Decide if an Ex Deserves Friendship How to Set Boundaries with an Ex How to Manage Shared Friends Post-Breakup How to Avoid Using Friendship to Win Them Back How to Avoid Hurting Your Ex Twice Sometimes, the boldest and most courageous thing you can do is to walk away, taking the lessons with you and leaving the rest behind. Focus on what makes you feel good and helps you build the life you truly want. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:52 Not Every Ex Deserves Friendship 04:36 Four Core Reasons People Stay Friends with Their Exes 09:30 Four Ways to Know Being Friends with an Ex Won’t Work 13:52 How to Start Being Friends with an Ex? 18:33 Friends and Family Can be Casualties of a Breakup 21:41 Establish New Rules of Engagement 22:50 Consider the Welfare of ChildrenSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Can you really stay friends with an ex?
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Chapter 2: What grounds do you need to consider before being friends with an ex?
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If you're wanting civility with someone who's wanting intimacy, it doesn't work. If you're wanting civility with someone who wants drama, it doesn't work. And I know you know who I'm talking about, right? You know you've tried in situations to be the civil one. to be the peaceful one, to be the conscious one.
But because they didn't want that and they didn't want that from you and they didn't want to mirror that, it didn't work out that way. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm your host, Jay Shetty. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm so grateful that you've decided to reconnect, whether you're hiking, walking, walking your dog, cooking, driving to or from work.
Thank you so much for being here. i was speaking to a friend the other day and she asked me this question she said to me can you be friends with your ex and my response was who are you talking to and it's one of these questions that i get asked a lot and when this particular friend asked me this question there was a part of me that was worried but there was a part of me that was open
And I think it's because for years, my quick response has been, no, not really. And then I realized how different this question was for people who had kids together, for people who had shared friends together. There were different versions of it. And I think often we can discount or dismiss the opportunity without recognizing the factors.
So I thought it was important to do an episode about it because I think it's a lot more complex and subtle than we often give it credit for. Now, before we even get started, there are grounds for not being friends. Before exploring this question, I want to establish some ground rules. Not every ex deserves friendship. Did your relationship end in a peaceful manner? Did your ex treat you well?
Are they dangerous, volatile or toxic and an untrustworthy person? Were you ever mistreated or did you ever feel unsafe? Were you disrespected or taken advantage of emotionally, sexually or financially? Were you lied to or cheated on? If any of these things are true, I would avoid even considering becoming friends with your ex.
But assuming things ended kind of mutually and acceptably, or as well as possible considering you did call it quits, here's a rule of thumb. You're more likely to be friends with an ex if you and your ex had a nice breakup. But here's the thing. It will still always be complicated. Even if things ended well, understand that becoming friends with an ex is a tricky, landmine-filled journey.
How could it not be? I mean, romantic relationships usually have their origins in friendship before they evolve into something deeper. You're now asking two people to maintain the friendship part of their relationship minus the romantic or sexual angle. But it's not as simple as going back to the friendship origins of your relationship.
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Chapter 3: What are the four core reasons people stay friends with their exes?
Think about a time in your life where you've stayed somewhere because it fooled you into believing you were safe in one way or another. So one of the reasons we stay is security. The second reason is practicality. You like your ex and your ex likes you. And both of you value each other's presence in your lives. And this is a sense of like comfort or ease.
So a lot of us are constantly trying to move toward comfort and ease, the path of least resistance. How many of you have stayed in a job, a relationship,
at a family gathering for far too long because it was comfortable and it was easy even though it wasn't good for you see as humans we almost seem to lose our way and it's interesting when you think about the pursuit of purpose that we're all ultimately challenged to go on one of the reasons we don't take it is because we're just looking for security and safety
One of the reasons we don't take the pursuit of purpose is because we're just looking for ease and comfort. And it feels in the short term much easier to do these options. And the truth is it is in the short term. It just isn't in the long term.
And when it comes to a breakup, you just think, well, if we just stay friends, at least things are still practical, not understanding the complexities that come with that. The third reason that people want to stay friends with their ex is civility, otherwise known as keeping the peace.
If you're walking down the street and you see your ex coming your way, you don't want to have to dart across the street to avoid having an awkward encounter. right it's just normal again the path of least resistance how do i create a world in which i have no conflict and no tension and no stress by the way i recommend that sometimes we create too much drama in our life sometimes we
basically are the directors of drama in our life, almost like we're directing a dramatic, tragic movie and we just find everything to cause tension and stress. So wanting civility is not a bad thing, I get it. But often, if you're wanting civility, with someone who's wanting intimacy, it doesn't work. If you're wanting civility with someone who wants drama, it doesn't work.
And I know you know who I'm talking about, right? You know you've tried in situations to be the civil one, to be the peaceful one, to be the conscious one, but because they didn't want that and they didn't want that from you and they didn't want to mirror that, it didn't work out that way. And the fourth reason, and by far the trickiest, has to do with unresolved romantic desires.
You still want to be with this person. You haven't gotten over them yet. You don't know if you ever will. And you're thinking to yourself, if I stick around for long enough, they'll come to their senses that I was the one. I was the best one. And they'll finally realize what they're missing out on. Right. I'm just going to convince them.
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Chapter 4: How do unresolved feelings affect friendship with an ex?
Maybe you're moving on. So you have to ask yourself, who does this friendship benefit? Am I doing it only to make me feel better about myself? If so, don't, right? Think twice. Too many people try to stay friends with their ex because they want to be seen as a good person. You broke their heart. You found someone else. You moved on. But you don't want to be seen as a bad person.
So you want to be friends with them so that they see you as a good person. And so you're only doing it to make yourself feel better about yourself. You're not doing it because you truly want to be friends with them. And that's only going to hurt them more in the future.
It might feel good to you right now based on how you're perceived, but not only your perception, how they feel and their heart will be deeply hurt in the future. And I think this hits very closely to why I partnered up with Match. And what I really found was I wanted to create a space where people could connect based on their values.
And this was really, really important to me because I feel that everything I'm saying here is because we don't realize that our core values are have such a big impact in terms of long-term success. If you ignore core values, you're thinking in the next five months. If you take on core values, you're living in the next five years.
And for anyone who's interested and invested in building a long-term, long-lasting, powerful relationship, this mindset is huge. 93% of Match members say that shared core values are a crucial indicator of relationship success. Now, let's imagine
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Chapter 5: What signs indicate that friendship with an ex won't work?
Now, naturally what we often do is we wonder what others, mutual friends, family members might think. If you and your ex were a couple for a long time, no doubt you have friends in common or an established friend group, as well as a relationship with each other's families. In the wake of a breakup, it's inevitable that some of those friends will take sides. Ditto for family members.
For the sake of keeping the peace, it's natural to want to maintain those friendships. To act as though nothing has changed and that everyone, including you and your ex, can still be buddies. After all, it's a small town where people are bound to run into one another and you don't want any weirdness. As for family members, you don't want their mom or their sister to think badly of you.
Maybe you have a close relationship with the family that you don't want to give up. Unfortunately, friends and family members can be casualties of a breakup. Something big has happened and your friends are coping with the fallout too. And I think this is the hard part where almost your friends are acting like it's harder for them than it is for you.
If you've just been through a breakup and you have mutual friends and your friends are making it out that this breakup is harder for them than it's harder for you, then those are not your real friends. You need friends who recognize that this loss is so deeply hard and difficult and challenging for you that they're there for you regardless of how it affects them. Because while they are affected,
you're the one who's going through the most of it. And I just really want to put that out there because I think too many people kind of feel like they've got to be there for their family, be there for their friends, be there for everyone else when you're the one who's really grieving the loss.
Now, one of the big ones that's come up for a lot of people I've talked to is the complicating factor of pets, right? Maybe you brought a cat together or a dog together and you're used to spending time together on the weekends, three of you, lazing around or hiking or watching a bad movie while the dog or cat lays in your lap.
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Chapter 6: How to set boundaries when attempting friendship with an ex?
Chapter 7: Why is emotional maturity important in friendships with exes?
Chapter 8: How to manage shared friends after a breakup?
Or is one of you secretly hoping that you'll be able to make something happen when the other person's guard's down. All of these lead to a lack of trust. They lead to a lack of stability in a friendship or in a relationship. Now, here's what the science says about becoming friends with your exes. A 2017 research study shows that people chose to stay friends with their exes for four core reasons.
The first is security. They make us feel good and show us that even in the wake of a breakup, our lives haven't been completely turned upside down. We're all looking for security and safety and our biggest concern genuinely is, who am I going to call at 7pm tonight? Wait a minute, who am I going to text first thing in the morning?
All of those things we think are emotional and they are, but they're security-based. It's not necessarily love or romance. It's a sense of safety and security which humans desire so deeply. And often we desire it so deeply that we stay in a situation, even if it's bad for us, we want to elongate and extend something, even if it's unhealthy for us, because it makes us feel falsely safe.
Think about a time in your life where you've stayed somewhere because it fooled you into believing you were safe in one way or another. So one of the reasons we stay is security. The second reason is practicality. You like your ex and your ex likes you. And both of you value each other's presence in your lives. And this is a sense of like comfort or ease.
So a lot of us are constantly trying to move toward comfort and ease, the path of least resistance. How many of you have stayed in a job, a relationship,
at a family gathering for far too long because it was comfortable and it was easy even though it wasn't good for you see as humans we almost seem to lose our way and it's interesting when you think about the pursuit of purpose that we're all ultimately challenged to go on one of the reasons we don't take it is because we're just looking for security and safety
One of the reasons we don't take the pursuit of purpose is because we're just looking for ease and comfort. And it feels in the short term much easier to do these options. And the truth is it is in the short term. It just isn't in the long term.
And when it comes to a breakup, you just think, well, if we just stay friends, at least things are still practical, not understanding the complexities that come with that. The third reason that people want to stay friends with their ex is civility, otherwise known as keeping the peace.
If you're walking down the street and you see your ex coming your way, you don't want to have to dart across the street to avoid having an awkward encounter. right it's just normal again the path of least resistance how do i create a world in which i have no conflict and no tension and no stress by the way i recommend that sometimes we create too much drama in our life sometimes we
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