femme-lesbians:

I think we both wanted to remain friends, but it wasn’t something that we could go straight into either. The key to being friends after a break up is to give yourself time to move past the romantic feelings that you have for each other. It’s near to impossible to be just friends with someone you have strong romantic feelings for. 

My ex and I broke up just before Christmas and it wasn’t a simple break up either; the situation was really difficult, and we didn’t really return to a strong friendship until March. You have to just let yourself be apart from the other person for a while. You have to just cut contact so you can both move on. I think the worry is, that when you cut ties with a person for a while, maybe you might lose them permanently and they may not want to be back in your life when they’re over you but if you’re meant to be friends, it’s actually very easy to fall into a friendship later with very little arguments or resentment. 

We did argue a little after we broke up. We fell into the all to easy list of why the other person isn’t a good girlfriend and we both said things we didn’t mean but we knew, like you do, that we wanted to be in each others lives still, so we put all of that sort of thing aside.

It was more important to us to be friends then let any animosity we had towards each other be a problem. I think Danielle is actually the better person to ask about this because in the break up she wasn’t the one to make the decision to end the relationship and she didn’t want the relationship to end at all, and I’ll be the first to admit, the way I broke up with her was awful – it couldn’t have been helped, or done any different – but it was awful. The whole situation was terrible for both of us, but she was the one that had to put those feelings of betrayal and anger and hurt aside for the sake of remaining friends, which is a testament to how wonderful she is; she’s always been the most understanding person I’ve ever known. On my part she said some very hurtful things after we broke up (like anyone would in that situation) and I had to overlook those. 

At the end of the day though, Danielle and I love each other so much that despite everything, we’re too important to each other to not forgive each other and move on. Also, I think we’d both agree that in some ways we work better as friends than girlfriends. 

You have to give it time and let it happen on it’s own when you both feel ready for it and you both have to accept responsibility for what went wrong in a relationship instead of placing blame; decide which is more important, being in the right or being friends. 

Also, sometimes you can’t be friends with exes. I have multiple exes where it would have been unhealthy to stay in each others lives, or where we just didn’t want that and it couldn’t work. If they cheated on you, or treated you badly, maybe you shouldn’t be friends. I think if infidelity had been the cause of my break up with Danielle, we couldn’t have stayed friends. It’s okay to not be in each other’s lives. In those situations you need to consider whether you actually do want a genuine friendship, or you just aren’t ready to not have them around and they’re just comfortable for you now.

Also I feel it’s a given but so many couples get this wrong, you cannot have a long term friendship with an ex if you continue to be physically intimate with each other; don’t try friends with benefits straight away after a break up!

Anyway, sorry for how rambling that was, I hope some of that was of some help to you!