Should You Really "Stay Friends" After The Relationship is Over?

My exboyfriend and I broke up back in January...and we tried to stay friends because we enjoyed each other's company and always wanted to remain friends regardless of how the relationship went. We had a sort of off and on relationship for 4 years, but we were on for like 2 years. He is moving across the country cuz he got into a good law school. I am not yet graduated from college so I am still working on that (one more year!) and had thought about moving but with all the off and on stuff I decided it would probably be best if I just finished up here. We didn't want to do long distance. So we decided breaking up was probably the right thing to do (back in January). Since then I have been trying to meet new people and trying to move on, but every time I hung out with him we couldn't resist each other and had very poor self control, but I don't think we wanted to control it because it was more of the circumstance that made us think we had to break up, not that we had stopped loving each other.

Anyways, we decided we were gonna try for real to just be friends. I ended up realizing that he was not gonna be able to move on, especially after he said that he wanted me to be his last good relationship and last person to have sex with. Which isn't a bad thing, but I don't know, I want him to move on and find someone else who can make him happy cuz I care about his happiness over everything, sounds cheesy but I really do. Anyways, I slept with another person and told him about it (cuz my conscience told me he deserved the truth and so he could hate me and move on). He took it really hard and said he lost faith in all women and he is regressing into a worst person than how I met him. Now I don't believe all of that, I think he is trying to guilt trip me and make me feel like the worst person in the world, which is kind of working. And it sucks cuz all I want to do is hug him and make him feel better, but I can't cuz I am the one who hurt him. I think that is what is killing me the most...I just wish it was possible to remain friends after a relationship, but as this article talks about, it is probably best to do it after a long period of no contact. I do really care about him and will keep on hoping to gain his friendship back somewhere down the road...but for right now I will respect his wishes to be left alone. He acts as though I betrayed him, but we weren't technically together and had already agreed to just be friends. He slept with a bunch of girls right after we first broke up so I don't know why he is taking it so hard. I wasn't doing it out of revenge either, it just happened and I was trying to move on. Sorry, just had to get this out of my mind so I could do something productive.

I just got dumped four days ago. We were together for almost two years, we live together and got a dog together. He wants to stay friends but the thought of him being with someone else, sexually or emotionally, is devastating to me. On the other hand he's the only person who can calm me down and make me feel better. But I do agree with the article. I can seem myself only continuing a friendship out of hope that we will rekindle our romantic relationship. I guess only time will tell. But I'll tell you I am having a very rough time at the moment. He's leaving and I am stuck with the apt we got together, the furniture we got together, the dog we got together. Everything here reminds me of him.

Wow.. is this the right topic at the right time.
I was "dumped" about 6 weeks ago. We had been dating for about 5 months and at the 2 month mark, he raised the issue of exclusivity and we made that agreement. Then after a few more months, he said " We need a break. I am talking with other women and I think we should cool off for a while"
Before that, he had been talking about moving in together, etc.

There were a few clues... he wanted to meet my colleagues, friends, etc. but didn't want me to come to his work. He never mentioned friends and didn't include me in family time.

Now, we have been Cooling Off. I have gone back to casually dating and only talking to him when he initiated contact. Just two days ago, he called and said he missed me and wanted to give me a Christmas gift if I wouldn't feel too weird about it.

Yes I feel weird. I miss him but the trust is gone. That is his issue to deal with. I would love to have him as a friend because he is funny, fun, smart and intuitive.

For me, the only thing that kept me from totally falling apart is that I kept my life full. I go out with girl friends. I flirt with men. I go out and have a good time- I take care of myself physically and emotionally. Yeah.. I had my pity parties... but I didn't let him or any one else see them.

My questions is... I think he is wanting to re-open the door. What do I do now??

I broke up with a girl four months ago and we agreed to remain friends.  The dilemma came when she decided to leave a picutre of us on her Facebook wall.  She also made a comment on one of her newsfees that sort of disturbed me. Last week, I made a difficult decision to remove her from my Facebook friends.  The reason is that I have seen that she was pictured with another guy.  If she wants to date again, that's fine.  It's her life.  It bothered me when she cut me out of the picture with her and I together and left herself in that picture.  I was thinking, "why didn't she take down that picture altogether?"  I also thought, "why did she wait four months to do that?"  It bothered me and I felt disrespected, so I deleted her from my Facebook friends.Do I think I can still be friends with her?  I don't believe that I can.  I care for her and I still have feelings for her.  Do I want her to be happy?  Of course I do.  Is there a possiblity we will ever be friends again?  Anything is possible, but it's going to take time and more healing.   

Gumbee:

I absolutely do not stay friends with ex's. It has become such a cliche - people often say it because they don't want to completely hurt the other's feelings. It's like an escape hatch that many people don't honestly intend to use.

If I am the 'dumpee', why would I want to accept what is essentially a demotion in my ex's life, especially if I still have really strong feelings for him? What happens if he starts seeing someone else before I've healed and moved on? Am I going to be happy with the occasional table scrap of a text or email message from him, which is likely the best I can hope for? I respect myself far more than that.

There are reasons people break up. In my mind, the friendship aspect of the relationship likely wasn't on solid ground to begin with. How does discontinuing the sexual aspect solve the rest of the problems that led to the break-up in the first place?

I agreed to "be friends" with an ex once, but it quickly became apparent it was more about him keeping his ego intact than it was about any of my feelings. So I cut him loose and vowed never again.

This, by the way, goes the other way too: If I am the 'dumper', I would rather hurt someone quickly and get it over with, than prolong their agony, just so I can tell myself how swell I am."

This is an excellent post and agrees with my experience. I'm recently divorced after a 12 year relationship and while it hurts so badly to not have him in my life anymore, the only way I could move on was to move several states away and block his e-mail & facebook account.
I think it's not healthy to need to know what's going on in the exes life and "peek in" every now and then. Likewise, I would not date a guy if he still had an ex that he sees. I don't want to open myself up to be hurt, should they decide down the line they made a mistake in breaking up. And with my ex and I, all it took was one chance meeting or even one conversation and we would be right back together again. Some people you never get over, and if it does end, cold turkey is the only way to finally move on.

I prefer to remain friends if possible, but you can't make someone want to be your friend. I have lots of friends both male and female, a few of the males are past boyfriends but many of them are not. Because I'm still friends with some of my past boyfriends does not mean that I have not moved on, not at all. I don't believe in having bad feelings toward a guy if he broke it off, even if I didn't want to because he was not happy in the relationship, and I don't ever want a guy to stay in a relationship with me if he does not want to. I do want him to communicate with me and let me know if he wants to break it off, and I would like to know why even if he thinks the reason would hurt my feelings because knowing may help me to be a better person. I have been dumped once and that really hurt my feelings that the guy dropped off the face of the earth so I had no idea what the problem was, but he did eventually apologize, said he wanted to keep in touch and I have made attempts to be his friend but he mostly ignores me so again, you can't force someone to be your friend, just like you can't force some guy to want to be with you.

I've trying the friend thing for about 3 months now and all I get are scrap texts that are about as shallow as a teaspoon . I'm starting to feel like an idiot. I never tried this 'friend' thing before after dating and now I know my first instincts were right . But hey ! I gave it a whirl . But I think I'll take back my value now. this article was OK in my book.

The article presumes that the decision to stop dating is one-sided. However, it's not uncommon for BOTH matches to recognize value in the other personal while no chemistry is present.
I've met male matches who likewise wish to continue a friendship because, well, we get a long well, respect each other, share interests in common and even keep an eye out for each other in the dating world.
Of course, this can only work with two intelligent, unpossessing and confident adults (it's not for kids).