Feeling weird about still being friends with ex.....

[JSRD]

Hey guys, long time viewer who doesn't post much. I've been dating a guy for over a year now and we connect great. Amazingly. We click so well and our sex life is off the charts. The problem comes in me and my insecurities. We are both are in our late 20s and for me this is my first serious long term relationship. I have had a few hooks up here and there and have had 2 semi month long relationships before him. Both of those never reached the physical level as I tend to move slower. The problem being for me with one of his close friends he still sees daily. My partner had told me that he and his friend had dated years ago for 2 months and that it ended very much because he was not sexually attracted to this friend. I automatically assumed based on my relationship with him that nothing had happened besides kissing as we moved kind of slower. So the friend and my partner ended it and a year or so went by without them talking. They then randomly reconnected one day and have remanded friends for over an year before my partner started dating me. Cut to just recently where my partner and I were talking about said friend. I was asking about their past and he told me that they had attempted to have sex, getting all the way to naked but it did not work out at all and that's when he realized he was not sexually attracted to him. This sparks all kinds of weird feelings for me. I told my partner I felt weird about this and how he was still good friends with him, but I also very much don't understand my feelings and why I am feeling very odd about the fact they hooked up. I had known they had dated for 2 months and i should expect some intimacy. But I also know we had moved slower so I guess wasn't expecting it. I know in my heart nothing would ever, ever, ever happen again with this friend, and I trust my partner. I guess I'm just not understanding what it's like to be close like that with someone, and then go back to being friends as I've never talked again to anyone I've hooked up with. Am I just crazy? Overly jealous? Rightly feeling weird? Advice please!

 

[TX-Beau]

If you don't trust him, this won't work. As far as I can see, he hasn't given you any reason not to trust him.

Do NOT assume that your norm is standard. Other people are other people, they have different norms.

 

[Seasoned]

There doesn't seem to be any cause for alarm. If something was going to happen between the two of them it would have happened long before you came along.

 

[aaggii]

It´s your first relationship so it´s normal to have weird feelings over scenarios you make in your head, especially when you know they´re wrong. No one decides what and how to feel about something, but we do can decide how to act based on it. You´ll learn to get over this fear, give it time and enjoy your relationship where it is now. Let go to ¨what if¨ and focus on you and your bf being happy together.

At most, if you talk about this stuff with your bf, tell him that even if you know you shouldn´t be jealous, you are, but you want to fix that. Let him help you.

 

[versa39]

i have been friends with my ex since we broke up, we actually became better friends to each other...but people think its wierd that i don't believe in the " every relationship must end in fire and drama with tears and picking sides"
i think it is nonsense, we shared a life for 11 yrs and things about us changed, oh well, we moved forward to a better place.
there are people that won't even date me because im friends with my ex......personally, that say more about me as a person and tomes about their small mindedness

 

[LuckysRevenge]

i have been friends with my ex since we broke up, we actually became better friends to each other...but people think its wierd that i don't believe in the " every relationship must end in fire and drama with tears and picking sides"
i think it is nonsense, we shared a life for 11 yrs and things about us changed, oh well, we moved forward to a better place.
there are people that won't even date me because im friends with my ex......personally, that say more about me as a person and tomes about their small mindedness

This is important. Of course there are situations where someone is too close to his ex and there may be something more.

However, two mature people ending a relationship don't have to disappear from each other's lives. I think that sounds quite awful and irrational, especially if things ended on good terms.

 

[Twinkie]

This is important. Of course there are situations where someone is too close to his ex & there may be something more.

However, two mature people ending a relationship don't have to disappear from each other's lives. I think that sounds quite awful and irrational, especially if things ended on good terms.

I only recently broke up w/- my partner of 4Yrs, 11Mths, 11 Days (2/4/10 - 13/3/15) - currently we don't really talk or text, there is no need too... He, his mum & his sister have deleted me from there Facebook Accounts, which saved me having to do it!

Could I see My Ex & I remaining friends? Likely not! As he was very controlling & processive, esp. in the last 2.5Yrs we were together!

A guy I have been seeing recently (starting as friends, so not sure it will go anywhere, judging by the current amount of activity, he says's he'd date me, I just need time, but I'm not sure his really interested, as it seems to be me having to initiate contact & this I'm not sure he has another interest) he won't have anything to do w/- his past 3 Ex's, infact he goes so far as to have his Facebook locked up tight as (not even adding me!) this is so his ex's can't track what he does, & he won't add any one that is friends with his ex's or his ex's friends, not that I know any of them... Unfortunately as I still have a lease with my ex (but have moved to my own place) I still have to have contact till he hopefully finds his own place & wraps up our old joint lease shortly... This the guy I have been seeing, is getting a it shitty abt the level of contact I have to maintain w/- my ex... Hopefully things will improve between me & this guy, once my ex gets his own place & concludes our old lease!

 

[mcbrion]

People who think it is 'weird' to remain friends with someone whom you believed you once loved (presumably you hoped it was forever) are the weird ones.
Armisted Maupin once said that he never understood the 'scorched earth' policy he saw so often among gays. Meaning, how they could hate someone they claim to have loved. He'd just broken up with his lover and said that they were closer than ever as friends in a way they were not as lovers. Those "people", unless you've told them things you haven't posted here, are the unenlightened ones. You sound as though you've handled the breakup in a very mature way, and you should be happy to not have to have destroyed a wonderful relationship simply because you decided to separate.

 

[mcbrion]

By the way, I broke up with my lover back in 1988. We had a medium sized business, in the Castro. The retail store employees insisted "you guys are still married." I set them straight that no, we were not married, and I was most definitely not in love with Ben anymore, but that I loved him and he was family. I saw their inability to understand this as representative of their immaturity in understanding that one can still love someone, but realize that a husband/husband relationship is not the healthiest one to remain in. Many relationships improve after a breakup, frequently because one partner has hidden insecurities and not been open about them. In my case, my partner, just months before he died (of AIDS, which he got AFTER we broke up), acknowledged that he'd sabotaged the relationship and that if he'd treated me better we'd still be together. I had know that for years before he said this (it was six years after we broke up that he confessed this, but it astounded me that he actually assumed that I did not know human behavior (it was my job to know this) well enough to know what he had been doing. But, at that point as he had AIDS, and was rather sick, it would have done no good to say, yes I recognized what you were doing and that's why I ended it. What was important was that I was able to trust him even more after I left him than when I was with him, because I realized he had what is called a "split": people you are turned on to you don't feel safe with, or you go the other way: people you feel safe with you are not attracted to. It's a common psychological condition better known in straight society, as The Whore vs. The Madonna complex. Men marry women because they're a good wife and wonderful mother, but they lust after other women because they cannot integrate the idea that the wife can be sexual and still be a wonderful person. Hence, the 'split.'