How to Keep an ExLover as a Good Friend
Breaking up with a girlfriend that you genuinely want to keep as a friend isn’t as hard to do as you may think. There are any number of reasons why you may want to break up with a girlfriend that you still like but have fallen out of love with. Obviously her feelings will be hurt but you can limit that hurt by being honest and un-patronising. By this we mean don’t make her feel like an old shoe that has been polished and then discarded for the latest fashion.
There is absolutely no reason what-so-ever that ex-lovers can’t be friends. If anything, these are often the relationships that evolve into being some of your best friends. After all, at some point you have shared not only bodily fluids but part of your soul.
We are not discussing the one-night stand sexual encounter but we are talking about someone that you have shared time with. Someone who has meant enough to you to share part of your limited time on earth with to enjoy some earthly pleasures.
If this person has contributed to your growth as a person then they will most likely be someone that you will like to keep as a genuine friend. This will become a genuine friendship without benefits, as today’s saying goes.
A friend-with-benefits is someone who you share sexual favours with and a friend is a platonic friend. A platonic friend is ‘a friend-without-benefits’. If you both decide that you want the benefits to remain in your relationship then that is a joint decision and there is no real reason this can’t happen providing all people concerned, including the new girlfriend that you want relations with, knows and accepts the situation.
This is far from a recommended course of action though simply because the chances of everyone, including you, being hurt are extremely high. Not only will everyone likely get hurt but you will destroy the chance of forming a long-term friendship with an ex and this would be a great loss to both you and your ex-girlfriend.
If you are considering breaking up with a girlfriend, don’t tell her one night that you love her and then the next night break up with her. This will destroy every ounce of credibility you may think you have. You may also not like yourself very much either because you will lose your own self-esteem. Once you lose your own self-respect, you are on a slippery path to nowhere fast. Frankly, there is no need for either of you to lose face or have your feelings destroyed if you treat each other with the respect that you would like to be treated with.
When you get old and grey and are sitting in your rocking chair on the front porch, these are but some of the memories that you will look back on. How you view them then depends on how you deal with the situation today. It gets even better when the person coming to visit you is the ex -girlfriend from all those years ago.
Learning how to develop relationship skills through building self-confidence and a good rapport with people leads to a happier and more prosperous life