What To Do When Your Best Friend Hooks Up With Your Ex?

When your best friend hooks up with your ex, your friend is playing a very dangerous game. He’s getting involved with someone you were intimate with and shows no concern about your health, feelings, and opinion. He’s just doing what’s best for him and pretending it’s okay to hook up with your ex.

If your ex left you, your friend’s actions were extremely disrespectful because you now have to worry about your best friend backstabbing you on top of your ex being intimate with another person. You’re dealing with a double betrayal and a complete lack of care towards you.

It doesn’t matter whether your best friend and your ex hooked up sexually or romantically. The fact that the friend you call your best friend did that with your ex of all the people in the world is despicable, to say the least. It’s completely tactless and selfish.

Both your friend and your ex are to blame for this as neither of them considered your feelings. Your friend didn’t respect his friend code (to not date friends’ exes) and your ex wasn’t caring enough to not get involved with her ex’s best friend.

They were both at fault equally as they both knew they were crossing the line. Just as people who cheat don’t care that they’re betraying their partner, your friend and your ex also didn’t care. They decided that hooking up with each other was completely fine and that they’ll deal with any consequences later.

When people feel excited (emotional) about something or someone, they sometimes ignore others’ feelings. They show they’re prepared to reach their goals and fulfill their gratifications even if they have to cause problems for people and hurt them.

So if your friend hooked up with your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, know that it’s not normal and far from okay. Friends who develop feelings or sexual attraction for your ex behind your back completely ignore the fact that you don’t like associating your ex with them and seeing them do what you used to do with your ex.

If you and your ex ended on average or bad terms, that makes things even more complicated because now your ex will probably be the topic of discussion and may even tag along at times. Your ex may re-enter your life and force you to think about him or her more than you’d like.

This, of course, depends on how their relationship unfolds. But if things go well, chances are they’ll become a couple and make you feel excluded and underprioritized. Knowing that lots of people speak badly of exes, you may feel like you made a laughing stock of yourself and that you don’t feel comfortable around your friend anymore.

Since your ex hooked up with your best friend, you now have an important decision to make based on your personal beliefs and your respect for your ex, your friend, and yourself. You need to figure out if you can let the betrayal slide or if it’s a deal-breaker for you.

Personally, I wouldn’t be okay with my best friend hooking up with my ex. I wouldn’t be okay with my family members or anyone close to me dating an ex of mine. This is especially true if my ex dumped me and made me obsessed with her and crazy for her validation.

In today’s post, we discuss what to do when your best friend hooks up with your ex and makes you question your friendship and your friend’s morals.

Why did my best friend hook up with my ex?

It’s unlikely that your best friend and your ex hooked up with each other for revenge. People tend not to go that far for an ex (unless they’re narcissists). Those who do want revenge make it very obvious as they try to get a rise out of you and make sure to see your reaction.

That’s why it’s probably much healthier to assume that your best friend and your ex hooked up because they wanted to feel good in each other’s company. They wanted to get to know each other on a more intimate level and see what their options were.

I can’t say whether they wanted sex or romance, but they clearly felt attracted to each other and wanted to feel admired. Emotions made it more difficult (but not impossible) for them to remember their values and the person they were going to betray in the process.

The thing you need to be aware of is that they acted purely on emotions. They liked giving and receiving each other’s attention and compliments, so they naively kept getting closer to each other until they crossed the friendship boundaries and hooked up.

People who do that put themselves way, way, way before you. They’re your friend or best friend, but that means nothing to them because they value their romantic or sexual opportunities more than you.

I suppose the question we should ask is why they even like each other.

Why did they let themselves get attracted to each other in the first place? Please don’t think that you “can’t control who or what you find attractive.” That’s the same as saying child predators can’t do anything about their cravings—and that we should understand them and be lenient with them.

The truth of the matter is that we get attracted to people because we want to be attracted to them. If we internally agree with ourselves that someone is a great fit for us, we gravitate toward that person and desire his or her reciprocation. How could we not when we decided it was okay to be attracted and to stay attracted?

Each person decides what or who attracts him or her. If a guy decides he likes brunettes, for example, he makes a conscious decision to like brunettes and releases happy hormones in his brain. And then every time he admits to himself he likes them, he shoves this belief deeper into his subconscious and feels attracted to a brunette simply by noticing her.

The same is true for your friend. The man or woman had plenty of chances not to find your ex attractive. He could have listened to his morals and said to himself, “This is my best friend’s ex. She’s off limits. I could never do that to my friend. I don’t even want to think about it.”

Thoughts like that would have crossed your ex off the list of available people. But for these thoughts to occur, a person requires a strong moral compass. Those who don’t have it won’t think twice about sleeping with your partner or ex-partner.

They’ll be okay with it because they lack self-awareness, morality, and self-control.

You should keep in mind that your best friend may only have your best interests at heart when those interests don’t concern him or her.

When they do concern your friend, your friend quickly forgets about your wants and needs and does what feels right to him or her. I don’t know what you think of people who date their friend’s exes, but to me, that sounds very opportunistic and unworthy of trust.

I’m not trying to drive a wedge between you and your friend, but you should at the very least figure out why your friend hooked up with your ex when his or her main responsibility is to be supportive of you. Once you understand your ex’s thought process, you should have an easier time coping with betrayal and planning the next course of action.

Here are 6 possible reasons why your friend hooked up with your ex.

Should I ask my friend why he/she hooked up with my ex?

If you feel betrayed and think you can benefit from explanations from your friend, by all means, ask your friend for explanations. Ask why he or she hooked up with your ex and see how your friend responds. If your friend knows that he or she messed up but doesn’t want to stop interacting with your ex, your friend will likely avoid telling you the truth.

Your friend will say that things just happened and that it was out of his/her control. Your friend will essentially try to justify his or her behavior and try to get you off his or her back.

But if your friend feels guilty, then you may receive a guilt-ridden response. You could see that your friend is avoiding eye contact and apologizing for not asking for your approval first.

Yes, asking for your approval would have been totally appropriate as checking in with you would have shown care and respect.

You may not be with your ex anymore (so there’s no more commitment), but that doesn’t give your best friend exclusive rights to jump in bed with your ex or into a relationship with him or her. Your friend still has moral obligations to you.

Those obligations consist of:

• loyalty
• respect
• kindness
• patience
• support
• and making your life better, not worse

That is why you’re friends with your friend. You expect to be cared for as you’re on the same team. Well, you’re supposed to be on the same team. I suppose you should find out if you are.

You can ask your friend questions like:

• How come you hooked up with my ex?
• What did you hope to get out of it?
• Did you consider my feelings and how it would affect me?
• What do you plan to do with my ex?
• If I told you I’m not okay with it, would you stop hooking up?

The responses you get from your ex are very important as they’ll tell you whether your friend cares about your opinion and feelings. If you learn that your friend doesn’t care about you, you should probably consider ending the friendship and making some new/more loyal and empathetic friends.

That’s what I would do.

Should I talk to my ex about it too?

If you’re on talking terms with your ex, you can ask your ex the exact same questions. Ask for time to talk and try to understand why your ex would do something like that when you’re trying to keep your ex out of your life.

Your ex could give you the same answers as your friend, so keep in mind that you might not learn anything new. Your ex might also say that it’s not your business, but that depends on how you express your concerns and how mature your ex is.

If you’re not over the breakup yet, you can just say it makes you feel uncomfortable and that you’d rather your friend remain your friend and your ex, your ex. By keeping your friend (support system) close to you and your ex away from you, you could continue to work on your self-esteem and confide in your friend for closure.

I know that some people become their ex’s best man/woman and get along just fine, but such exes tend to be over each other and have no hard feelings. They can handle their ex dating someone else as they’ve moved on and found their inner peace.

So talk to your ex if you need answers that will allow you to let go of the relationship with your ex and help you focus on yourself. Talk to your ex if you want to understand why they hooked up and what their end goal is. It may seem like it’s not your place to ask questions, but you’re a person with feelings who needs answers to function properly.

You need to know what’s going on so you can process lingering breakup emotions, support the people you associate with, or cut them off.

So what to do when your best friend hooks up with your ex?

I can’t tell you what to do or not to do when your best friend hooks up with your ex because this is a personal decision, but I can tell you what I would do. I would immediately contact my friend (not my ex) and have a friendly conversation with him. I’d ask him (in a non-confrontational manner) what’s going on between them and hear him out.

If he told me he likes my ex/always liked my ex, wants to date my ex, wants to get to know her on a deeper level, or that it doesn’t concern me, I’d tell him I never expected him to date a person I dated and that it does concern me. It affects me because it involves two people I know very well.

And I’d rather keep my ex out of my life.

My friend hooking up with my ex would make it very difficult for me to do that as I’d see them together and know that they sometimes talk about my private matters. That’s why I’d tell my friend I’m not comfortable with them sleeping together/seeing each other and that I don’t want to meddle, but that I need my ex to stay away from me.

The only way I could keep her away from me is by telling the person I still hang out with (my friend) that I’ll be distancing myself from him so I can distance myself from my ex as well. I would do that so my friend would know I can’t keep spending time with him.

I wouldn’t tell him he was disrespectful and selfish because that would be too confrontational. People generally don’t respond to confrontations and accusations well, so I’d avoid blaming him and try to leave peacefully.

Maybe, just maybe I would consider staying friends with him if he admitted he messed up or apologized and asked for forgiveness. But he’d have to show that what he had with my ex was a one-time thing and that he truly regrets getting involved with her.

Perhaps you’re more tolerant of people and can forgive your friend for hooking up with your ex. Maybe you don’t take friendships that seriously and have no feelings for your ex or think your friends can date your exes. If that’s what you believe, then you can just talk to your friend about it and stay friends.

Just like your friend, you get to decide what you’re okay with and what not to put up with.

Did you learn what to do when your best friend hooks up with your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend? What do you think of friends who date each others’ exes? Do you think it’s appropriate? Share your thoughts with us below the post.

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Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.