Don’t Be Friends With Benefits With An Ex

If you’re thinking of being friends with benefits with your ex to improve the way your ex feels about you, you need to know that a sexual relationship with your ex likely won’t make your ex realize your romantic worth.

It will just give your ex relationship benefits for free and make you more anxious and hopeful in the process.

Sex with your ex will make you think that you’re getting closer to your ex when in reality, you’re not making any progress at all. You’re just helping your ex satisfy his or her sexual urges.

Friends with benefits with an ex should be avoided after the breakup. It should especially be avoided when the dumper falls out of love, breaks up with you, makes no plans to get back together, and triggers your cravings for love, acceptance, and validation. 

If there’s no regret for leaving, fear of losing you, and pain from not being with you, there should be no sex either.

Intimacy should be a special privilege between couples who love each other, not ex-couples who don’t feel the same way about each other. If one person wants sex and the other a romantic relationship, their needs are too different to benefit from each other.

They can’t make each other happy and grow together.

Post-breakup sex seldom leads to romance. For feelings to grow, the dumper must have some kind of realization and desire for love and reassurance. He or she must learn to value the dumpee and fear that the dumpee will move on if they don’t get back together quickly.

So bear in mind that friends with benefits with an ex should be avoided. The dumper may miss the sexual part of the relationship, but that doesn’t mean sex will help you get back with your ex.

It could, but it probably won’t unless your ex has already realized that he or she has made a terrible mistake and that his or her happiness depends on your ability to forgive and start anew.

When an ex wants you back, it’s extremely unlikely that he or she will choose sex as a way to apologize. It’s much more likely that the dumper will appear sad, anxious, and regretful, admit to making an impulsive decision, and ask for another chance.

Sex hasn’t saved any relationships thus far. It has helped couples feel more connected, but it hasn’t fixed their problems and lack of romantic feelings. Feelings develop when a person values the relationship and has a healthy relationship mentality. 

An ex who left doesn’t have a healthy mentality. He or she thinks the breakup needed to happen and that life got better since the breakup. If it got better, don’t make your ex’s life even better. Don’t sleep with your ex and show your ex you’re trying to hold on to your ex and get back together. 

Instead of desperately keeping your ex around for safety and reassurance, show your ex that you don’t mess around with exes and that you’re either together or nowhere near each other. You can’t be somewhere in the middle because the moment you try to be, you’ll get your hopes up and sabotage your healing process.

Friendship with benefits is a dangerous game for you as a dumpee. It constantly reminds you what you lost and what you could gain if everything falls into place. Sadly, things won’t work out just because you want them to. 

Your ex will probably have to discover your worth in some other way. He or she will likely have to encounter problems outside of the relationship with you and ruminate on those problems.

If your ex learns that life was easier and better when he or she was with you, your ex will contact you, apologize, give you power, and start a new relationship on healthy terms. Your ex will feel that not being with you will hinder his or her happiness and well-being.

However, if your ex is your friend with benefits and gets relationship benefits from you despite not deserving them, then the chance of your ex appreciating you is much smaller. It will be hard for your ex to be grateful to you when you give your ex everything he or she needs to feel happy and secure.

If you’re merely thinking about being friends with benefits with your ex, you should weigh the pros and cons of being intimate with your ex. You should know that sex without commitment won’t feel anywhere near as satisfying as sex with dedication and love.

Make sure you understand that you won’t heal or get your ex back by sleeping with your ex and that you’ll probably just feel more hopeful, anxious, and confused.

In this post, we discuss why you should avoid being friends with benefits with an ex if you’re hurting and want your ex back. We also discuss what sex after the breakup does to your ex and when you can consider being friends with benefits.

Why you shouldn’t be friends with benefits with an ex?

If your ex broke up with you, your ex did so for a reason. Your ex decided that the relationship wasn’t working (fulfilling his or her romantic needs) and that the best thing to do was to separate from you and focus on other things.

Things that have nothing to do with you.

Since you’re no longer a part of your ex’s romantic life and want to be a part of your ex’s life again, you shouldn’t willingly downgrade to the friends-with-benefits level and pretend that friendship with benefits is normal and good for you. 

The moment you settle for less than you deserve, you’ll send the message that you find friendship with benefits acceptable and that you’re going to hold on to your ex for dear life. You’ll show that you’re happy as long as your ex is happy.

And that’s something you should never do because you’ll reveal you lack emotional strength, self-respect, and goals of your own. 

As a dumpee, you should do your best to detach from your ex and find purpose outside of the broken relationship with your ex. You should strive for emotional independence and prepare yourself for the relationship that comes after your ex. 

If you get sexually entangled with your ex or keep getting entangled, you’ll achieve the opposite results – you’ll stay hooked on your ex and fail to move on. Your ex will continue to give you hope and take hope away—and drain you mentally and emotionally.

Eventually, you’ll probably realize that your relationship with your ex isn’t progressing and that you need to stop sleeping with your ex for your own good. That’s when you’ll see you wasted a lot of time with your ex and that you could have detached from your ex and improved yourself and your life instead.

You could have made new friends, learned new skills, focused on your hobbies, and spent time with people who matter and want you in your life permanently.

Friendship with benefits isn’t a long-term friendship. It’s a temporary between-the-relationship friendship that will most likely end in disappointment for you.

The moment you build up your strength and self-esteem, you’ll see that it’s a dead-end friendship and that your ex won’t give you what you want no matter how good you are in bed and how you present yourself. Your ex will continue to see you as an ex with benefits and feel no sense of urgency to reconnect before you move on.

How could your ex feel scared of losing you (to someone else) when you respond to booty calls and undervalue yourself? 

Dumpers don’t appreciate dumpees who are still in their lives.

They appreciate them and understand what they lost only when they:

1. lose dumpees
2. get in trouble
3. have an epiphany that makes them realize what they lost

Friendship with benefits doesn’t make them lose anything, nor does it get them in trouble. If anything, it makes them feel safe and validated because they know they have their ex to fall back on in case they fail and need help.

To wonder about their ex and miss their ex, they need to stop communicating with their ex and receiving relationship benefits.

When they stop getting time and validation from their ex just because they are who they are, they can finally deal with problems on their own and see if leaving their ex was worth it.

If they don’t encounter any major problems or if they can deal with their problems alone, they probably won’t come back. But if they get hurt and lack the tools to get out of sticky situations, they could come back and try to get their ex to commit again.

There’s no guarantee that your ex will come back whether you stay friends with benefits, friends, or strangers. But your ex will respect you more, think about you more, and value you more if you’re sexually and emotionally unavailable to him or her.

Your ex will see you have a life of your own and that you’re doing just fine without him/her. Even though it won’t make your ex come running back (especially not right away), it will make your ex see you know your worth and that you don’t want the second-best thing your ex can offer.

Self-respect will set healthy boundaries and keep your ex away and out of your heart.

If you recently got dumped, you probably feel tempted to stay close to your ex and feel validated. Every fiber in your body tells you to bond with your ex rather than to let go of the remaining bond. No matter how hard it is, you must understand that your ex doesn’t want to bond with you.

Sex is purely physical for your ex. It doesn’t make your ex emotional and grateful. Friendship with benefits is a superficial relationship. The reason your ex wants it is because your ex finds you physically attractive and doesn’t have better (or any) people to sleep with.

Your ex doesn’t find you repulsive, unlike resentful dumpers.

Some dumpers also sleep with their ex out of pity. They give their ex a parting gift and express guilt. They do this verbally or non-verbally by crying, apologizing, and promising to be supportive.

That doesn’t mean they want their ex back but that they feel bad for breaking their ex’s heart and putting their ex through hell.

With that said, here’s why you should avoid being friends with benefits with your ex.

Your ex isn’t a random person you know nothing about and feel nothing towards. He or she is a person who left you and made you feel rejected and unwanted. Your ex can’t ease your separation pain by sleeping with you.

All your ex can do is help him/herself feel sexually satisfied and make you more obsessed.

Every time you sleep with your ex, you’ll feel empowered and want your ex to come back to love you. You’ll basically put your ex in charge of your feelings and slow down your healing.

How to avoid being friends with your ex?

If your ex suggests staying friends with benefits after the breakup, remember that as tempting as it sounds, it won’t make you feel fulfilled in the ways you want it to. You want to be loved and respected as a partner, not as a sexual partner who can only make the dumper happy sexually.

Sex may make you feel good in the moment, but it won’t help you in the long run.

As soon as your ex goes home or sends you home, you’ll start craving your ex’s affection and time again. If you act on your cravings, you’ll most likely overwhelm your ex and push your ex away. This is because your ex will see you have romantic expectations and that he or she can only fulfill your sexual needs.

You can avoid being friends or friends with benefits with your ex by understanding that friendship with benefits won’t accomplish what you want it to.

Most dumpees who settle for it get strung along and regret it in the end. When they see that their relationship isn’t progressing and that it’s making them more anxious and depressed, they lose their patience and do something drastic.

Some dumpees accuse their ex of using them whereas others cut their ex off and accelerate their healing.

If you don’t want to waste your time and emotions, I suggest you say no to the FWB offer. Say you don’t want it and that you want to be left alone and focus on yourself. This will let you hit two birds with one stone. It will show you know your worth and that you won’t let your ex use you for sex and give you false hope.

Your ex may not like that, but he or she will nonetheless respect it. Your ex will respect you more than if you give him or her everything on a silver platter.

If your ex accuses you of being mean or selfish and guilt-trips you, know that your ex doesn’t understand or care how you feel. He or she doesn’t see the reason why you need to focus on yourself and leave him or her behind.

Regardless of what your ex thinks, feels, and does, you must remember that a friendship with benefits won’t help you deal with your separation anxiety and problems and that your ex should fulfill his or her sexual needs without you.

How your ex does it doesn’t concern you anymore because you’re not committed to each other and responsible for each other’s sexual urges. Your ex abolished this responsibility when he or she started looking for happiness elsewhere.

Since your ex doesn’t love you, you must avoid being intimate with your ex at all costs.

You must reject your ex’s offer or stop agreeing to sleep with your ex if you already caved into temptation. It’s never too late to cut your ex off and start indefinite no contact.

If not sleeping and communicating with your ex lowers your anxiety and increases self-love and self-respect, you mustn’t hesitate to cease all contact. You must do what’s best for you because your ex is doing what’s best for him or her as well.

Consider being friends with benefits with an ex only when you’re over your ex and haven’t met anyone yet. When you have no romantic expectations of your ex and still find your ex attractive, you can do anything you want as long as you don’t hurt yourself, your ex, and others. 

Just make sure not to redevelop feelings because if you do, you’ll need to detach all over again. It won’t take as long but it will still be inconvenient.

Are you thinking of being friends with benefits with your ex? Do you want to feel attractive and validated by your ex? Share your reasons for wanting friendship with benefits with the person who dumped you below.

And if you’re looking for additional help with your friends-with-benefits situation, visit our page dedicated to coaching and learn more about our services.

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.