Boundaries For Being Friends With An Ex

If you’re friends with an ex or thinking of being friends, you need to set some healthy boundaries. Boundaries are important otherwise you and your ex could hurt and confuse each other and perhaps even make your new partners insecure and jealous.

If you tell each other “I love you,” talk day and night, send each other selfies, or sleep with each other, you’ll act like you never broke up and stay too close to each other. In fact, you’ll be so close emotionally that you’ll stay attached and pressure each other or the people you date or want to date.

You’ll create many unnecessary issues that could easily be avoided by getting some physical and emotional distance from each other.

Although there’s nothing wrong with being friends after the breakup, it’s wrong not to have any boundaries. Boundaries are crucial so that your friendship doesn’t look and feel like a romantic relationship.

The romantic aspect of your relationship has ended, so you should probably act that way.

You can do that by discussing what you want and expect out of the friendship. The sooner you talk about it, the faster you’ll recover from the breakup and the healthier your friendship will be.

So if the breakup happened recently and you’re looking for boundaries for being friends with an ex, start by:

• talking about the boundaries
• giving each other space
• getting closure
• healing
• improving yourselves
• and only then considering being friends

There’s no need to rush friendship just because you’d spent x number of months or years together. Someone may be ready to be friends right away, but that doesn’t mean the other person is ready and wants the same. It’s much safer to wait a little bit first so you can both process the breakup and figure out if friendship is even what you want.

You probably want friendship immediately if you had an amicable breakup (lost feelings for each other). But if someone was dumped, then friendship is the last thing you want. You want to make sure you’re over your ex first before you agree to something that will give you anxiety and pain.

You can tell you’re over or almost over your ex when you can handle seeing your ex with someone else and having a good time without you. Not getting jealous and anxious when you see your ex happy would indicate that you have no more expectations of your ex and that you’re ready to stay in touch from time to time.

Keep in mind that your ex has a partner or will one day find a new partner. If you bombard your ex with texts and calls, you’ll most likely bother your ex and cause issues for the new person.

And I can tell you that pestering your ex all the time won’t make your ex’s new partner very happy. Very few people are okay with their partner talking to an ex. Especially if they talk every day, for hours at a time because they meddle with their relationship. So set some healthy boundaries and give your ex a chance to meet someone else and/or have a relationship with someone else.

Do it out of respect for yourself, your ex, your ex’s new (potential) partner, and all of your futures.

In today’s post, we’ll discuss some important boundaries for being friends with an ex. We’ll start with the most essential ones and explain them thoroughly.

Boundaries for being friends with an ex

One of the most important boundaries for being friends with an ex is keeping your distance. Distance will tell your ex that you acknowledge the end of the relationship and that you won’t try to change your ex’s mind even if you miss your ex and fear that your ex is seeing someone else already.

Healing should be your top priority, and your ex needs to respect that no matter who broke up with who and what the reasons for breaking up are. If you’re staying away from your ex, your ex should avoid taking it personally and give you the space you need to recover.

He or she should let the distance get rid of the unwanted emotions created by the breakup and communicate only when enough time has passed as that’s when you’ll both be ready to be friends.

This is what you need to do if you broke up recently and/or if you or your ex still feel hurt and have feelings and expectations of each other.

However, if a lot of time has gone by, if the breakup was amicable, or if you’re over each other, then you can probably skip this step and go straight to the next one. You can discuss your friendship goals with your ex and make sure that you both want the same thing.

If someone wants friendship and the other wants to communicate once in a blue moon, that obviously isn’t friendship. It’s a “Leave me alone, I’ll reach out whenever I want” kind of relationship that isn’t very healthy.

So before you settle for friendship with your ex, talk about the boundaries for being friends. Your ex will happily talk about them if he or she wants to communicate with you and understands the importance of having boundaries.

Let’s now talk about the boundaries you and your ex need to set and respect.

Reduce the time you spend talking

If you want to be friends with an ex, you have to understand that you’re no longer best friends who do everything together. You separated because you couldn’t make that kind of relationship work, so you must now change how you interact with each other and speak only from time to time (maybe every few days or so).

Friendship with an ex needs to happen in phases. You shouldn’t just go from not speaking (or breaking up) to being best friends and hanging out all the time. That would be too much. Especially if someone is hurt and has feelings.

So first things first, set some boundaries regarding the time you spend interacting with each other. You don’t need to specifically tell your ex, “I only want to talk once a week,” but you should show what you want and don’t want with your actions.

You can do this by reaching out to your ex infrequently and responding in a way that doesn’t invite your ex to keep reaching out and getting too close to you. In other words, don’t act like you’ve been dying to speak to your ex and talk about your feelings.

Just act indifferent and keep strong emotions and unprocessed feelings to yourself. Your ex doesn’t need to know everything or your ex could talk to you about everything and anything.

Don’t talk about your relationship (especially regrets)

It can be tempting to talk about the relationship and all the mistakes you’ve made with your ex, but talking about these things (too soon) could confuse your ex, pressure your ex, annoy your ex, make your ex think you’re trying to get back together, and force your ex to feel uncomfortable.

It could cause so much trouble that your ex distances himself or herself from you out of fear and self-protection.

You should aim for friendship with an ex only when you’ve processed the breakup. This includes your feelings, regrets, nostalgia, fears, separation anxiety, and anything negative drawing you to your ex. If you feel that you’re not over your ex or that you’re depressed and need your ex to battle your depression, you shouldn’t be talking to your ex at all.

You should be focusing on healing so that you don’t overwhelm your ex with anxiety and expectations. Your ex isn’t your go-to friend anymore. He or she is an ex who will likely feel responsible for your health and eventually get tired of listening to your regrets, problems, and a lack of happiness.

Always remember that you need to invest in the friendship as much as you take from it. If you take from it more than you put in it, your ex could quickly turn his or her back on you and run for the hills.

Don’t sleep with your ex

Sleeping with your ex is also a big no-no. Not only would sex keep you and your ex dependent on each other, but it’d also cross every friendship boundary there is. It would force you to think about your ex more than you already do and delay the time it takes to disconnect from your ex.

So if you want to set some healthy boundaries after becoming your ex’s friend, make sure not to get intimate with your ex. Intimacy is exactly the opposite of what you need to be friends and get along. That’s because your or your ex’s need for affection could increase with time and hurt you if you realize you want different things from each other.

You can avoid sleeping with your ex and suffering because of it by telling your ex you’re only open to friendship (not friendship with benefits). Tell your ex this if your ex tries to seduce you and use you for selfish reasons or to manipulate you to care about him or her.

Luckily, most ex-couples don’t feel the desire to sleep with each other. But those that do aren’t angry and bitter. They still respect each other and miss the sexual aspect of the relationship. To put it another way, they typically have no romantic expectations and just want to feel sexually fulfilled.

Avoid using pet names

Another boundary you absolutely mustn’t violate is to continue using pet names and nicknames. Relationship-specific names could indicate that you’re still very close with your ex and that you like him or her romantically.

That could give your ex the idea that you want to get back together or that it may be possible to get back together if your ex continues talking with you and spending time with you.

So avoid calling each other pet names now that the relationship has ended. Don’t confuse each other, your friends, family, new partners, and random people. The end of the relationship signifies the end of closeness and relationship goals you established when you were still together.

Don’t try to pretend like the dynamics haven’t changed either. You may care about your ex, but you don’t care romantically. Not unless your ex broke up with you and made you obsessed with him or her.

Anyway, you don’t want to keep using the nicknames you used when you expressed your love for your ex. If you do, your ex will probably associate romantic feelings with those names and feel strange about them.

It’s best to call your ex by his or her first name. That way, you’ll keep some emotional distance from your ex and avoid giving your ex the wrong idea.

Respect your ex’s new relationship/give your ex a chance to meet someone new

As an ex, you should give your ex enough space to meet someone else and have a healthy relationship with that person. You would want the same if you met someone you liked and wanted to take things further with him or her.

So don’t be that ex who lingers around and refuses to let go and give space. You may really want to talk to your ex and be friends, but staying so close to your ex will be a hindrance to your ex’s new relationship.

It will make it difficult for them to respect and tolerate what you’re doing.

Here’s a recap of the boundaries for being friends with an ex.

What if my ex doesn’t respect the boundaries?

If your ex breaks the rules, remind your ex about the importance of adhering to boundaries and ask your ex to stick to the plan. If your ex disrespects the boundaries again, be more firm with your ex. Your ex needs to see that you’re serious and that there will be negative consequences if he or she keeps making the same mistakes over and over again.

However, if your ex disrespects you the third time, warn your ex it’s his/her last chance before you’re forced to terminate the friendship and block him or her. By letting your ex know you’re not fooling around, your ex will either respect your decision or not.

Either way, you’ll get the emotional space you need to prevent your ex from getting close enough to hurt you.

My advice is to be brave and tell your ex to respect you the moment he or she crosses your boundaries. Your ex may not like it, but directness is necessary for your healing and detachment.

Can you think of any other boundaries for being friends with an ex? What do you think you and your ex need to be friends? Share your comment below the article.

And if you’d like to talk privately about how you can be friends with an ex, click here to learn more about our coaching programs.

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.