Is It Wrong To Date Your Friend’s Ex?

Just like it’s wrong to date your ex’s friend, it’s also wrong to date your friend’s ex. Dating someone so closely related to you is immoral as it shows that you don’t respect your friend’s feelings and everything your friend and his or her ex went through.

It also shows that you’ve had a crush on your friend’s ex and that you’ve been waiting for a chance to take your friend’s position.

Any friend who sees you jump into a relationship with his or her ex soon or right after the breakup finds this kind of behavior appalling. He or she wonders if you wanted to be with his or her ex from the very beginning and if you ever genuinely supported them.

Your friend’s ex isn’t innocent either, but an ex is an ex whereas a friend is someone you trust and consider to be on your side during and after the breakup. It’s difficult to feel supported and respected by a friend when he or she gets involved with your ex.

This is especially true if your ex broke up with you and if the breakup happened recently because in that case, you don’t want your ex to date. You’re still processing the breakup and have hope that your ex will see things from an emotional standpoint just like you and come back to his or her senses.

So if you want to know if it’s wrong to date your friend’s ex, know that it definitely is. Dating an ex is an unwritten rule that prohibits you from getting involved with someone your ex had been with. It doesn’t matter if they dated for a week or a year.

If they were together, you’re breaching your friend’s trust and showing your selfish side.

The question you should be asking yourself is why do you even have feelings for your friend’s ex? Why did you let yourself get close to someone your friend dated?

Whether you developed a connection while they were together or after is irrelevant because you should have convinced yourself that your friend’s ex (or partner at the time) was off the table. If you didn’t get rid of the crush, this doesn’t mean that you couldn’t stop nature from taking its course.

You just didn’t want it to stop because you had no moral responsibilities and boundaries. So don’t try to justify your actions by saying you couldn’t control what you felt and who you felt attracted to.

Initially, for a couple of days, that may have been true.

But after that, you had plenty of time to do something about it. The mind is powerful and can be controlled if it’s guided by strong moral principles, self-control, and healthy thinking.

What thoughts were necessary for getting rid of a crush?

Thoughts like:

• This is my friend’s ex. I respect him/her and wish them both the very best
• My friend would be shocked if I were to date his/her ex
• Our friendship would end and I’d be known as someone who dates friends’ exes
• I don’t want to make things difficult for them
• I feel attracted to this person because I see his/her superficial traits. I don’t actually know anything about his or her personality that comes to light during a romantic relationship
• They both need some time away from each other. Bringing them closer would make it difficult for them and would be wrong
• I’ll support them and keep my emotional distance
• There are plenty of better-suited people for me out there

Bringing your friend’s ex back into your friend’s life is beyond rude and disrespectful. Your friend wants to stay away from his/her ex for a while. You shouldn’t expect them to be next to each other and instantly let go of hard feelings, negative beliefs, memories, and problems.

Exes have a very close connection. They take things personally and can’t just act like they never dated. For months or sometimes years, they find it hard to communicate with each other. How they feel and how long they need to be okay with each other usually depends on what their expectations are, how they perceive each other, and how they behave.

They also don’t want to see each other date others (not just their friend). They expect their friend to have their back rather than act selfishly and bring unnecessary reminders of the past and drama into their life.

That’s why you need to know that it’s not okay to date your friend’s ex. Whether you mention this person to your friend or keep him or her private, your friend is your friend. Don’t betray him or her by dating one of his or her exes.

Your friend won’t like it when you show that you can’t empathize with his or her situation and that you only care only about your feelings, wants, and needs. It will make you look extremely egocentric and backstabbing, and will probably be the end of your friendship.

So don’t pretend to be this person’s friend if you’re happy to date an ex he or she loved and is trying to get some space from. That’s not friendship. It’s an “I do what I want as long as I can benefit from it kind of situation.”

Indeed, your friend’s ex doesn’t belong to anyone. People don’t own each other. But regardless, you must stay away from your friends’ exes and instead connect with people unrelated to them. By doing so, you can avoid letting your friends know that you were intimate with their exes.

You can also avoid obtaining intimate relationship information about your friends that only their exes know. It’s better for everyone that their intimate lives remain private.

That’s why dating friends’ exes is very wrong. The majority of people talk about their exes (in negative ways) and try to present themselves as victims. And their new partners, of course, agree with them and support them. That means they backstab their friend and drift closer to their partner.

In this post, we answer the question of whether it’s wrong to date your friend’s ex.

Is it wrong to date your friend’s ex?

It’s wrong to date your friend’s ex in so many ways. Developing a crush isn’t wrong, but not doing anything about the crush and letting it get to a point where your very validation depends on your friend’s ex.

If you keep texting, talking, and hanging out with someone you have a crush on, you can’t expect the crush to disappear. On the contrary, you can expect it to keep getting more and more intense.

Eventually, it will put you in a situation where you can hug, kiss, or perhaps even sleep with this person and pass the point of no return. When that happens, you’ll feel even more eager to be with this person and probably won’t feel much guilt if any.

You’ll probably feel guilty later when you get out of the infatuation stage and realize what you did.

So keep in mind that the best time to do something about a crush is while it’s still just a crush. If you pull away and convince yourself why it’s not right to date this person, you’ll stop feeling attracted and pulled toward someone who’s off limits.

It might take a while, but the sooner you adopt a healthy mentality and find reasons why this person isn’t a good dating candidate, the easier it will be to feel differently about him or her.

A great way to detach is to look at it rationally and identify his or her shortcomings.

You can tell yourself things like:

• This person is way too eager to be in a new relationship
• I don’t like the way he/she talks about his/her ex (my friend)
• I see lots of red flags and unresolved issues
• He/she is way too pushy, impulsive, disrespectful, lazy, etc.

If you tell yourself things like that and believe them, you’ll stop feeling attracted and stop the crush before it crushes your friend’s heart. You’ll prove to yourself that you respect the friend code and that you value your friend and yourself more than your feelings.

Therefore, if right now, you merely wonder if it’s wrong to date your friend’s ex, you’re still thinking about what to do. You aren’t sure if you should date or keep dating your friend’s ex.

That’s okay. What matters is that you keep searching for answers and showing that you’re self-aware and want to do the right thing. When you fully understand that you’ll hurt your friend and start a relationship on complicated terms, you’ll be much more emotionally prepared to draw a line between your friend and his/her ex.

You’ll feel determined that friends and their exes don’t belong together. They should have boundaries and should avoid making their previous partners think that they have a thing for each other. Betrayals hurt like hell.

In this case, your friend would likely lose two people. You should date someone else and avoid hurting your friend and complicating his or her life more than it already is.

Here’s why it’s wrong to date your friend’s ex.

My advice is not to risk your friendship for a chance at love with your friend’s ex. There are plenty of more available and probably more compatible people for you out there. Getting together with your friend’s ex is dangerous. Especially if they broke up recently because that would likely mean that someone still has feelings and isn’t ready to let go of the relationship.

If your friend left this person, your relationship with him or her would probably be a rebound relationship. But if your friend was dumped, then you’d completely betray your friend and risk losing your friend.

Instead of hooking up with your friend’s ex and/or developing feelings:

• convince yourself that a relationship with this person wouldn’t work and that it’d be immoral
• tell your crush that you’ve noticed you got too close since the breakup and that it’s unfair to your friend
• create some physical distance between the two of you
• continue to remind yourself that you see only his/her good traits and that this person is not your ideal partner nor someone you should date
• look for or find someone else to get to know and be with

Other dating prospects should take your mind off your crush and give you a relationship over which you won’t have to question your morals and decisions. You won’t have to hide your relationship from your friend or best friend either because he or she will actually support you.

So do things that decrease your attachment and expectations of this person, not things that make you more eager to stay connected and validated. That way, you’ll slowly fall out of love and show respect to all parties involved, including yourself.

When is it okay to date your friend’s ex?

It’s almost never okay to date your friend’s ex. Dating someone your friend doesn’t or didn’t give you permission to date is just wrong. It’s weird for everyone—and you know that. You feel it too.

But if somehow and for some reason your friend says that he or she is okay with friends and exes dating one another, then perhaps your friend doesn’t have any boundaries and doesn’t care what you do with the people he or she had been with.

That would indicate that your friend doesn’t take it personally, nor does he or she find it weird, awkward, disrespectful, and treacherous. In this case, you should probably tell your friend that you have feelings for his or her ex and that you wanted to talk about it with him/her.

Say you find his/her ex attractive and that you wanted to know what he or she thought about that. I don’t even know why you’d be okay with dating your friend’s ex just because your friend approves of it, but I suppose that’s the moral way to approach this sensitive situation.

Just keep in mind that most friends will feel disgusted and perplexed and won’t know how to respond to a confession like that. They’ll think you’ve been eyeing their ex ever since they got together and that you can’t be trusted as a friend.

That’s why you should talk about it only with people who you’re certain are or will be okay with you dating their ex. Any other people will probably feel shocked, betrayed, and compelled to end the friendship.

There are probably some other situations that would make it okay for you to start dating your friend’s ex. For example, if your friend abused his/her ex mentally verbally, and/or physically and you helped this person get help/escape, then you obviously don’t need permission from your friend.

He or she probably isn’t your friend anymore, so that makes things a bit less awkward. Information won’t go back and forth between the three of you as things will be kept private only between you and your partner.

Yes, you’ll learn a lot about your friend (things you probably shouldn’t know), but you’ll also allow this person who has likely already emotionally detached to start anew.

Morally speaking, extreme situations like this are exceptions as people tend to develop trust and strong bonds when they meet under difficult circumstances. In such cases, the friend code no longer applies as there is no more friendship and mutual respect.

You should still, though, give this person some time to process the end of the relationship before he/she starts a new one.

Do you think it’s wrong to date your friend’s ex? We’d like to hear your opinion about this. Comment below and let us know.

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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.