Graphic by Lucas Olscamp/The Gazelle

Whether it's trouble with a long distance relationship, choosing your major or feeling like NYUAD is not the right place for you, A Word of Advice is here to listen. Your calls for advice will be answered by a peer, with help from the Health and Wellness Center and your RAs, no matter if you are on Saadiyat campus, studying abroad or at home. Some responses will be published in a column in The Gazelle. All submissions will remain completely anonymous. Remember, advice is just an opinion and if you need a health care professional, please visit the Health and Wellness Center.

First of all, I think it's possible to stay friends after you have broken up with someone. But while I believe it is possible to be friends, I don't think it is possible to be friends immediately.

Of course you hate seeing them sad. Of course you care. Of course you want to help. You are watching someone that you care about struggle with pain. But the truth is that approaching them too quickly can make things worse. If you truly want to transition from partner to friend, you cannot take on the emotional responsibility of a partner.

If you step in now to try and make things better, you are opening a door to the expectation of a romantic relationship again. If that is not what you want, but you still open that door, either you will resent your ex-partner for expecting a commitment from you that you made clear you're not willing to take on, or your ex will resent you for sending mixed signals.

From your phrasing, it sounds like you were the one who initiated the break up. If that is the case, good for you. It takes guts to recognize when something is not working and act on it. Most of the time, people let a relationship that isn't working fester until they don't have any other choice. If you do have a chance of being friends, then you broke up early enough to understand that a romantic relationship won't work, but you can still see the good in each other.

If you are the one who did the breaking up, you — for the moment — have chosen the role of the bad guy. It's a necessary role and a very important one, but you can't fix a hurt you created. In monogamous relationships, we only have one partner who takes on all the responsibilities of a couple, from physical to emotional intimacy. You have no such responsibility in friendship.

In fact, a big part of friendship is having a web of multiple people who are all connected and who can provide support at different times. Right now, you need to let one of your mutual friends take over with the ice cream and the space for your ex be upset. If your ex stays angry at you, this is absolutely normal and you have to let them go through this not on their own, but with the help of other friends.

It will take a while. It will probably take a really long while. And there is no guarantee that it will ever work out and that you will be friends again. Of all the relationships I've been in, there were a few where it took years until we figured out how to be friends again. Most of these were the really serious ones, where we had either dated for years or had built up to being a couple for a long time. There were a few relationships that were more casual, and as soon as we figured out we weren't compatible, we called it off. It was a bit awkward for a few weeks, but now we can be friends and know each other well enough to trade dating advice.

There are a few relationships that never turned into friendships, though. The thing to remember there is that this usually happens for good reason. Once I had enough distance to see my partners for who they really were, I sometimes realized they were not the kind of people I wanted to be friends with in the first place. That doesn't seem to be your situation, but if what you have with this person doesn't ever turn into a friendship, it is worth reconsidering why you want to be friends with your ex.

We have social expectations that, on the one hand, depict being friends with an ex as practically impossible while also, on the other hand, taking it for granted that, if you two are both well-functioning people, you will become friends again. Yet it is okay to decide you don't want to be friends with somebody after all, or to decide that the same differences which caused your relationship to end are too irreconcilable to develop into a functioning friendship. It is also okay to decide that the dynamic you have together is toxic and damaging, and that the person might be sweet, but their influence on your behavior isn't. It is even more okay to grow apart from someone you've cared for. Relationships and friendships end, sometimes for no apparent reason.

Leave the door for friendship open, and remind your ex-partner that you are there and willing to be friends, while still giving them the space to process things. A simple fact about relationships is that closure is not something you can give to another person; closure is not something you can get from another person. The only way to get closure is to give it to yourself, and the way to do that is to decide the relationship is over for good and you're okay with that. This is what your ex needs to do. Once they have done that, you can work on rebuilding a friendship.

When you do start rebuilding your friendship, it will be hard not to share the same emotional intimacy you used to. With time, you may be able to build back up to it, but in the beginning, be happy with the small talk. Spend time with mutual friends instead of just you two alone. Friendships take a long time to develop, and this can be painful. When we already care about the person, we can feel the months drag by as the friendship slowly rebuilds. But it takes just as long with other friends. We just don't notice because it feels more natural.

Just some thoughts,

Johanna

 

Graphic by Lucas Olscamp/The Gazelle

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