Could you stay friends with an ex?

It's a subject that tends to divide opinion because there are a lot of feelings and emotions involved. A recent Instagram post from Joshua Jackson about his former partner Diane Kruger melted our hearts completely because it's clear there's still a lot of love there despite the fact the couple decided to part ways last year. Congratulating Diane on her recent achievements, Joshua said he was over the moon to see her get the recognition she deserves but it leads us to wonder if this is purely platonic or if he still harbours romantic feelings towards her? Two members of the Her team have particularly strong feelings on the subject owing from personal experiences and naturally, they disagree entirely.

Niamh:

I've had three or four boyfriends of note throughout my life and I'm pretty proud to say that I've maintained contact and some kind of relationship with two or three of them. Yes, the relationships didn't work and yes, it's sad. Despite this, there was a time when the only thing you wanted to do was spend time with this person, and that in itself seems like a pretty good reason for maintaining some kind of relationship. Two ex-boyfriends have deleted me entirely from their lives, one of them was hurt... he didn't want the relationship to end and it was only for a short time that he cut me out which I kind of understood. The other one had ended things with me... so the abrasive nature of erasing me entirely felt, how can I put this diplomatically... f***ed up (oh look at that, I wasn't diplomatic). One of my exes texts me without fail on my birthday, we chat for a bit and check in, it's not a close friendship but it's a mutual respect for the life we had together and I oddly look forward to it. Another one of my exes has actually been an incredible friend to me, there have been times in my life when I've really needed him and I value his friendship to this day, years after our initial relationship ended. Life is made up of a series of decisions (big and small), who we choose to spend our time with becomes more important as we get older. Life is also short...  that's why I prefer to go through it with as many bridges unburnt as possible.

Cathy:

Friends with an ex. I’m going to be completely honest here and say that I genuinely can’t even imagine the concept, for me personally anyway. 'Just friends' with someone you used to be intimate with? Nah. That same someone once saw you stark naked, ugly cry to an embarrassing degree, lose your mind every month thanks to raging hormones...you get the picture. Personally, I think that when a relationship is done, it’s done and trying to be grown up about it and stay ‘friends’ just isn’t an option for me. When I look back on my dating past, I’ve always known that when something has reached a natural end, it’s better to just cut contact and on the one occasion I did stay in touch with someone, it became a weird ‘friend’ situation where they asked questions that were none of their business anymore. I have friends and trying to make a friend of someone that was never even my friend to begin with just seems like a silly idea to me. In saying that, I do think it’s very important to consider your other half a friend, often your best friend, but if that romantic connection comes to an end, keeping up the friendship alone is too complicated in my eyes. I know that I’d wonder if they had moved on and who with, regardless of who broke up with who and for me, this just slows the whole process of ‘getting over’ an ex. He or she isn’t ‘your’ person anymore and it can be difficult to stop thinking of them in that way which only makes moving on harder. I’m not normally so cut and dried but when it comes to matters of the heart, I only see it working one way and there’s absolutely no way I could manage to maintain a friendship with a former partner/lover/beau/insert similar vomit-inducing term here. Stubborn I may be but this is one topic I’ll never change my mind on.