Remaining friends with an ex while falling in love with a new girl

I think it is possible, what do you guys think?

I mean, with the ex, it is water under the bridge. It was a relationship filled with incredible memories and the break up was adult, but the feelings are not there any longer. But I like the person she is, a lot, and respect her so much. Thus far, I am really interested in remaining friends with her, despite the popular theory that apparently, this is impossible. Besides, you can't just erase 3.5 years of your life. I mean, I haven't told her of my new love, but that could come up eventually, and casually. I don't think it matters anyways, we are both over the relationship, it is easy to tell because of the people we are (honest/straightforward). I still enjoy hearing about each others day from time to time. Plus there are thousands of miles between us. Just think of her as a friend.

My new love, well I have fallen for her hard. I think she is open enough to accept the above statements. But maybe it doesn't even matter to mention it, since contact is so infrequent and miles so many between my ex and I. I admit I have not mentioned it, but as I said, contact is not frequent and 95% of it is the occasional 3-10 sentence email, rare skype for an hour. If we felt stronger, contact would be daily I would think.

What do you think? Possible to remain friends with an ex while being in love with a new girl?

 

This is a minefield. It's likely to make your new girl feel very uncomfortable.

 

you are in for a shit storm carl....

why dont you just gouge out your x's heart with a love dagger you heartless sob

i mean....come on.....you cold bastard...


just fuckin with ya carl....keep the ex in the dark..its none of her business...stop considering her in your life plan

 

You think even with the 1000s of miles between me and the ex? And even with infrequent emails which are many times brief, and at most, a paragraph or two. I mean, it is almost like just the common chats you have with a friend to catch up on things.

I understand my new gf could be uncomfortable and she would have every right to be, but hopefully open to a civil conversation about it.

Yah, that is the best thing to do and the thing I consider the most. My ex is cool, she has never asked about a new gf and never would. She is a considerate person, so you are correct, there is no point in randomly bringing it up. She would not tell me if she had a new bf, though I would be okay with it, since that is the person she is.

 

I am friends with a couple of my ex's, it can be a problem but only if there is already an issue of trust. Keeping her a secret will only make it worse, just be upfront - if you are only friends then so what!

 

Yeah, of course you can still be friends with your ex -you're not in a position to be anything other than friends if she's a long way away-but tell your new partner about her? Fuck sake man, that's the kiss of death!

 

Tell her now. Seriously. If you want to be with her, and want to stay friends with your ex, then don't keep her in the dark. If you tell her what you told us, then I doubt she'll be mad. If you tell her in 6 months, she will most likely be mad. And if you leave your email open someday and she sees a bunch of emails from another girl, she will be REALLY mad. Make it clear to her there are no longer any romantic feelings between you two but you still care for your ex as a friend. And if your ex is a friend you should tell her you have a girlfriend. You don't have to go into details or anything. But still. If you are just friends, then she will have to learn to deal with you having a new girl in your life.

 

Yeah, because the best part of it will be the new girlfriend finding out that he kept his friendship with his ex a secret

 

I am still friends (or at least cordial) with almost every ex-girlfriend of mine. It isn't really a big deal. I have a different lifestyle and relationship style than most, but seriously, any woman that would have a hard time dealing with the fact that I have like a bajillion very close female friends would be well advised to stay far away from me.

 

I tottaly agree with people saying you should just be honest to your current girlfriend: explain everything you shared with us.

When you keep it a secret it's much more suspicious and likely to make your partner think you're interested in someone else. I'd rather haver a bf telling me he keeps in touch with his ex than finding it by accident (there would be a hell of a "shit storm" )

 

my ex refuses to be my friend since he got a girlfriend. he even deleted me from his facebook. we broke up 4 years ago... was friends before and seemed we were after. then he said he's seeing some girl and yep, no longer have him as a friend. seems really sad cuz there was something solid as a friendship, but i guess not so much.
other than that, another ex and i are still best friends. i think we hold eachother back a bit from dating other people so much, cuz we hang out much (platonically) but its nice to be able to hang out with someone you dont feel like you have to entertain. im sure we'll be dealing with the other dating someone else soon enough but for now its nice being single and happy.
good luck