When you break up with someone the last thing you want is to be enemies and providing that they did not cheat on you or disrespect you in any other way then quite often it is nice when you can still salvage some kind of friendship out of a relationship. Just because you were not meant to spend your lives together as a couple it does not mean that you can spend your life together.

There are times when you break up with someone, whether its you that breaks it off or them, and still care about them, not meaning that you still love them, but care about how they are and what they are up to etc, it is times like this when being friends with an ex is possible, not always easy but possible.

A lot will depend on what happened during the relationship, how intimate the relationship was, how long the relationship lasted and how the relationship ended. When a relationship finishes it is often the case that one partner will still have strong feelings about the other, this can make a friendship harder as they will always wish for more, but the first thing that you will want to do before entering a friendship with an ex is set down some ground rules.

1. Be sure that you are both over each other, don’t break up and become friends, allow at least a couple of weeks (if not months) to allow you both a cooling off period where you can gather your thoughts and move on from the relationship.
2. Be a friend to each other, agree to text/call each other weekly to see how your doing, whats new and whats happened since you last spoke, but be sure not to try initiating anything more than friendship by speaking suggestively or by leading each other on (and down a road that you have already been). Also avoid flirting.
3. Both agree to accept what happened during the relationship, only focus on the good that you both achieved from it, if anything negative happened during it you both need to accept it happened and bury it. Bringing up the past or using past happenings for leverage will kill any kind of friendship.
4. Be there for each other, let them know that just like when you were together, if they have a problem or a question then they can still come to you for a chat.
5. Both agree some new goals, think of them as goals that you would have been trying to achieve prior to the relationship and encourage each other to achieve them. Don’t forget to compliment them if they are doing well in achieving their goals as a little ego boost will do wonders to their confidence and help to heal old wounds.
6. Remember that your friend may not be interested in a friendship at this moment in time, it could just be that they still are hurting from the relationship and need more time to heal, in my own real life version of this it took me around 4 years before i could speak to any of my ex girlfriends, some people take longer to heal and may not feel the same as you. If your ex does not want a friendship at that moment in time you will have to respect their wishes.

All in all it takes great strength to be able to accept that a relationship is over, especially if it was a long lasting one, the person that was once the only thing you cared about has now moved and and want to just be friends, for some people this is hard, it hurts and can also be confusing. The most important thing to remember is to respect their wishes and respect them as an individual.