A breakup is like a bone-crushing surgery where the pain of the wound lasts for a long time, and it is even harder to transform what was once a passionate and intimate love into a calm friendship. However, under certain circumstances, this is not an impossible thing, but it requires the following key elements.
In This Guide
Maintain a respectful attitude
Mutual respect is the foundation
When a relationship comes to an end and both parties want to remain friends, mutual respect is the most crucial factor. Only by maintaining respect for each other can we maintain contact and build a new relationship after a breakup.
This respect manifests itself in many ways, such as respecting each other's choices, lifestyles, and new emotional experiences. Even if you were once deeply in love, you should not feel free to disparage the other person after a breakup. For example, if the other person starts a new relationship, it should not be approached with jealousy or resentment, but with a gesture of blessing and respect.
It is also very important to respect the other person's personal independence. Breaking up is just the end of a relationship, it doesn't eliminate the existence of each other as independent individuals. Both parties still have their own thoughts, dreams and life pursuits. Respecting this means not trying to control or interfere with the other person's life path, just as you would respect any friend's life.
LET GO OF PAST CONFLICTS AND HURTS
Some of the conflicts and hurts that arose from past breakups are often a huge obstacle between two people who want to be friends again. If you want to remove these obstacles, both parties need to let go of those unpleasant memories from the past as much as possible.
This requires a lot of heart and determination. For example, if one of the parties has suffered serious emotional harm because of certain behaviors, when trying to continue to be friends, one cannot always bring up this incident to accuse or mention it repeatedly.
One has to learn to forgive, which of course does not mean denying the hurts that happened in the past, but rather choosing not to let them affect the rebuilding of the relationship in the present. Only then can the chains of the past be broken to make room for new friendships.
Establishing a New Boundary
Distinguishing Relationship Boundaries from Relationships
Establishing new boundaries is essential if you want to make a smooth transition from a couple to a friendship. In a romantic relationship, there may be many intimate boundaries between the two parties, such as sharing all privacy without reservation and always watching each other's every move. But after a breakup, such boundaries have to be redefined.
For example, whereas before one may have intruded on the other's private time at all times, after a breakup one needs to respect the other's need for solitude. No more over-involvement in each other's life decisions like lovers, such as each other's career plans, new social relationships, etc. New boundaries allow both parties to clearly recognize the shift in each other's identity and avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and conflicts.
Adjustment to New Relationship Patterns
With the establishment of new boundaries, the behavioral patterns and communication styles of both parties will change. Some of the more intimate terms of address or ways of getting along that you may have used when you were in a relationship should be avoided in the new friendship.
Learn to communicate in a more mature and rational way, respect the other person's reactions to the new relationship model, and constantly adjust your behavior to accommodate the shift. This is a re-adaptation process for both parties and requires a certain amount of patience and flexibility.
It takes time to heal
Give yourself space to deal with your emotions
Time is a factor that cannot be ignored if you want to become friends after a breakup. When a breakup has just occurred, people are often overwhelmed by a variety of complex emotions, such as pain, loss, and anger. At this time, rushing into a new friendship may not be a good option. Both parties need to give themselves enough time to process these emotions.
For example, there may be a long period of time spent repeatedly reminiscing about how good things used to be or dwelling on the reasons for the breakup. Only when these emotions have been digested to some extent can they face each other with relative peace of mind before considering a new friendship.
Slowly build a new friendship
After a certain time base, both sides of the emotion is relatively stable, then you can slowly go to re-establish contact, and gradually develop a new friendship. This process is gradual, may start from the occasional greetings, and then slowly in-depth exchange of some of the things in life, but be careful not to be too eager to follow the rhythm of the natural development of feelings.
The consideration of the way of breaking up
Mild breakup is more conducive to being friends
The way of breaking up has a crucial impact on whether or not you can continue to be friends after the breakup. If the breakup is very cruel and cold, it will be almost impossible to become friends subsequently. The truly ideal way to break up is gentle, with good communication to get the other person to accept the outcome.
In this process, both parties are able to express their thoughts and feelings openly and honestly to avoid causing too much harm to the other party. For example, they can clearly state that it is the incompatibility of their personalities or certain realistic factors that led to the breakup, instead of maliciously accusing the other party of shortcomings or unwarranted suspicion.
When both parties jointly initiate a breakup
It is often easier to stay friends when both parties jointly initiate a breakup. This is because it means that both parties do not want to maintain the relationship any longer and the breakup may be a relief for both parties. When both people are tired of the relationship, there aren't a lot of ties or resentments, making it more conducive to spending time together as friends after the breakup.
Like mentioned in a study by Hill, a professor of psychology at Whittier College, men who put too much into a relationship want to keep it going, while women who give too much are more likely to initiate a breakup. In the case of female breakups, if men can accept with a more tolerant mindset, the two sides may be more likely to get along as friends.
Special examples in reality - such as Ross and Rachel in “Old Friends
Ross and Rachel in the classic American drama “Old Friends” are such a pair of typical examples. While they avoid each other after their first breakup, they soon start helping each other again and even have fights. However, they soon adjusted their relationship patterns and differentiated between love and friendship.
This is actually a manifestation of the “friendship mode”, in which two people break up and then follow the same pattern of interaction as in the previous friendship relationship, successfully transforming the romance into friendship. However, this kind of example is relatively rare, more often than not, after the breakup can be friends need to meet the above conditions.
In real life, when women give more in a relationship, they tend to be more inclined to break up because they feel that the return is too little, while men who put in more want to maintain the relationship and are less likely to break up.
When a woman initiates a breakup, a man may be less likely to want to remain friends if he is not psychologically prepared. So in the matter of breaking up, both sides need to have the right attitude and way of dealing with it, in order to have the possibility of realizing the magnificent turn from a couple to a friend.