I broke up with a girlfriend shortly before leaving on a back packing trip which ended up lasting almost 8 years.
Upon my return I surmised that a good friend of mine (going back to grade school) had gone out with my ex. Granted she was definitely my ex (little or no chance of getting back to together) and I was out of the country so there was no chance of me running in to them, but still.
I don’t have any actual proof nor have I asked him or any one else about it, but I’m fairly certain it happened.
I just think its kind of low and I would never do such a thing.
It’s *maybe *OK if you had disappeared in the rain forest, was presumed eaten by cannibals, and returned twenty pounds lighter, in rags, with a scraggy beard, after a miraculous escape…
You were gone eight years! You don’t own anybody and you relinquished all right on them by being gone for eight years! Eight days you might have a point.
Well I’ve never dated anyone a friend of mine has dated nor has a friend dated an ex of mine, but I don’t think it’s a hard and fast rule or a moral issue. If I was compatible with someone who a friend or acquaintance (by this I mean the hordes of people I am friendly with but don’t consider actual friends, in that I give two shits whether I ever speak to them again) of mine happened to have dated, and I didn’t have to risk a friendship, sure I would date them. And not feel a moment of guilt.
Some people are pretty ridiculous about their exes IMO - not everyone you’ve fucked is your property forever, especially when you’ve been with like 25 people and most of the relationships have been casual (ahem). If there are unresolved feelings, you have to spend time with both people involved, and your friends know it would hurt you, than yes it’s kinda crappy for them to pursue anything. If, say, you dump the girl to go abroad and don’t come back for 8 years, I don’t agree that what your friend did was ‘low’. He might not even consider you anything more than his former friend he went to school with, if you’ve been gone for 8 years.
I’ve seen this as a plot device on sitcoms and I always think it’s particularly stupid. Once you’ve broken up with someone, your claim on them is gone. They are free to date anyone, and anyone is free to date them.
Yup. What, I’m supposed to miss out on a lifetime of sweet blissful happiness with my true soulmate because he dated one of my friends before me? Pshaw, I don’t think so.
If you aren’t a couple anymore, you got nothing to complain about. Or are you saying that your ex- isn’t allowed to make up their own damn mind about who they are gonna date? How can that attitude possibly be justified?
Sometimes ex-SOs are off limits to friends. In the situation described in the OP, no way. You were the dumper, not the dumpee, and you were gone for the better part of a decade. Your relationship and breakup is ancient history now.
I do think there should be a one- to three-month grace period (depending on how long the relationship went on) before dating a friend’s ex, but that’s assuming everyone’s still in the same social circle and still reasonably close.
Dating your friend behind your back and dumping you to be with them? Lower than a snake’s belly. To the curb with both of 'em.
Dating your friend shortly after breaking up with you? Depends on why. If they genuinely seem to like each other and want the relationship, more power to 'em. Some sort of emotional chess game in which the object is to mess with someone’s emotions in some way? To the curb with both of 'em. (Although maybe the friend can be welcomed back if they also get spectacularly burned.)
Dating after you two break up while you’re off on an 8-year odyssey around the world for your own amusement? Not only do you not have a leg to stand on - you don’t have any ground, either.
When they started dating, The Bestest Ex was terrified of me and Friend getting together and chatting about him. Friend and me are still trying to figure out what kind of problems he thought would come from that…
They lived together for a while, ended up splitting amicably. My own split with him was amicable too.
I know people who married an ex’s sibling (with the ex’s blessing), or who dated or married ex’s friends/friends’s exes. “We just broke up”“oh neat, wanna go to the movies?! :p” (<-- slobber smiley) would be uncouth, and of course pre-break up is a no-no, but expecting exes to write common acquaintances off forever and ever seems childish. Quite unfeasable too, if you live in a small-enough community.
:p” (<-- slobber smiley) would be uncouth, and of course pre-break up is a no-no, but expecting exes to write common acquaintances off forever and ever seems childish. Quite unfeasable too, if you live in a small-enough community.