If my friend dumped her she’s fair game. Come on, he didn’t want her, he’s got nothing to complain about. Had she dumped my friend? Never, unless the friend told me it was ok and I really believed that they were cool with it.
Man Rule: Women are not property. You may not ask your friend to decline to date an ex of yours, nor may you chastise him for doing so. If you still have feelings for her AND were the person dumped, the most you can do is admit to your friend that his dating her bothers you. If you were the dumper, you may not even do that, regardless of your feelings for her.
Guy Rule: Do not go out with a buddy’s ex no matter what.
I prefer the Man Rule my ownself, but the Guy Rule is common.
QFT.
Hopefully, more males will make the transition from Guys to Men.
We have to be being whooshed here…this sounds too much like a situation from a movie or tv show.
Looks like I am out numbered here, but I want to make a few things clear, not that it will probably change anyone’s mind.
I didn’t dump anyone, nor was I dumped. The break up was caused by her mother finding out that she had had an abortion. (Condoms sometimes break or come off when the fun gets too intense and lasts too long), The mother threatened to tell Dad if we continued to see each other. He was a cop and she was 17 (I was 21).
Feelings were still strong between us, especially since I stuck around through the whole process and didn’t dump her after we figured out she was pregnant.
I had absolutely no interest in ever getting back together with her. My long time “friend” knew all about what had happened.
There are 100’s and 100’s of girls out there. The “Guy Rule” should have applied.
My feelings have nothing to do with my ex. My ex* contacted me* after I got back and wanted to just see how I was doing. I never expected to see her again and wasn’t planning on looking for her.
(The trip was great. Hit about every country in Asia that was legal to visit and found employment in about half of them. Came home (married) with the smartest, nicest, hottest Chinese girl you’d ever want to meet)
Honestly, dude, none of that matters. Women are not property. Your friend has not betrayed you, because he has not taken anything you had the right to control.
Exes are free game. There is no such "guy rule. Women aren’t property.
And give me a break. You come back 8 years later and married, and you’re wasting mental space worrying about who was banging that girl in all the intervening years? Are you kidding me? You had no claim on that girl. She was, and is, a free agent living her own life. What happened between her and your friend is frankly none of your business.
You didn’t dump her when she got pregnant? Wow, you’re a prince among men. Clearly she should have spent the rest of her life pining.
Including, presumably, that you had no interest in being with her? This doesn’t exactly help your case.
Why? If you really don’t care about the girl, then what’s the harm? Can you please explain exactly how your friend betrayed you by dating this girl that you don’t care about?
Then why do you care who your ex slept with while you were gone?
While I agree with sentences 1 & 3, the middle sentence is wrong. There are Guy Rules, and not dating your friends’ exes (or, rather, asking your friends for their permission before doing so) is one of them. The fact that the rule is stupid and sexist does not change the fact that many guys feel bound by them.
When you break up, under any circumstances. all bets are off. Who she choses to date is no longer your concern. She doesn’t owe it to keep a candle burning for you while you are off galavanting around the world. Nor does your friend need to keep his life and feelings on hold for the sake of someone halfway across the planet, no doubt finding his share of women, who may or may not come back.
Now, in a small circle of friends I’d say it’s tactful to keep casual encounters between in-group exes in the background until it becomes a full-fledged relationship. But this isn’t what happened. You bailed on everyone. Of course they are going to move on without contemplating how their every move might offend your memory!
FWIW, not immediately dumping a high school girl five years younger than you because she got knocked up is not some kind of exceptional heroism. It sounds like you did the decent thing, but that’s all it was.
You should be happy she was able to move on from such a difficult situation (just like you were able to move on) and that her and your friend had their little chance at happiness. I’ve had a few exes get together with friends, and I’ve always been kind of grateful. I’ve dated great people, and I have great friends. Why wouldn’t I be happy that people I care about are finding the romantic connections that I obviously couldn’t make happen.
Go hug your wife, thank god you’ve found love, and try to summon up the courage to wish the best of love for others rather than wishing they’d stay in some romantic time capsule for the sake of your ego.
Most of the replies seem to be coming from guys and their opinion of the Guy Rule.
Is there a Girl Rule? How do you female Dopers feel about your girlfriends dating your ex boyfriends?
What about Gays and Lesbians?
This has fuck all to do about women being property. I don’t know how close the friendship was, but at some point its just not cool to take on a relationship with your friend’s ex. Its about in the same category as dating someone at work. It shows disrespect for your friendship in the former case and disrespect for your other co-workers in the latter case.
Yet love is a powerful thing, and you have to ask yourself if given the right circumstances whether you would do the same as your friend.
Are you shitting me? He broke up with her, had no interest in ever seeing her again, and was half a world away. I ask again, what’s the harm?
And no, I don’t especially care if my friends want to date guys I’ve dated, unless said guy is an asshole, in which I’ll issue the appropriate warnings. If he’s not an asshole, but just not for me, why should I deprive either of them of the opportunity to find out if they’re right for each other?
I don’t think there really is a “girl rule.”
If there is still a lot of emotion and I’m not over it, of course it’d be bad form for a close friend to snatch him up. If there was a lot of drama, I’d hope they wouldn’t rub it in my face while the wounds are still raw. But even then, if it becomes a full-fledged relationship I’m eventually going to have to learn to get over my ego and be happy for them.
If it’s well and truly over? If I’ve left the freaking country? Why not? Hell, I’d probably even have a hand in setting it up. I want my friends to be happy. I want my exes to be happy. If they can be happy together, all the better! That’d make me feel even better about my moving on.
But the dude is gone. On the other side of the planet. Probably dating up a storm. No plan for when he’s coming back.He’s not going to be facing the daily emotion of it. He didn’t even know it happened until years later. It didn’t affect him at all. It’s absurd to base your actions on the idea that it might hurt someone that you used to know years ago.
Assuming you are responding to my post, may I suggest you missed my point ?
Sure you have no problem if friends date your exes, but would you date your best friend’s ex without having any qualms about it ? To me its like dating a sibling.
I don’t see how dating one coworker disrespects any other, unless the couple allows their relationship to interfere with work. But the same would be true if a person began dating a non-worker and did that.
And yes, asserting that one’s friends may not date one’s exes IS about treating the exes as property. It’s asserting the right to control whom the ex can date.
That said, I would hesitate to ask out the ex of a close friend out of concern for the friend. But while the person contemplating dating the friend’s ex can ethically take that into consideration, the friend cannot ethically assert the reverse. The transitive property of equality doesn’t apply here.
I keep trying to you people that my problem was with my friend NOT my ex.
I agree she is absolutely free to do anything she wants with her life. She is not nor was she ever my property! I had NO interest in her during the time I was gone and when I returned.
She was free to pursue my friend and it was up to my friend to say, “No thanks”.
I have been in a similar situation with a friend of mine’s ex and turned down the opportunity out of the respect of the long term relationship with him. Girls come and go, but long term guy friends don’t.
Out of the blue, I show up at a party hand in hand with a good friend’s ex. How is he going to feel if he shows up at the same party?
Maybe I’m old school, but I think its a shitty thing to do to someone who is supposedly a good friend.
I haven’t dated for eons, but my friends and I all had a strict “no poaching” rule.
He’s going to not care because he last saw either of you 8 years ago and he is OVER IT.
You should follow his example.
Nope. And nope.
Also, nope.