I don’t. And that has always been OK with them except for the guy I dated from 2003 - 2005, before I met my husband (in 2007). We were somewhat serious. (He was in a polyamorous relationship a few relationships before me, which I guess explains a lot. But surely he realizes most of the world isn’t poly?) He thinks I’m very strange because I don’t want to carry on some close friendship that includes phone calls – if we lived closer, I’m sure he’d suggest seeing each other too. He keeps in touch with all ex-girlfriends and he says a bunch of Kumbayah stuff about how relationships evolve and his “circle” and keeping everyone in it, regardless of their role…:rolleyes: I don’t get this “oh it’s just the same as before, we just don’t have sex anymore” thing. For me, it’s all or (just about) nothing. I think it’s great if exes can and want to stay in touch; I just think it’s also understandable if they don’t want to, like me. As for this ex, he’s badgered me a bit, but I thought we had resolved that we would not be talking on the phone and would keep in touch online every so often (for stuff like ‘I had a kid’ or ‘I graduated from college’ or ‘I moved continents’ etc.) Now in late January I get this message on Facebook:
Hey, happy new year. I have a new year’s request…
Amazing things happened last year. And in a few days this country will
have significant events not only for yours and my life time but
historic proportions. There are times when I want to jump up and down in triumph
and joy and scream Hallelujah with you rather than typing a bunch of
exclamation marks and cap locking my emotions. So here’s my request…
“Can I get a phone call once in a while?”
You are missed around here and I don’t know what to say to my heart and
to my family about where you went except “She got married…”
We know this and respect your “new” life but really girl… None of us are getting any younger and we’re missing major parts of each other’s lives that I always thought we’d share. (In one way or another.) So what do you think? Can you give me a call?
I’m not going to call him, and replied to that effect. Am I strange? Do you keep in touch with exes? Even if you do, would you think it strange if they did not want to? (PS - He’s in a new relationship now, according to Facebook , which is at least the second person since me. It says it’s an “open relationship” so I guess he’s back to being poly…)
I only have one that I keep in touch with regularly. I consider him to be a good friend, and it would be terrible to lose touch. I’ve seen a few out and “ran into” a couple online and made small talk. It wouldn’t bother me to do that once in a while.
There’s only one ex-SO that I have “DIAF!” feelings for, and he’s attempted to contact me several times but that door has been slammed shut and sealed off. He’s the only one I feel that way about.
For me, unless things end terribly I can participate in a little chitchat once in a while because these are people I once cared a great deal for and shared part of my life with.
If it makes you uncomfortable, just don’t do it. Regardless of what anyone else does, you can only do what you comfortable with.
One of my ex’s (from Germany) came to visit my SO and I a few years ago and pissed me off for lots of reasons*.
Oddly, my SO thinks I should lighten up and get over it, but for me it proved I was right in dropping that dude years ago.
*He came to visit with a friend, were staying at our house for two weeks, and three days before they were to go home, they went missing. I called their cell phone for two days, and no answer. Their rental car company called and asked where their car was, as it was due back the day before. I called a few local hospitals, thinking they were in a car wreck or something. They finally showed up at the house, four hours before their flight back to Germany. They had gone partying, did some meth, went with some guys to their apartment and “lost track of time and had our cell phone off. Bye, gotta go to the airport!”. Ask me again why I don’t want to keep in contact with him…
Not a one of them. I can’t see how it would be possible: my wife would hate them, just because she’d know our past, and their husbands/boyfriends would hate me, I’m sure.
Then again. I’m not the model of conventionality, so I don’t know if you’re in the majority or not. The only people who I know who keep in touch with exes are either incredibly emotionally mature individuals or their relationship was never a fiery hot explosion of love and sex but more like good friends. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Well, there’s my ex-wife but we have kids together so we both felt it important to keep a friendship. It hasn’t been all that difficult.
There are a couple I’ve ran into on occasion because we share the same circle of friends.
I’ve been fortunate enough to never have any “Bad” break ups. Most of the women I’ve been involved with will tell you I’m a good guy and I’d say the same about most of them.
There IS one girl where we thought we’d be able to carry on an active friendship. But boy were we wrong. All it would take is one night out drinking and by the end of the night we’d be boinking like rabbits on steroids. Then shit would get all weird again; feelings would get hurt; a real emotional rollercoaster, so we decided to keep away from each other.
I keep in touch with two of my ex-SOs from college: one whom I parted on good terms with, and one for whom time healed over things (it may have helped that it wasn’t a fault-related breakup: we broke up because we graduated in different years and had already made fairly definite plans for post-grad life).
I have not kept in touch with my exes in Japan, since all those breakups have involved one of us being an ass to the other (and I was certainly the ass in some of them).
I don’t. Only one has pressed me to keep in touch, and the way she did it was so left-handed, like “Let’s keep in touch…BUT NOT TOO OFTEN!” Was she trying to keep the booty call option open? I don’t know, but no thanks.
If some people want to do so, more power to them. If you don’t want to do so, OP, then you don’t. Those reasons don’t have to be logical or rational to anybody but you. FWIW I’m with you when you say:
I don’t get this “oh it’s just the same as before, we just don’t have sex anymore” thing. For me, it’s all or (just about) nothing.
If you’re trying to make a romantic relationship work and it doesn’t, friendship feels like a demotion. Occasionally it was nobody’s fault—some outside force was responsible. But more often character flaws arose, maybe big arguments illuminated serious differences, or somebody lied or cheated or whatever. How do you continue as friends if you feel betrayed or let down etc.?
And WRT this particular person: he can ask but when you decline, who would push for it like this? I think I’d feel insulted. It’s like he’s saying, “Your reasons are not good enough.” Hey, you don’t have to justify anything to him.
My WAG is that he’s working on a variation of the harem fantasy. If he’s poly, your marriage may mean nothing to him but even if it does, marriages last maybe five, ten years. Keep in touch with enough ex-SOs and some of them will probably wander back into your bed.
I used to think I kept in touch with all my former SOs, but finally realized I didn’t actually do that – I keep in touch with ex-SOs that I dated when I was very young, like high school, because we are in the same larger circle of friends and in some cases, our parents are in the larger circle of parent friends. I think this speaks to Isamu’s point about those relationships being more “fun and friendly” than anything else. I don’t keep in touch, nor do I want to keep in touch, with former SOs from more adult relationships.
Mr. Del has an ex-SO that I like a lot, and I’m often asking why we don’t keep in touch with her more … he’s like “Because she’s my EX!” Depending on the individual person, I can see why some people would choose to be more in touch.
If I got the message that the OP received, there would not be enough :rolleyes: in the world. Back off with the pressure, you know?
*All *of them? Dear god no. After all, there are several that I’m not with anymore expressly because I don’t like them much.
I have a few that I keep in touch with, one or two whose attempts to keep in touch I ignore, a whole bunch who I’m happy to run into, but that’s the extent of it, and two who would cross the street (or maybe the country) to avoid me (one because I was an ass, one because he was).
Whatever for? I am in touch with none of them, and that’s how I like it.
On rare occasion I’m forced to have some sort of contact with my children’s mother. However, since I got custody at the time of divorce and the kiddies are grown now, that’s pretty much concluded. Yea!
Just two, and only through email and an occasional letter. We parted on good terms but now live far apart (one has spent a lot of time in Japan and China). As to the others, we’ve just fallen out of touch, but that doesn’t really bother me. I don’t particularly miss them and am now happily married.
My current relationship is over 21 years old, and only two of my exes are still alive. They both tracked me down after 9/11, because they thought I was still living in NYC. Other than that we haven’t been in touch.
I don’t but I’m not opposed to it. We’ve just drifted and lost touch over the years. I don’t have any exes that I hate, or even dislike intensely, I liked them enough to have a relationship with them at some point so I’d have no problem being friends.
Put me down for a “no” also. I have 3-4 exes from relationships of various intensities, durations, eras and parting terms and have had no contact with any of them since before I got married.
I’ve only got two significant exes. I’d happily keep in touch with both, but neither seems interested.
The first (20 year relationship) was so horrific to me during the last few years of our time together that I’m sure she feels a bit guilty, so she keeps her distance. I have no problem with her these days – once we weren’t a couple, all the problematical stuff wasn’t part of our relationship anymore (someone else’s problem now), and there are still things I like about her and so I’d be happy to have her as a friend.
The second was (sort of) the other way around. I didn’t do anything bad to her (like cheat or steal or manipulate) but I don’t think I was very good for her, or made her especially happy. So I’m not sure she’s interested in keeping up a friendship, and I don’t have the nerve to propose that we keep in touch.
My wife would have no problem with me being friendly with either one. She’s just fine with the fact that my closest friend is a woman, and she’s quite close with one of her exes herself (and I have no issues with that).
The only “ex” I am in touch with is my ex-wife and that’s only because we have a child together. If it wasn’t for our son I don’t think I would have ever spoken to her after the divorce.
I have a more than a few ex-boyfriends that are still around town and that I’m still friends with, and for the most part that was all so long ago that we barely remember it anyway. I can’t think of any that ended on such bad terms that I wouldn’t be happy to see them if I ran into them but I don’t go out of my way to stay in touch with them.
Counting up the people I’ve dated for at least a year, I’m in touch with 4 out of 6, 2 of those close enough to be friends with (in the actually seeing rather than the Facebook sense). For 3 of the 4, this is mostly an effect of having the same friends. I’m not friends with my ex-wife (we don’t socialize), but we do speak on the phone more or less monthly, what with the kid and all.
This is kind of my impression as well. Or, anyway, there are definitely people whose egos are gratified by being able to keep all their exes within their circle, and they find being expunged as a rejection. Relationship #6 of the above was like that – of her two previous LTRs, one was her tenant and one was her primary care physician (although I think I may have embarrassed her out of that). Most of her LTRs she kept in her life in some way or another – I was kind of puzzled to see that her electric bill was in the name of a boyfriend from when she moved in to her apartment some 20 years before. She was extremely put out that I wouldn’t stay in touch with her; oddly, she was also extremely suspicious of my relationship with my ex, even though I thought it was appropriately distant.