The poll question will be aimed only at persons currently in long-term, committed, monogamous relationships. Hell, let’s add cohabiting too. Persons not in such relationships at the present time may comment in the thread.
Let’s say your significant other came to you and, without warning, said that all the passion she or he formerly felt for you had died. Your SO still loves you, but only as a friend – his or her dearest friend, perhaps, but no one she or he ever wants to make the beast with two backs again. So it’s a definite breakup of the relationship, but the SO would like to remain friends with you if you’re willing.
Would you be able to make that adjustment, do you think? Do you resent your SO for even asking?
Oh, I hope so. My husband really is my best friend, I can’t imagine him not being in my life. But yes, it would probably take me a while to get over the heartbreak and feel able to be just his friend.
But what would he want to? The OP says explicitly that all his passion for the person being dumped has died. I certainly meant that to mean that the SO no longer would have sexual desire for the person in question. Are you reading it a different way?
I read it–or, actually, misread it. I thought you meant that you’d allow him to be your FWB immediately, rather than allowing him the option in the future. My fault.
So we’re clear, I left out the bi options because I figured people would vote according to whatever sort of relationship – same-sex or hetero – they were in. Obviously if you’re in a MONOGAMOUS LTR, you’re not in both at once.
I’d pretty much have to. We were friends first, and our core group of friends are all true mutual friends. We’d still see each other everywhere we went. Giving him up as a friend would mean cutting out all my other friends too.
I’ve been in this situation - a long-time gf told me she’d fallen for someone else from her job. We’d been friends before we started dating (her old boyfriend had been a buddy of mine, we didn’t date until years later, though) and I was willing to give friendship a shot again.
It didn’t work.
First, she simply couldn’t accept that I’d been dumped and needed some time to process that before resuming our old friendship - I was supposed to want to hang out with her and the new guy immediately, or I wasn’t being supportive.
About 2 years later, the new relationship ended and she wanted us to get back together romantically, and I had to explain that when she ended things to pursue someone else, she’d taken that possibility off the table. She felt that was unfair and in the end, she chose to end the friendship rather than “hang around while I was with someone else.”
No, she didn’t see what was ironic about that. Seriously.
1.) I could not be friends with her but that doesn’t mean I harbor any resentment towards her either.
2.) I could be friends with her. If she is indeed not feeling the passion anymore, there’s a good chance that I’m not either. In that case, I could still be friends with her as the pain of her leaving would not be present. FTR, I actually AM very good friends with a person like this. Well, sort of, we were FWB, but then our emotions got in the way and it was causing us to argue a lot. So we both agreed to just be friends.
3.) As Elbows states: “Perhaps eventually. But not immediately, no.”
4.) She’s fucking somebody else, so, no I can’t be friends with her, and yes I do harbor resentment.
It’d suck, but I think I’d be able to do it. I’m still friends with my old long-term relationships, so I don’t think this one would be any different. In fact, as this one is the longest (I’m married), I’d think that I’d be even more likely to want to remain friends and keep in touch.
After more than 25 years, I’m still somewhat amazed that he really does love me, so I’ve never been entirely confident of the relationship’s permanence. I keep thinking that any day now He’ll find someone else. But so far it hasn’t happened.
So my response would be “What the hell took you so long?”
And yeah, we’ll always be friends. I’m sure I’d also be friends with my “replacement,” if any.
It depends, when I became paraplegic my boyfriend left me, so I couldn’t stay friends with him because he didn’t love me enough to support me through a difficult time. It just depends on the circumstances.
To be fair though, asking a SO to stay with someone after a spinal cord injury is a rather difficult prospect that many couples don’t make it through. Meeting someone that knows you only as a paraplegic and loves you as you are is a really great thing.
I answered that I’m not sure, but it’s possible. Although I am also vast and contain multitudes, so I really wanted to answer that way.
If my husband came to me with that statement, there would still be a whole lot of things to be hashed out. Does he want us to sell the house? was he hoping we’d continue to live together (not a great idea, IMO)? What about the value of our share of his business? Who gets the dog? I suspect that, even if we wanted to remain friends, the divorce proceedings would strain that relationship at least a little.
I would certainly do everything in my power to remain civil, and I’d continue to attend family gatherings with him amicably, but I suspect that it would take a whole lot of time and healing before we could truly be friends again.
