# If your current significant other fell out of love with you, could you remain friends with him/her? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 14, 2013, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502 "2013-07-14T19:44:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/21 "2013-07-15T14:31:27Z")
Love the Whitman paraphrase. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/22 "2013-07-15T15:59:59Z")
No. My husband and I vowed “until death do us part”, so if he broke that vow then he’d be dead to me. I would probably pack up and move across the country just to avoid ever seeing him again. My God, even the hypothetical thought breaks my heart. I love that guy so much. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/23 "2013-07-15T16:23:41Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > 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? I’d like to believe that I am a big enough person to remain friends with her if she truly wanted to, but I’m really not. I’d make a half-hearted attempt to do so but, as I do with friends who move away, or colleagues at my former place of employment, after a surprisingly short period, I would simply stop contacting her; there’d be no profit in it for me …plus I’d be bitter. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/24 "2013-07-15T20:24:39Z")
I initially (foolishly) had hopes of remaining friends with my ex-wife even though the deterioration of our relationship was…not very friendly. I’m thinking that with my current wife, I would likely want to try to remain friends if the worst thing she’d done to me was to fall out of love. However, I realize that it’s easier for me to say that now without knowing exactly what I’d feel like going through that scenario. So I vote a big fat maybe. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/25 "2013-07-15T21:06:10Z")
Remain friends?.. In service of what? ---
**Author:** ![prettydorky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f04885/32.png) [@prettydorky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prettydorky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/26 "2013-07-15T22:17:08Z")
My last relationship ended similarly to this…but there was never any great passionate love there to begin with- so we were able to easily remain friends. Until his current SO came along, that is. Now we rarely talk, about financial stuff, or whatever. We can’t even get the kids together- I have one and he has two, and now we don’t even do play dates. We also worked together. Point being, huge chunks of our lives that we shared, we don’t anymore. We swore we would keep it an amicable, civil breakup ON PURPOSE, but it might as well have been a nasty one, since ultimately the effect is the same. Current SO, I would not be able to remain friends. It’d hurt WAY too much. I answered ‘maybe’, because I did make a go of it once, but actually thinking about it, I should have answered with a big fat NO. ---
**Author:** ![Engineer\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9fc29f/32.png) [@Engineer\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Dude)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/27 "2013-07-17T02:32:20Z")
No. And this sounds way too much like something a Nice Guy would do (in secret hopes they’d change their mind). ---
**Author:** ![Rala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Rala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rala)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/28 "2013-07-17T05:59:29Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > 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. If it’s your intention to refer to relationships rather than orientations, perhaps in future you could phrase the options as "In a same-sex relationship"and “In a mixed-sex relationship”, rather than “Gay” and “Straight”. I’m not straight when I’m with a man and a lesbian when I’m with a woman, I’m bisexual all the time. (But it’s a moot point in my particular case, since my partner and I aren’t cohabiting.) I hope we would be able to remain friends if this happened to us. She was one of my best friends long before she became my girlfriend, and still is. Even if the romantic side of our relationship was over, I would hate to lose her entirely. But I’d probably need some time apart to grieve/let go/get used to being single before I could handle being just friends with her again. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/29 "2013-07-17T10:10:29Z")
I hope we could, just because he is an amazing person. He’s funny and caring and intelligent. He likes good music, hates bad theatre and gets angry about all the right things. It would suck not to be friends with him. But it would really, really suck if he didn’t love me. I don’t know if I could get over that hurt to actually be friends, but I hope I would or I’d lose a very good friend. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2013, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/30 "2013-07-17T22:37:51Z")
Yes, I could still be friends with MrPanda if he fell out of love with me. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/31 "2013-07-20T01:04:46Z")
> [@Rala](#): > > If it’s your intention to refer to relationships rather than orientations, perhaps in future you could phrase the options as "In a same-sex relationship"and “In a mixed-sex relationship”, rather than “Gay” and “Straight”. I’m not straight when I’m with a man and a lesbian when I’m with a woman, I’m bisexual all the time. Those poll-option fields are only so long, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502/32 "2013-07-20T10:41:33Z")
I’m single, so I can’t answer the poll. However, I’m pretty good friends with several of my exes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-your-current-significant-other-fell-out-of-love-with-you-could-you-remain-friends-with-him-her/663502.md?page=1)