The topic we decided to talk about is definitely a dilemma most of us will encounter eventually, which is: Can you be friends with your ex girlfriend/boyfriend?
To address this question, we created a survey to research people’s opinions on the matter as well as their personal experiences. We received 74 responses. The majority of those surveyed were between the ages of 18 and 30. The population we surveyed was a mix of men and women.
People who surveyed the topic to our surprise were willing to entertain the option of being friends. This was demonstrated by their responses to the first question: “Can people be friends after they’ve broken up?” Here are the responses:
Can people be friends after they've broken up?
We got a bit more information about people’s actual experiences with relationships with exes by asking “have you ever been friends with an ‘ex’?” The responses to that question were a bit more varied. It seems that about 20% of those who said “Yes” to the first question had not actually experienced friendship with a former partner (they said "no" or "tried to be, but it really didn't work out" or "never had an 'ex'") Check it out:
Have you ever been friends with an "ex"?
Personally I wondered why from the studies people felt comfortable with an ex partner. I looked up some more information about why this might happen. A study was done by Busboom, Collins, Giverts and Levin which took a similar approach to what we chose to use for our study. They surveyed almost 400 college students about their relationship with their most recent former romantic partner. They found a few of the same things as we did when we asked those who were surveyed to add comments and stories regarding their relationships with former partners.
Firstly both of our studies found that the reliability factor plays a major role because some participants who surveyed found it easier to disclose personal information about their lives to old partners. This was part of why they felt inclined to maintain relationships with partners after breaking up. We have seen this in our own lives or in the lives of our friends as well.
Friend’s approval can alter a decision because their views of relationship matter. Your friends may influence you to continue a relationship with your ex because of the benefits that could come from it. Take the guy who buys his girlfriend expensive jewelry whenever they fight- his resources may encourage her to maintain a relationship. The Busboom, Collins, Giverts and Levin study showed that individuals who received more resources from ex partners reported to have higher relationship quality with those former partners (Busboom, Collins, Givertz, & and Levin, 2002) . We think that sometimes friends encourage people to stay close with exes because they observe this access to resources and think it is a good thing.
Another major factor in whether a relationship is maintained is comfort. Being familiar with someone you have dated for a long period of time brings a certain level of ease. You are able to share deep issues about your life with an ex partner that only he/she would understand. For example, your parents have been fighting often and divorce has been mentioned during the fights. You may only feel comfortable talking with your ex partner about your feelings about your parents because they had come up in previous arguments. You may already be comfortable sharing with a former partner.
Another reason that we think, and research seems to show, that people become friends after having relations is because life becomes easier without the stress of the title. The actual title of being someone’s girl/boy friend creates pressure for both parties to keep respectful image. Why? You want to keep a respectful image to enhance your relationship among colleagues and friends. We also found that ending a relationship on mutual terms for both parties had greater likelihood of remaining contact. For example, take a couple that has been dating for years and boredom takes over. Though there are no hard feelings, the couple is able to separate and add new people into their lives while maintaining a decent relationship. We had about 10 written survey responses which included comments about the type of break-up playing a significant role in whether or not a friendship was maintained.
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