When my college boyfriend and I broke up, I experienced for the first time the range of emotions that come with a broken heart. I was predominantly sad. But I also experienced other emotions: relief and bitterness. While I was sad our relationship didn\u2019t work out, I felt relieved that I didn\u2019t have to worry about making it work anymore. And while I had times when I was unable to remember any of his faults, I had times of bitterness when I was unable to think of anything but his faults.<\/p>\n
Beneath all the mood swings and emotions, however, I found that I still truly cared about my ex-boyfriend \u2014 not in a romantic way but in a \u201cHey, we were friends before we started dating\u201d kind of way. Turns out, he also felt the same way. So we started trying to be friends again. And we made a lot of mistakes. But God showed us grace despite our na\u00efvety and allowed us to eventually rebuild our friendship.<\/p>\n
Before I go on, I want to clarify a couple things: We were only dating for four months, and I realize that when more serious relationships end, it can be even more devastating for the people involved. I also realize that many breakups are messy and that some reasons for breaking up preclude being friends afterward. Our relationship ended mutually and because we both recognized that we just weren\u2019t right for each other. Ending it in this way laid the foundation for us being able to be friends later. So, while I want to encourage people to think about how they might become friends with their ex, especially if he or she is a brother or sister in Christ, I recognize that this isn\u2019t a possibility for everyone\u00a0\u2014 and even if it is a possibility, then it may be a long way down the road.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the things I learned as I rebuilt a friendship with my ex.<\/p>\n
First, I learned that our friendship couldn\u2019t go back to how it was before we started dating. We\u2019d had a romantic relationship, and that relationship ended, so we had to build a new friendship that resembled our old one but wasn\u2019t the same. We\u2019d learned a lot about each other, which, strangely, meant that our friendship couldn’t be as close as it could’ve been if we hadn’t dated. However, that didn\u2019t mean that we didn\u2019t still care. For us, that meant that at graduation, we genuinely wanted to see the other person going down the path he\/she wanted to go, even though we weren\u2019t going together.<\/p>\n
Second, to build our new friendship, we had to start talking again. But not right away. The week after we broke up, I received a text from my ex-boyfriend, wondering how I was doing. I had actually been dying to know how he was doing, and I was tired of hearing about it through other people. So we agreed to go for a walk to talk a little bit. By the end of the walk, we were talking about how much we just wanted to get back together even though we knew we couldn\u2019t. That walk was a foolish move, but we did it again the next week. And we texted each other in between walks. Eventually, we figured out that we needed to just stop talking to each other for a while \u2014 in person and over text. We had to find emotional support in other places.<\/p>\n
But after we\u2019d given ourselves time to heal and to function apart from the other person, then we did<\/em> need to start talking again to become friends. This may seem obvious, but the best time for me to start talking to my ex-boyfriend again was when it felt awkward to do so. And because it felt awful to feel so awkward talking to someone whom I used to be so close to, I often wanted to avoid him. But I found that just saying \u201chi\u201d when we passed on the sidewalk or joining in the same conversations in group settings went a long way toward rebuilding our friendship.<\/p>\n