After we broke up, everyone expected me to stay friends with him. We’d been together for three years. We’d shared everything. People said, “You can’t just throw that away.” I was in a lot of pain, but I nodded along.
It’s one of those things that sounds very mature: “We’re still friends. We’re so mature.” But staying friends is not always a sign of maturity. Sometimes it’s a way of avoiding the fact that the relationship is over. You’re keeping them in your life like a safety net, even though you’re supposed to be moving on.
I tried. I really did. We were “friends” for about six months. It was awful. We’d have awkward coffee dates where we pretended we were okay. We’d text occasionally about nothing. We’d avoid talking about the relationship because it was too painful.
One day, a mutual friend asked me: “Why are you still in contact with him?” I didn’t have a good answer. But I think I knew it all along: I was afraid of losing him completely. Even though I knew the relationship was over, I still wanted him in my life. But that wasn’t friendship – that was grief dressed up as friendship.
I didn’t owe him my friendship. The relationship had ended. There was no rule that said we had to stay friends. And sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is let go completely – let go of the friendship, the what?ifs, the hope that something different could have happened.
That was the permission I needed: permission to let him go. Not out of anger, but out of self?preservation.
I don’t regret the three years we had. I regret the six months I spent trying to be something I wasn’t.
Sometimes we let go because we need to heal. And that is okay.
