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<\/picture><\/div>Breaking up is hard to do.<\/span><\/p>\n So hard, in fact, that we often have a difficult time completely ending a relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n Making a clean break can feel too final, too absolute, and too harsh, especially with someone you\u2019ve been so close to. To dampen the hurt of heartbreak, it\u2019s common to try to lessen the pain by maintaining connection (Tan et al., 2015).<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe can still be friends.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s such an obvious solution. Yes, the romance is over, but it feels harsh to cut ties entirely. On one hand, it makes a lot of sense, because like good friends, you two have a lot of history. On the other hand, your romantic relationship ended for a reason.<\/span><\/p>\n Whether staying friends with your ex is a good idea depends on why you want to preserve the friendship.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s your motivation?<\/span><\/p>\n Researchers have you covered. To determine people\u2019s reasons for continuing friendships with former partners, 288 adults (ages 18-62) reviewed a list of 29 possible reasons for wanting to stay friends (e.g., \u201cbeing polite,\u201d \u201cnot wanting to be alone\u201d) and indicated how true each was for them (Griffith et al., 2017).<\/span><\/p>\n Participants\u2019 ratings revealed four key motivations for staying friends:<\/span><\/p>\n Security:<\/span><\/strong> Staying friends to not lose the ex-partner\u2019s emotional support, advice, or trust. Keeping them around because of shared memories or to have someone to count on.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Practical<\/span><\/strong>: Staying friends to avoid losing the ex-partner\u2019s financial support or the social status associated with the relationship. Or staying friends because you have a child together, or shared possessions.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Civility<\/span><\/strong>: Staying friends simply to be polite, not hurt the ex-partner\u2019s feelings, to avoid confrontation, or because you feel guilty about breaking up with them.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Unresolved Romantic Desire<\/span><\/strong>: Keeping the friendship because you don\u2019t want to be alone, to maintain sexual contact, and because you still hope to rekindle a romantic relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Everyone wants a happy ending with minimal hurt feelings. Unfortunately, that\u2019s not how it works out for everyone. The research shows it wasn\u2019t necessarily the fact that people wanted to stay friends. The real issue was the underlying reason for wanting to keep the connection.<\/span><\/p>\n First, the really bad news. Those who wanted to stay friends because of unresolved romantic desire experienced a range of negative outcomes: feeling heartbroken, worse mental health, more depression, greater tension in the friendship circle, and increased jealousy. Staying friends due to lingering feelings was also counterproductive for forming new relationships, because it made it harder to make new friends and more difficult to find a new romantic partner.<\/span><\/p>\n So, what\u2019s going on? I think it comes down to what I call \u201c<\/span>the potato chip principle<\/span><\/strong>.\u201d The famous Lay\u2019s potato chips slogan says, \u201cBetcha can\u2019t eat just one.\u201d They\u2019re not kidding. If you\u2019re really trying to avoid eating a bag of potato chips, it\u2019s a lot easier to succeed if you don\u2019t have any potato chips. Having even just a little, makes the temptation to eat more a lot more difficult to deny.<\/span><\/p>\n The same is true for relationships with exes. Some contact, even if it\u2019s just a little, is harder to handle than no contact.<\/span><\/p>\n A clean break sets a clear and unmistakable boundary. Having \u201cjust a little\u201d contact forces you to constantly decide how much contact is innocent and harmless, or potentially too much and runs the risk of reopening old wounds. All those little contacts, even just a \u201cchecking in\u201d text, keeps the old attachment intact. You call it \u201conly friends,\u201d but it still has unintended consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n The attachment to a former partner lingers longer than you may think. Research on 320 participants shows that the emotional bond to an ex is only halfway gone, on average, at 4.18 years, and doesn\u2019t fully fade until around the eight year mark (Chong & Fraley, 2026). Stay friends while you still feel drawn to them and you risk lengthening a healing process that already takes longer than you\u2019d like.<\/span><\/p>\n Those who wanted to stay friends for practical or civility reasons were also more likely to have the friendship end in the future (Griffith et al., 2017). While your \u201cwe can still be friends\u201d is a well-intentioned attempt maintaining civility, your ex-partner may not read it that way. They may see it as a reason for hope, \u201cif there really wasn\u2019t a chance at getting back together, they wouldn\u2019t want to stay friends.\u201d In other words, staying friends feels a lot like \u201clet\u2019s stay in reach.\u201d That\u2019s a holding pattern that leaves the door cracked for a return. Even if you\u2019ve said there\u2019s no chance at getting back together, people will read your behaviors as your true intentions.<\/span><\/p>\n The fact is, you have other friends who are truly friends without romantic ulterior motives. Instead of giving someone false hope, remember that closure is kindness.<\/span><\/p>\n Give them the \u201cgift of goodbye\u201d with a clear break that lets them get started on finding their person, no strings attached.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the research on staying friends wasn\u2019t all bad news. If participants kept the relationship intact for security or practical reasons, they had more positive outcomes, feeling more secure and experiencing more positive feelings (Griffith et al., 2017).<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s be crystal clear here about the answer to \u201cshould we stay friends?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In most cases, the answer is \u201cno.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Continued contact is the problem, not the solution. A clean break is easier to hold and faster to recover from than \u201ca little\u201d access you have to keep renegotiating with yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re the one holding on to hope that staying friends will help you get back together, there are two things you want to consider. First, the desire keeping you in the friendship is often built on a mental image you have of your ex-partner, that doesn\u2019t actually exist.<\/span><\/p>\n What you miss, you likely never really had.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n What you miss, is the sanitized positive version of who you wished they were. Memory inflates the good parts and edits out the reasons it ended, so you\u2019re keeping the friendship for future potential access to a person and relationship that is a fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\n Second, wanting to stay friends often isn\u2019t about your ex-partner at all. Instead, we like to hold onto exes \u201cjust in case.\u201d What if you can\u2019t find anyone else, or anyone better. That thought tells you more about your sense of scarcity than it does about your ex and their quality as a partner.<\/span><\/p>\n Can staying friends work? Yes, but rarely. The security and practical friendships are the exception, not the most likely pathway to success. If the connection for both of you is genuinely low spark, no lingering want, no hope you\u2019re feeding, and it gives you real support or handles something practical you actually share, like a child or a co-owned thing, it can work. Everywhere else, non-friends\/no contact wins.<\/span><\/p>\n You know you need a clean break. But pulling it off, the right way, feels impossible. Below I give you the exact words to send, each tailored to the unique situation based on where you and your ex actually stand. Plus, I give the one rule that keeps all three from unraveling the second they reply.<\/span><\/p>\n Although it\u2019s not the best idea, overall, the research shows a majority of participants (59% in Study 1 and 65% in Study 2) remained friends with ex-partners (Griffith et al., 2017).<\/span><\/p>\n However, some people were more likely to want to stay friends than others. Men in Study 1 were more likely than women (though Study 2 found no difference). Personality mattered too: those who were less extroverted and more agreeable wanted to stay friends. Individuals with more avoidant attachment (uncomfortable with closeness) and less anxious attachment (strong desire for closeness) were also more likely to remain friends. Finally, LGBTQ individuals had more current and lifetime friendships with former partners than heterosexual participants.<\/span><\/p>\n When the romantic side of a relationship doesn\u2019t work out, salvaging a friendship feels like common sense. Lots of people do it. The reasons you want to stay friends matter. If it\u2019s because you still have feelings, the friendship creates more problems than it solves.<\/span><\/p>\n Before you decide, answer one question: <\/span>What do you want more: a fulfilling, committed relationship, or this specific person?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Only the first guarantees what you\u2019re actually after.<\/span><\/p>\n If the friendship served the relationship you want, it would have worked out.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n If staying friends is a way to hold onto something that already hasn\u2019t worked, it\u2019s likely costing you the very thing you say you want.<\/span><\/p>\n Hope this helps,<\/span><\/p>\n Dr. L<\/span><\/p>\n If this helped, a like, share, or restack helps more people find it.<\/span><\/p>\n Have a comment? Please share. I read every one.<\/span><\/p>\n\n