It is often advised to be best friends with your boyfriend or girlfriend before you begin dating. And having your SO also be your best friend really is the best. However, if things go south, it can only make it all the more difficult between the two of you.
No one really wants to go through a lengthy, messy breakup. Especially not with someone they care about a lot. Odds are, if you consider yourselves "best friends", especially if this was established before a romantic relationship, you'll care about your SO a lot. So much, in fact, that perhaps you'll find it hard to split up if you find the need to.
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Often a breakup between best friends is mutual, but even if it is, it's never easy. You don't really want to cut off all connections with this person who
knows so much about you and who you've grown close to in ways that
transcend romance. A lot of the time, the two of you will try to maintain your "best friend" status. But it gets tricky.
1. You don't know what to call them after the breakup.
"Ex" doesn't sound right. It sounds too harsh, like you don't care about them anymore, sometimes going as far as implying hatred or animosity. But continuing to call them a "best friend" doesn't feel right either. Your best friends are close to you. They're always there for you. They make you smile. But when you think of this person, you become sad. You feel hurt. Those aren't things we like to pair with the words "best friend". Sometimes we just settle for the word "friend", even though it feels like a vast understatement.
2. You don't know when to invite them to things.
I mean, you do everything with your best friends. It was a simple, Elysian world when you just happened to be dating one of them. But now what? I mean, you're still friends, and you're still really close, but do you invite them to go bowling? Do you take them to watch a movie with your siblings? Do you invite them over for Christmas dinner or go visit them during spring break, like you do for all your other best friends? You feel compelled to ignore them and cut them out of things, now that you've broken up, but it feels so wrong to just not be with someone so close to you, especially when you still consider yourselves "friends".
3. You can't talk about future romantic partners with them anymore.
Now, of course this depends on the person, and maybe over time it will get easier. But one of the big problems is the fact that your best friend will now be ignorant of what might very well be a big chunk of your life. Because face it, if you find someone who's really great, they do take up a big part of your life. And to not tell your best friend about it? It hurts. It feels wrong. And it makes things even more awkward between the two of you.
And if you make it as far as a wedding, then the problems continue to pour in. Do you invite your ex-SO best friend? I mean, they're really close to you, and you want to have them take part in such an important event in your life, but...yeah.
4. Breaking up hurts more and lasts longer.
The price we have to pay for deeper relationships is the pain dealt by trying to separate them. Breaking up with your SO best friend is hard because you can't just escape the pain of a failed relationship. And the longer the two of you have been dating, the harder it will be to try and put it all behind you. The two of you will probably continue to try and see each other somehow because you just want to spend time with your friend. You might call them up to see how they're doing. But a lot of the time, it only ends in tears or awkward tension. You're both so anxious to go back to the way things were, that you try and skip over the "breaking up" phase. But trying to avoid this crucial step only prolongs it and makes it harder to overcome.
Every relationship is different. Sometimes best friends break up on bad terms - but sometimes they don't. And it may seem like a good thing at first, but the journey that must be undertaken to bring your best friend back is a long, tricky one.
However, even though it's incredibly hard and sometimes painful, having a best friend who can endure a breakup with you is a true blessing. And I really would advise you not to give up on them during this process. Best friends can be hard to come by.
