The Ex Factor
Wow, you guys certainly had a lot to say when I asked for your opinions on whether married couples should remain friends with their exes.
So of course, I had to write a newspaper column about it. I mean, this is prime watercooler conversation material, is it not?
Here’s the column in its entirety:
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The Ex Factor
“Whatever happened to Tom Wilson?” I asked my friend Helen the other day. “I never see him anymore.”
“Oooh,” Helen said, her voice delightedly lowering to a conspiratorial tone, “You know he used to be friends with Margaret when they were teenagers, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Margaret finally admitted to her husband that she slept with Tom one night in high school, after they’d both had a few too many. They never got together again, but once she told her husband, he said he wanted nothing more to do with Tom again, ever.”
“But they’ve all known each other for years,” I said, stunned. “Tom and his wife are at Margaret’s house all the time.”
“Not anymore,” Helen said, smirking.
I shook my head. If you ask me, staying friends with a former flame is bad business once you’ve gotten hitched. Someone’s bound to get burned.
That’s why my husband and I agreed to snuff out ties to anyone with whom we once had a romantic involvement. When I got engaged, I included my ‘exes’ in the obligatory mass e-mail containing the news, they responded with their congratulations, and that was that. None of them have written or called since, although I’m thinking that my description of my husband-to-be as “three coats of paint away from a thug” (his words) may have had something to do with it.
Hubs swears none of his exes have been in touch, either, besides an old high school girlfriend who sent a picture of herself standing amid her four teenage kids. When he showed me the photo, I noted the upper rim of her Hanes Her Ways poking out of the waistline of her jeans, and wondered aloud whether it was some kind of hook-up signal.
“You’re crazy!” Hubs blustered.
“I know women,” I replied grimly. “And this one is all but begging you to knock boots!”
Suffice it to say, Hubs didn’t write back.
Those who think they’re enlightened like to tell me that the decision to seal our Ex Files means Hubs and I don’t trust each other. I say it means we’re smart.
If you don’t believe me, consider the case of my friend Maria, whose husband insists on keeping in touch with an ex-girlfriend he dated more than two decades ago. Maria has asked him repeatedly to give that bimbo the heave-ho, but he’s refused, saying they dated so long ago that she now qualifies as an old friend.
“I don’t feel like he would leave me for her or anything, I just want him to STOP talking to her,” she vented recently. “I want him to STOP texting her and I want him to STOP calling her!”
And I’m betting situations like Maria’s will only become more common now that Facebook has come along.
Facebook (for that one dude who lives deep in the woods and receives his copies of The City Paper in an air drop once a month), is a social networking site. At first, it was the exclusive domain of teens and twentysomethings.
Now, though, everyone is on Facebook. And I do mean everyone.
Facebook is responsible for reacquainting me with practically my entire high school class, my college professors, my church youth group, my fourth-grade entourage, and yes… my exes.
Thanks to Facebook, for the first time in my marriage, the ex agreement got a little awkward. I didn’t want to be rude by not responding to my exes’ friend requests. Still, I had made a deal, and I decided to live up to it. Ex-boyfriends were out, even online.
This is where most of my girlfriends say I’ve gone overboard. Nearly everyone I know is Facebook friends with an ex or two, including Jordan, whose husband has no idea she and her old college boyfriend have used the site to (quite innocently) reconnect.
“Each time I try to draw [my husband] in, to show him who he could find from his past, he just rolls his eyes,” she wrote in a recent e-mail. “So I don’t find it necessary to tell him every little detail of whom I chat with, including this particular ex.”
It does seem harmless enough, at least until I think of how I’d feel if I saw an ex-girlfriend on my husband’s Facebook page. Let’s just say there’d be hell to pay. The more I think about, the more I’m convinced that becoming Facebook friends with an ex cracks open a door that’s better left locked.
“Not that I’m worried about you cheating on me,” I assured Hubs when we discussed all this the other day. “I mean, people who cheat are going to cheat, no matter what kinds of restrictions are put on them. If you really want to get busy with some hussy, I can’t exactly stop you.”
I can, however, make it as difficult as possible.
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For the column, I contacted a few of you out there to get more in-depth opinions on the issue- some of your words made it into the final edit (anonymously, of course). Others didn’t, but were too good to ignore. Here are a few more opinions to mull over, first from a woman we’ll call “Tiffany”…
What exactly is the goal when you reach out to someone you used to be involved with that you haven’t seen or spoken to in years? Let’s not kid ourselves. There’s only one goal. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have lost touch in the first place – and this friendship would not be news to your spouse.
It’s the “looking up” part I have an issue with… It’s a different thing if you part ways with someone but remain friends – which I think is totally possible – as long as your friendship is out in the open from the get go.
And here we have thoughts from “Amelia.”
I first learned about Facebook when a friend told me my husband (fiance at the time) was using it, and I freaked out. I jumped to conclusions — thinking he was trying to meet girls (any girls, not just exes) behind my back. I really had no understanding about the whole Facebook/social networking phenomenon.
Now that it’s several fights, some life experiences and a couple of years later, I’m okay – but not thrilled – that he is friends with his ex-girlfriends on Facebook. Just because they are friends in the virtual world doesn’t they’re friends in the real world. I too have a Facebook account now and I’ve never seen her post anything on his wall, or any of his guy friends’ walls for that matter.
My opinion? If you are maintaining any kind of contact with an ex, online or off, your spouse deserves to know about it. Period. And if your spouse is uncomfortable or upset by your contact with an ex, DROP THE FRIENDSHIP. I mean, what’s the big deal? Who’s more important, anyway? Some failed relationship or the person with whom you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life?
It stuns me that there are men and women out there, many, if your comments are any indication, who absolutely refuseto give up casual friendships with their exes, even though it is clearly upsetting their spouse. I just don’t get that. Do you?
>I generally go with..”There is a reason y’all broke up. Try to remember that when you get back in touch. The grass may seem green but the septic tank is still just under the surface.” Personally I avoid my exes like the plagues they were…..
>Admitedly, you need to take this with a grain of salt, as I’m a life-long single, but, FWIW -It makes no sense to me that you would promise to love, honor and cherish someone, but refuse to cut contact with old flames. After all, the marriage vows are an indication that you love this person above all others – shouldn’t you then model that in putting your relationship with your spouse above every other relationship?
>I do not get it at all.
>Great article!(Speaking of exes, guess who went to a Silpada jewelry party last night at which her Hubby’s ex-FIANCE also attended? Awkward much?)(I bought LOTS of jewelry to recompense for my ill-at-ease.)
>It doesn’t make sense to me. If it upsets your spouse, then you cut out that casual friendship. Your spouse comes first. And there’s probably a reason he or she is upset about it.I must also say that I recently looked up an ex with whom I’d lost touch years ago. But there were no ulterior motives. Sometimes, this kind of thing can be legitimate.1. I was trying to tell him that someone who he had once been close to was dying.2. I asked my husband what he thought about me doing it before I proceeded.3. We lost touch because of a problem that arose in our established friendship, 10 years after we’d broken up. (I’d been married for 4 years at that time.)4. There has been no further contact.So there can be extenuating circumstances. But the rule should always be that if it upsets your spouse, you don’t do it.
>Hell no, I don’t get it and I completely agree with you!
>There’s a reason they’re “exes”. Unfortunately I have an ex-husband but I can say we are definitely not friends, although we are friendly. But as for old college boyfriends, etc. HELL NO! (I think I just threw up a little in my mouth)
>I’m very good friends with a few of my exes. To be fair, I’ve never been married, but I’ve had a very serious relationship or two. I’ve always been very open about my friendships, and for the most part, my boyfriend has accepted it and trusted me. I think it’s helped that I’ve *always* included my significant other in plans with exes.To me, ALL of my friendships, including the ones I have with men I’ve been with in the past, are very important to me. Many of those friendships with exes have had years to mature. It wouldn’t be easy for me to say, “hey, guys, sorry but we can’t be friends any more, my husband can’t handle it.” I think it would be different if it was a “re-kindling” of a friendship with an ex, that would be awfully suspicious. But for the most part, I expect trust out of a relationship. If my husband/boyfriend didn’t trust me to maintain a years-old friendship with an ex, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be the friendship I’d be dropping. Ack, sorry about the long comment! Anyway, I know I’m not married, but that’s my take on the matter. It seems to be running differently than everyone else’s, so I thought I’d share. =)
>As I said before, nothing is written in stone, and if it is, it was chiselled there. That said, I don’t stay in touch with my ex-fiancee, and I don’t stay in touch with “the one that got away”, for diametrically opposed reasons. One, ‘cuz she’s a female dawg derivative; the other, ‘cuz her husband and I were at odds then, and that likely is still the case today.In the one case, I want nothing to do with her; in the other, I respect that I would not be a positive influence in her situation now, and if what I felt for her then meant spit, I’d respect her needs by staying away now.That’s speaking strictly for me, and for me, ’nuff said.
>I mostly agree with Becca – if my partner couldn’t handle my friendships, many of which have lasted for years longer than I’ve known him, we wouldn’t be together. If he were to have a problem with one of my exes, I’d definitely want to work to make it less awkward, but I don’t respond well to ultimatums. I think that there are a lot of ways to make your spuse/partner comfortable with an ex that don’t go to the extreme of killing the friendship or avoiding all future contact. That said, I’m bi, and a *lot* of friendships amongst my lesbian friends (and exes) involve people who were once couples. Because it’s normal, there’s not nearly as much suspicion involved when people who used to date reconnect platonically. If everyone’s waiting for you to feel jealous when your husband hangs out with an ex at a party, it’s a lot more likely that you’ll end up feeling that way!
>I agree with you. What’s the big deal giving up an old relationship for the person who is supposed to be #1 in your life. For those who worry about it being “controlling” you can wait until your spouse starts harping on your same sex friends.
>I totally agree with you on this. My husband is #1 and if it causes strain in our relationship it just isn’t important to me.
>Not to cut against the grain here… but I get it, mostly. To me, it is not about any particular person, its about the principle. Yes, I may choose to spend the rest of my life with one person… but although he might be the most important person in my life he cannot be the only person. I have ignored friends for lovers, it didn’t work. I am a better girlfriend when I have a balanced life. That includes work, hobbies, and friends. And I have been a person who has been friends with both females and males (including some exes) since high school. If my future husband told me that I could either give up my male friends, or give up him… to me that says that he does not trust me and he doesn’t appreciate the way I live my life. Maybe today he only demands I shun friend A, but what happens tomorrow? or next week?
>My husband having a casual friendship with an ex does not bother me much. My husband has an ex from many years ago and it turns out that our sons were on the same football team. It never bothered me for him to be friendly with her or for me to be for that matter. We actually had a few great laughs about the late 80s prom pics of them that we dug out!
>See, while it sounds like there are different opinions here, I think they’re essentially the same opinion. Really, it depends on the ex, the current relationship, and just generally how things go. I have several exes that are still friends. They’re friends with my husband too. He doesn’t mind. There are no feelings between me and these other people aside from friendship, and hubs knows it. And then, there are other exes who I don’t see, for various reasons. Some people continue to make a positive contribution to your life, and others do not.Hubs lost touch with most of his exes before we got together, but there was one girl that he still hung out with as friends. I had no problem with it. But when we got engaged, she started acting out. And then she turned hostile toward me and started trying to create problems in our relationship. I made it very clear that I didn’t like it. I didn’t demand he end the friendship, but ultimately their friendship ended anyway. And I think we’re all more comfortable that way.I think when a spouse is upset about ties with an ex, it’s not because they are irrationally jealous or unreasonable in any way. I think it’s because the spouse sees something that perhaps we are missing because we’re a little too close to the situation. If it’s a good friendship that adds value to your life and there is really nothing more to it than that, your spouse is likely to be quite happy to have you keep the friendship. But ultimately, your spouse comes before your friends. If you’re married, this is the person you are spending the rest of your life with, and your friends come second. So yeah, if one of your friendships makes your spouse uncomfortable, then do what you have to do to make your spouse happy.
>Spouses come first. Period. If you don’t want to be married, just don’t be. But I would never allow anyone to even create even the appearance of threat in my marriage.
>My divorce come through next month and the breakdown began with constant contact with an ex-girlfriend. He still doesn’t get it. I agree with you … if you love your other half – cut the damn cord!xx
>I went through this with my husband months before we got married…his high school sweetheart(the one he lost his V card to..gag!) started emailing him and while i was very unhappy about it..he insisted they were only friends and i had nothing to worry about! then he told me that she showed up at his work telling him she was in love with him and wanted to leave her husband for him..he was in shock and came apologizing! Needless to say lesson learned.. We don’t stay in touch with ex’s!
>If my husband had a real problem with my friendship with my ex, certainly, it would discontinue. The friendship was intact when my husband and I met and I have been open and honest about any and all contact I have with him since. So, I think it can happen but we are rare.
>I do agree with that. If you chose to make a lifelong committment to your spouse, and you are doing something they are uncomfortable with and ask you to stop, you need to be an adult and stop doing it because you love your spouse and committed to them above all others.
>I almost never comment, just lurk, but I gotta tell ya, this post just brought it outta me!I’ve only been married for 2 years, but to me that’s enough time to figure out that marriage, although mostly full of good, has rough times. Why complicate it with an old flame? A flame who you DIDN’T promise to cherish and love until death parts you. What’s the point of making the vows if you’re going to introduce strife over someone you DIDN’T deem worthy to make the vows with in the first place?
>okay, i’m sure that the likelihood that i will get flamed for this is high, but i’m posting anyway. like “fancythis”, i’m also a lurker, but felt the need to respond. (also, sorry this is so long, but i have a lot of thoughts on this matter.)when it comes to my exes, i am friends with some of them, and one of them happens to be my best friend. he is a better friend to me than any of my girlfriends, and he is the one that i tell everything to. he hasn’t lived in the same city as me for about 10 years (so we’ve racked up the phone bills) and is now married to a wonderful woman, who doesn’t mind if he comes for a visit and hangs out with me for a weekend, or if i go to visit and he and i spend a significant portion of the weekend together alone. all that said, he has married someone who trusts him, and she should. i love my best friend like…a best friend who happens to be of the opposite gender, and an ex-boyfriend. to be fair, he tends to be the disclaimer clause if i get serious in dating someone (i.e. “if we get serious, you have to be okay with this; if not, it might not work out”), but if a man i was intending to marry told me i had to give my friend up for him, that would be a dealbreaker, and i’d tell him to shove off. friendships last longer than most marriages these days anyway.also, like alice, i am bi, and in fact have had some terrific times with one of my ex-girlfriends and her current gf, along with me and my boyfriend at the time. in fact, he and she ended up being in a band together for a short time (which i laughingly said should have been called “The Exes”). likewise, my ex-bf used to go spend time with his ex-gf and her husband as well, and while it honestly made me feel slighly squicky, i trusted him implicitly, so i said it was fine.i truly think that when it comes to being friends with exes, you have to be able to trust whomever you’re dating (or married to) that they will be faithful. i think that to tell someone that you’re with that they cannot at all contact someone they used to date for any reason at all, across the board, ever seems to smack of jealousy and insecurity, and is unfair to the person who may happen to have some really great friendships that may have been romantic relationships first but no longer (besides, think about it…at least there’s not going to be any of the usual “sexual tension” that comes with friendships with the opposite gender). also, speaking from the other side of the coin, i dated a really great guy for almost 3 years, we had a great relationship, but i ended the relationship for reasons i won’t go into here. after the relationship ended, we dated other people, but still hung out together, talked about our respective relationships, and had a great time together, as FRIENDS, because he’s a great person, we just didn’t work out as a relationship, and i had no romantic feelings for him whatsoever. then he began dating a woman who was intimidated by me (he actually told me this), and essentially didn’t want him seeing me anymore. i haven’t talked to him in 3 years. they got married last month, and i wasn’t invited (which isn’t at all surprising). i lost a great friend because of the insecurity and mistrust of an ex’s (now) wife. i understand why he did it, but it still hurts a hell of a lot to be thrown to the curb, and it also makes me angry that she doesn’t trust my friend/her husband enough to believe that he won’t stray. and so i lost a great friendship.there are so many circumstances surrounding this situation that i think that it’s unfair to say across the board that no exes are allowed EVER. my $.02….
>For me, it’s a coincidence that this topic touched me over the summer and that I stumbled on this blog when I was researching Memphis.
>Dimensha, there are no words. If you go into a marriage thinking that most friendships outlast marriage anyway, then they will. It’s all about your attitude toward your spouse. Then again, if you are fair and tell a person that not accepting said friend is a deal breaker, hey, you laid it out there for said future spouse to deal. But, seriously, I would kick my husband’s ass if he had a best girl friend that he flew out to see and spent $$ calling. We could spend that $ on a getaway weekend!
>@”anonymous” – to be fair, my best friend and i live a 5-hour drive apart, and he and i are from the same city, so typically he and i get together when he’s also in town for work, or visiting his family and other friends. also, when i spoke about friendships outlasting marriage, i’m speaking generally about the statistic of one in two marriages not lasting. i would love to believe that every marriage will outlast friendship, but statistics state quite the opposite.
>I think that people who get worked up over exes are insecure.I never stopped being friends with an ex-lover–he was even a groomsman at my wedding. Another boyfriend is a close friend who attended my wedding and whose wedding my husband and I attended several months after our own.Perhaps the difference is thatA-We were always open and honest about our romantic and sexual pasts (which AREN’T the same thing) with each other.B-When we’ve had some moments of insecurity, we talked about them and tried to figure out what it was REALLY about. It’s not REALLY about the ex, it’s about some other issue that you’re conveinently blaming on the ex.C-We’ve made a point of being friends with the exes AS A COUPLE. Even if there had been some romantic lingering feeling on the exes part–it gets snuffed out when they see you and your spouse acting like stupid teens in love. Beyond that, getting to know the ex as a PERSON takes away the fear, the anxiety because you know them now.I’m not saying this is true in every case. There are exes I avoid like the plague, and there are exes who I would kill to run into only so I could flash the diamond on my left hand and smirk. There are exes of my husbands who I want to meet only so I can beat them with my shoe.But there aren’t blanket rules that apply. Each person is a individual that you have to make a call on.
>I completely disagree with the idea that there’s “only one reason” to contact an ex. I dated a bunch of guys who weren’t right for me, but weren’t horrible people. What’s wrong with hearing that an old bf did get tenure? Or gave up teaching and became a racecar driver. Whatever. Seems like only a very fragile marriage couldn’t handle that.I also have a few exes who became good friends, and so does my partner. His friendship w/ exes isn’t not my favorite thing in the whole world, but it would be crazy to ask him to cut out people who’ve been in his life for 10 or 15 years. Also I would be very hurt if he asked me to stop associating with my exes. Just because I wasn’t right for someone romantically doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy his company anymore.