‘I didn’t know there was a problem. If she’d been honest and said, ‘Hey, I don’t like you hanging out with my ex,’ we could have worked it out.’: Woman navigates adult friendships, boundaries after friends’ break up

“Are you allowed to be friends with a friend’s ex?

I had a situation happen some time ago, and I wanted to talk about it. I am going to change names in order to keep these peoples’ lives private. This post’s point is NOT about the friendship. It’s about the the things leading up to this.

So I had this friend; lets call her Tina. Now, Tina and I hadn’t been friends long. We met back in October of 2017. She and I hit it off fairly quick, but we weren’t what you would call ‘best friends.’ We hung out most weekends for about a month and a half and got super close, but the friendship didn’t have any real substance. We just went out to the bar, drank, and went on double dates. I mean don’t get me wrong, this girl is cool! But she has a best friend already, and I was cool with knowing we were never going to be super close.

Tina had a boyfriend; lets call him Conner. I had never met Conner until Tina. We didn’t have any mutual friends or anything like that. I only knew him through Tina. But like I said earlier, Tina and I would double date often. Well, my husband and Conner hit it off. They became friends pretty fast, and it was nice to see my husband make a new friend. And I thought Conner was pretty cool too.

Fast forward a few months later…Tina and Conner broke up. Now, I won’t go into detail of what happened, but we all know the saying, ‘There are three sides to every story — his, hers, and the truth.’ I just stayed out of it, because at that point, I was friends with both of them and really didn’t want to be mean to either of them. I stayed friends with Tina for maybe another month…

One night, Conner ended up hanging out with us. Tina and myself were drunk this night and got into a disagreement about a pretty touchy subject (to me). I didn’t think anything of it the next day, because we were both drunk and it was small. If anyone should have been upset, however, it should have been me. This was a crazy touchy subject she brought up *in MY house, I might add* and I tried to end the conversation plenty of times, but she kept going. I am not saying, however, that she isn’t entitled to her feelings, because she is!

Next few weeks go by and I don’t really hear from her. I text her a few times, but it’s like pulling teeth to get her to respond. Then one day, I see her, and she made a pretty snarky comment I’m sure she didn’t think I heard…but hey, I did.

I get that fights can be awkward after the fact. But I didn’t know there was a problem — she wouldn’t communicate. I am 23 years old, married, and living a fricken’ adult life. I don’t have time for pettiness on that level. If she had just been honest and was like, ‘Hey, you pissed me off by hanging out with him,’ I would have been more than happy to talk about it and work it out. I can’t fix what I don’t know! But unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

Again, this girl is awesome! She means well, is kind, and is thoughtful. Just an all around good person. It just didn’t work out for us to be close any more. I think people are in our lives for a reason. I think we did something for one another, and once that was fulfilled, life changed the game.

So back to the ex. He and my husband were friends, and honestly, Stephen missed hanging out with this guy. So, is it so wrong to want to be friends with this ex of an ex friend? I don’t want to do it out of malice. It’s more because we all got along so well. I don’t know.”

This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Harley Murphy. You can follow her journey on Instagram and her blog. Submit your own story here and be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.