I Remained Friends with My Ex

I met this guy on a social media app late July. We finally met in early August, we hung out everyday for a week or two, and then we started dating. Seems pretty fast paced, right? I didn’t even know his middle name or what he liked to do and we had already started dating.

Needless to say, things were pretty rough. We argued constantly. We didn’t know each other long enough to establish any sort of trust or any sort of bond between us. We jumped into a relationship and we both messed up on that part. I fully believe that you need to be able to trust someone before you get into a relationship with them.

Where Things Started to Go Wrong

A month after we got into a relationship, he broke up with me. He told me that he wasn’t ready for a relationship. At that point, I was already in this. I was starting to get real feelings for him. I felt like we were close and that things were good. It really did come out of nowhere, we were having a really good week. So, the day after we broke up, I went over to his apartment to give him his stuff back. It was pretty rough, I’ve never had to face anyone the day after a breakup. We were with each other everyday so I really thought this would be the end. The only thing going through my mind was, “He’s such a constant in my life, how could he just leave like that?”

When I Should Have Stopped All Contact

A month went by after the breakup, we were still hanging out every single day. He was giving me hope that we would get back together. One day, we were sitting on the couch and he asked me if I slept with anyone. I said, “No, have you?” He tried to deny it, but then he let the words come out of his mouth, “I did, two days ago.” At that moment, my heart sunk to the floor. My hands became sweaty, my breathing was hard to control, and the tears just came pouring out of my eyes. I have never had my heart come close to breaking like this.

Four more months went by, us still hanging out everyday and him still sleeping with other girls thinking I wouldn’t find out. Why would I let myself go through this? Because every second we spent together, we only became closer and closer. I was trapped because of the thought that, “He might want you back, why else would he have you come over everyday?”

My heart has been broken so many times by him and I think this is why I have trust issues now.

What I Learned

We spent New Year's together, just the two of us. We ended up getting back together. It is now May and we’ve been together and happy ever since. During the months that we were broken up, I felt so dumb for sticking around. Why would I put myself through that? But now, I’m glad I did. Every relationship has its struggles, but it’s the matter of whether or not you can overcome them. I have never put myself first, I have always put other people’s happiness above mine. People will say that will make you unhappy, and that might be true. For me in this situation, I let myself be so unhappy just to get to the point in my life where I’m the happiest I have ever been. People advise against remaining friends with your ex because it’s complicated and messy. That is completely true, it is complicated and it can be messy. But sometimes it turns out to be a good decision. I look back at all of this now and I don’t think we met at the wrong time. I just think that we rushed into it, and I don’t know why I thought we would work under those circumstances. We grew together and we grew into two people who care about each other tremendously.

This is my story of why I remained friends with my ex, who is now my boyfriend.