You’ve moved out of the friend zone and into a relationship with your best friend or another friend of yours. Sadly, it doesn’t work out for one reason or another, but you want your friend back!
Fortunately, you’re not alone in this awkward situation. What will it take to get your friend back? Can you?
How Mature Are You And Your Friend?
Moving from the friend zone into a relationship is something that happens all the time. A great number of people do this, and a number of them move back into friend status after the relationship has run its course, regardless of whether the relationship was a week long, a month long or even a few years long.
What’s their secret? How do they do this with seemingly no effort at all?
It depends on how mature the two people in the relationship are. If you and your partner are very mature, you’ll be able to better handle moving from the friend zone to a relationship and back to the friend zone again.
If you and your partner aren’t at a high level of maturity at the point in your relationship where you want to be friends again, you might find it difficult to do so without hurt feelings, resentment and awkwardness experienced by one or both parties.
What can you do?
First, be open and honest with your friend. Tell them how you feel! Talk to them about the friendship and how you felt about it before you made the turn towards dating romantically.
Talk to your friend about how you felt while you were dating romantically and how you feel now that the relationship is ending. Talk to your friend about how continuing the friendship would make you feel and how you can best accomplish that goal without letting old feelings get in the way.
Encourage your partner to share their feelings about those topics with you too. A great deal of awkwardness after an ended relationship is one or both parties refusing to communicate with each other and harboring ill feelings and resentment towards the other. Air your dirty laundry and start with a clean slate!
It Might Be The End
Not every friendship turned relationship turned friendship works out, regardless of the level of maturity by both parties. Sometimes it’s not meant to work out and sometimes issues that were dealt with during the relationship are just too difficult to deal with afterwards in a friendship setting.
That’s okay! It’s heartbreaking, sure. It’s a tough thing to deal with, but it’s probably something you knew going into the relationship – that you might lose your friend because of it. It’s a risk you and your friend both decided to take. If you and your friend are having a difficult time moving back into the friend zone after an ended relationship, it might be time to let it go.
You should talk to your friend about where you see this going, but don’t be surprised if it’s difficult to come up with an answer. Remember that not everything works out the way you want it to, and you certainly gave it a good shot. Feel out the situation and find out if it’s time to move on and do it gracefully!