During the hot and heavy days of your relationship you simply cannot imagine ever being just friends with your lover. The concept of being in the same space with them and not being free to touch them, or share an intimate joke or glance, practically makes your stomach turn. But you know not all relationships end in together forever. And in the back of your mind you have the nagging suspicion that yours is one that’s not meant to be. As much as you try to push that thought out of your head, it always comes back to remind you, and keep you ready for the inevitable.
As the hot heavy days become the tepid and disappointing, you see and feel yourself pulling away from the romantic connection that, for a while, sustained you. It doesn’t usually happen that both people pull away at the exact same time, in the same exact way. But when it does, it means that there is not one harshly injured party and one guilt ridden party. It is the best case scenario, and when it happens, there is usually a different set of feelings that can be just as difficult to deal with, at first, as pain and guilt.
When two people mutually pull away from each other and there hasn’t been any type of betrayal or deception, what is usually left is the residual love and affection they feel for each other. The only problem is what to do with it. At one time they knew exactly what to do with it. But now it seems like a treasure that would be a waste to throw away, but at the same time, not anything that either one of them would like to possess.
So they agree to just be friends. Almost from the very second the words are said, it feels wrong. Pulling away from a relationship that has lost all it’s excitement is one thing, but letting go of someone enough to consider coming anything but first in their life is something completely different.
It takes time away from somebody to be able to come back to them in a different way. Every part of the relationship that connected the two people to each other, has to be disconnected for it to feel okay for them to be able to have a new place in each other’s life. One way to know the relationship has truly changed is when it feels okay to see the other with someone else. If this bothers either person, they aren’t over it yet.
Some people never get to this point and lose all communication with each other while trying. Others do eventually get there, but still do not have the friendship they envisioned having when they first broke up. It is not impossible to become friends with someone who once meant so much more than that, but sometimes the effort and time it takes is more than what it would have taken to stay together.