The exes we have to break up with one more time

How do we handle the one that won't go away when a new relationship comes along?

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I was on the phone with a friend a few months ago, she was newly married and very happy in her life and relationship. The conversation turned to challenges and adjustments- as conversations I’ve had over the past year or so often do- and I asked her what the hardest part of adjusting to marriage was.

“Giving up John.” One of her ex-boyfriends from her early twenties. She had dated and broken up with him a few times and they just never managed to disentangle themselves from each other’s lives. He acted as a safety net, I think that on some level, she always thought she’d end up with him and that gave her freedom to act with more abandon, knowing she could always go home. They talked about relationships- theirs with each other and with other people- family issues, travel, careers, societal expectations. “You can always move back home and we can start having kids.” He would tell her.

When an engagement happens, particularly after the innocent early to mid-twenties stage of life, there are always a few dreaded phone calls that need to be made after the joyful ones. John was my friends most dreaded call. He said congratulations, asked if she was sure she didn’t want to run away with him, (she was only 80% sure but she said she was positive), and then never called or texted her again. She missed- misses- him but knows that their co-dependent, long term non-relationship needed to end.

I think many of us have a John in our lives, an ex we text when we’re newly single or feeling lonely. Someone who was an almost perfect fit. Holding on to these people is painful- these relationships are filled with jealousy and resentment- but giving them up is scary. And so many of us still fall back on that one ex and hope that we’ll be the one to really move on first.

Another friend of mine told her “John” that her relationship with her now husband was “nothing serious” when she moved in with him, he texted to say “so much for nothing serious” and then disappeared. She was happy to have him gone, she’s well adjusted.

For many of us, letting go of what might have been is difficult. It’s so easy to imagine how perfect things could be if we, and our ex partners, were just a little different than we are. It’s fun to flirt with no pressure, a relief to speak to someone who knows us in ways that only an ex can. But it’s also essential. These exes who linger serve as emotional stand ins for a romantic partner and can stand in the way of forming a real, emotionally intimate connection with a new person. As long as they exist in our DMs they exist in our relationships, an unwelcome third partner that keeps things from fitting.

But what if you and your John are really meant to be? I think, still, that you have to cut them out, at least for a while. You can’t realize what you’re missing if you never give yourself a chance to miss it.

All my love,

Hannah Stella

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