Opinion: Can You Still Talk to Your Ex Once You’ve Found Someone New?

We need to learn how best to deal with the existence of exes

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A real love and a real relationship shouldn’t be treated like it never happened just because the romantic portion of that relationship has come to an end. A serious relationship is an incredibly complex and intimate intertwining of two lives. Our past partners change who we are and define long periods of our short time here on Earth. And the deep love we once held for them is forever etched into our brains, even if it’s not in an active state like it once was. For this reason, it can be deeply self-denying to cut an ex out of our lives completely.

One reason that I encourage my partners to keep a tenuous connection with their exes is that it’s the more honest approach. When someone spent 2, 5, 7, or more years living with another person, it’s inevitable that they have formed a lifelong connection with them. If they turn around and act like they now completely hate, or are completely indifferent to that individual, chances are they’re lying to me — and maybe to themselves.

People compensate when they can’t cope with their emotional realities. Those who act like they hate their exes are usually the closest to flipping back to loving them. I’ve dated many women who were very vocal about how terrible their ex was, and how they’d never want anything to do with them, yet they would frequently bring said ex up in conversation. If you hate them, they’re on your mind. If you hate them, they still have some sway over your emotions. This reeks of unresolved attachment.

Someone who is indifferent to their ex can be equally worrisome. A real love is not something that ever completely disappears. If a person is truly indifferent to somebody who they spent years with, they probably have a shallow capacity for feeling, or they spent all that time building with someone who they weren’t really into. Either way, it is troublesome to think that they could do all of what they’re now doing with you, and someday just treat it like it was nothing at all.

Rather, I would hope to understand why my partner separated from their ex, and to understand how they really feel about them currently, and what their ideal relationship would them would look like. Once we’ve established that they’re allowed to have some level of contact, I’d then consider it time to establish my limits around that contact.

Setting Rules

Here we’ll see that my encouraging them to be true to themselves and maintain some type of connection with their ex is not a tacit acknowledgment that I’m completely comfortable with the whole thing. If I had my druthers, my partner would have never loved another person romantically, but that’s just not the reality of the situation most of the time — and it’s not the reality for me either, as I too have loved before.

Thus, as always, I try to advocate for looking at the hard realities of a relationship directly. I don’t want my partner to conform to my wants while hiding a secret desire for something else in their hearts, just so I can continue on in blissful ignorance. It’s normal that they won’t want to cut their ex off completely. The mature thing to do is to acknowledge that unavoidable reality, and then work to set manageable limits around it.

Personally, I incline towards little in-person contact and no frequent communication. Occasional phone calls and check-ins are okay. Depending on circumstances, seeing each other in public would be fine — for example, at a common friend’s birthday party. There definitely should never be anytime spent in private. I also asked of a previous girlfriend, when we were still seeing each other, that she only talk with her ex in English, as they can both speak Hindi, which I do not. It’s oddly uncomfortable being in a room while your girlfriend talks on the phone to her ex when you don’t understand what they’re saying.

It is incumbent on the partner who wishes to still talk to their ex to recognize that this situation is a concession and an act of compromise from their current partner. It is a privilege and should be treated like one. This means very high standards for transparency and a very low tolerance for any suspicious behaviors.

Earlier I mentioned the emotional reality that people should, and often do, want some ongoing connection to their ex, however slight it might be. This isn’t necessarily rational or ideal, but it’s just part of being human. In the same light, we cannot expect our partner to be totally rational when it comes to allowing us to maintain a minimal relationship with our ex. They may get jealous even if they believe they have no reason to be. They may understand the reasoning for it but still feel bothered by it.

We shouldn’t make our partner feel like less, or like they’re being insecure or foolish, just because they’re uncomfortable with the situation. It’s fair to expect that they will oblige us if we want some connection to a person we once deeply loved and to whom we gave many years of our life, but it should only be expected on their terms. They show us the grace of saying “Yes, it’s okay,” and we show them the grace of saying, “Okay, tell me what you’re comfortable with or not.”

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There are, of course, many situations that would preclude something like this. An ex that is troublesome deserves to be entirely out of the picture. They should in no way interfere with my partner’s life, or me and my partner’s relationship. This discussion is premised on the fact that a past relationship is an important part of an individual’s personal history and a lingering factor in their mind. But that past relationship should not be a factor going forward. As soon as they become an impediment to anything in the current day, or an obstacle for the future, they need to be cut off.

Not all exes are created equal. Some people have volatile and even dangerous exes. That’s certainly a no-go. An ex who would attempt to disrespect the new relationship in any way is automatically disqualified as well. Not only does managing this relationship dynamic require maturity and emotional intelligence on the part of the active partners, but it requires the same of the ex in question. If any of the three of you lacks the ability to abide by what is expected of you, then maintaining any type of contact is not going to be a viable option.

Conclusion

I’m not one to romanticize the past, but historical standards for relationships would’ve precluded the need for a discussion like this one. It was one and done back then, and that served to simplify things greatly. However, this was, at least in part, achieved at the cost of women’s rights. We’ve moved forward as a society to a more liberal and equitable way of doing things, which is great, but it comes with some complications.

In an ideal world, we’d all meet our true love on the first try — sometime in high school — and we’d go our whole lives never having to go through the process of falling in love again. Of course, this is very far from the reality. In a world where we have the option of leaving someone who isn’t right for us, most of us recognize that our first partner is often not our best match. Thus, the majority of us end up having to give it a few tries.

Love is an ever-evolving thing. Sometimes we start out loving someone as friends, and it ends up growing into a romantic relationship; sometimes we start out as lovers and end up only caring for that person as a friend. We can mesh well with a person at one stage of our life but grow apart as our lives diverge. The evolving nature of the relationship doesn’t cheapen the intrinsic value of that love and human connection.

Mature individuals should learn to recognize that the dynamic between two people can and will change, and that we can still harbor feelings for someone in a way that is platonic after we once loved them romantically. Looking at the reality of the situation directly will always be the most honest approach, and that’s all I’m really advocating for here.