Of Love and Consternation: The Sticky Business of Friendship with Exes

I recently read an interesting advice column by Carolyn Hax regarding the sticky issue of friendship with exes in relationships. This particular issue is hitting home with me of late, but from a different angle than the one she addresses in the column. I am not currently in a relationship where I need to worry about the impact my choices in social companions makes on a significant other, rather I am the female friend of an ex whose current girlfriend is uncomfortable with our close friendship. I was the “in-between” relationship with regard to Eric and Jennifer, i.e. they’d broken up after dating for a significant time period and even contemplated marriage at one point; Eric and I met about a year and a half later and subsequently dated for about 6 months, we broke up and they have now since reunited. After a “time-out” period for grieving and heart-healing, Eric and I have, at his urging, worked through the issues surrounding our break-up and managed to move on and forge quite an enjoyable friendship, a first for me. Before long, I was buying him a celebratory soy chai latte after he was awarded Teacher of the Year, and he was listening to my work frustrations over beers at one of our favorite pubs, things good friends do, and all was apparently well. While I don’t get to spend as much time with him as I did when we were dating, the time we do find to hang out is superbly entertaining and pleasurable. I try not to treat Jennifer as the “elephant in the room” when we get together (it should be noted that I’ve never met her); we have plenty of other things to discuss without my explicitly asking about her, but I also recognize that she is a major part of his life now, and she will come up. And sometimes, for the sake of reinforcing reality (for my own continual healing) and trying to be a supportive friend, I do directly ask how things are going, how the house hunting is progressing, etc (they plan to sell their respective homes and purchase one together.) It takes conscientious effort and a lot of honesty to maintain such an arrangement, but we seemed to be making it work… until last Sunday. We were having dinner before I had to go to work and something about the whole evening seemed “off.” As I was pressed for time, I didn’t bring it up just then, and I left the restaurant feeling very cross. I later wrote him a general “is everything ok?” email, mentioning that something seemed wrong and I just wanted to “check in”. He writes back that no, nothing is wrong, “I’m just sensitive about talking about issues surrounding Jennifer with you because of consternation and I know Jennifer doesn’t really like it when I talk about spending time with you so I minimize that as well.” That doesn’t much sound like “nothing” wrong to me.

And thus I am at an impasse. I already lost this man once to Jennifer when he decided to end our romantic relationship in order to give theirs another try, it would be unbearable to lose him to her again because she objects to our friendship. On the other hand, love involves sacrifice… am I to be the sacrifice Eric makes for the sake of their relationship? Am I to dutifully step aside out of love for my friend so that he might have a successful relationship with the woman he’s chosen? Or would that only serve to reinforce unfounded insecurity and jealousy (?) on Jennifer’s part and solve nothing? Would it be helpful if I met Jennifer and took away the mystery of me, plead my case, somehow “proved” that I’m not out to steal Eric or sabotage their relationship? Am I asking too much to have the same depth of friendship with Eric that we’ve previously had even though Jennifer is now part of the equation? Am I violating something by asking about their relationship? Is there some unwritten rule that exes do not discuss current relationships with each other?

All I know is this: I love Eric profoundly, as I do all my closest friends, of both genders. I am a better person because he is in my life; all I want is for him to stay there. I am struggling with this. Is it wrong of me to not want a conditional friendship, some weird version of a relationship where he explicitly excludes a major part of his life from me, as well as to know that such a friendship could very likely be the cause of distress in his relationship? Or, is this something that will just take a while to adjust to; the insecurity of a “new” (or in their case, “re” new) relationship will fade over time?

I am really bothered by all of this- I hope Eric and I get a chance to talk soon, and perhaps a good friend will be able to offer some perspective and help clear my mind about all of this.