Hi, so me (29NB) and my partner (23F) of almost 3 years have realized that our goals and long term plans are incompatible and that we can’t stay together (not what I am here for, so no need to get into it) the thing is that we love eachother and get along great, and even after realizing that we are breaking up, we both still want to be friends. My question is, how? How to turn a relationship with plenty of sex and love into a platonic friendship without ending up emotionally stuck on each-other or having “slip-ups”?
At first I though that maybe starting with like 3 months of no contact can help make a clean slate to return to and start a new friendship on, but after discussion it I think that we still need eachothers’ support as friends and it would be quite hard for us to just cut contact.
I had another idea of slowely banning romantic elements until the relationship goes platonic, maybe something like every week ban a new element, first can be saying “I love you” or terms of endearment, second could be sleeping over (we don’t live together), third could be sex, etc, until we are essentially friends. But is this a terrible idea that will just leave us hung up on eachother?
Anyone with experience on how to turn mutual romantic love into a platonic love/friendship?
Seconding going cold turkey.
6 months though.
This. I had a relationship where essentially this same thing went down. Take that time. We both treasure each other as friends now, and our partners are friends as well. But it’s good to make space for that shift to happen, to make it happen intentionally.