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?
My ex and I broke things off together after realizing our long term goals were not aligned.
At first it hurt but we weren’t angry. We still visited but lived separately. They got into a relationship first and it was OK because we weren’t a thing. We actually were just friends right off the bat but I think they had not fully let go because of how they’d act and talk about things…
Eventually they said their partner wasn’t OK with us hanging out and I tried to reason and asked when either of us were ever on with being told who we could or could not be around?
Anyways short version, I would still be friends with them if it weren’t for their next partner.
Things vary by people. Just end it and then see how it plays out.