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The Ex Factor

You can see it coming. The awkward silence, the restless fidgeting. "It's not you, it's me," the dumper finally says, eyes looking everywhere but yours. "We can still be friends."
It's possibly the most trite break-up line in history. After the tears have dried and the anger has subsided, you might like the idea of seeing your ex again. You may even forgive them for the cliches. But can you really be friends?
At first, Juliet* didn't think so. "When Nick and I broke up, I tried to pretend he didn't exist," she says. Her denial was short-lived. Six months later, she and her ex-boyfriend were cast in the same play. "There was no way I was giving up on that opportunity," she says. "If he was going to be there - tough."
Juliet thinks it was their mutual respect for each other as performers that eventually allowed her and Nick to work together. Yet reaching that point was hard.
Sydney clinical psychologist Dr Suzy Green says it is wise for two people to have a break from each other to allow the "letting go" process to occur, especially if one party still has romantic feelings for the other.
For Kristie, who worked part-time with her boyfriend, that meant taking two months' leave after their relationship ended.
"If you work together straight away without taking time off, you don't get the distance that you need," she says. "He was very angry and I was very upset. We couldn't work together."
Kristie thinks the time apart made all the difference when it came to building a friendship with her ex-boyfriend. Now they catch up every few months.
Sometimes, being friends with an ex is virtually impossible.
"If the person has made threats against you or is aggressive in regards to the break-up, it would be wise not to continue the relationship," Green says.
For Alice, there was no chance of friendship with her ex-boyfriend, who became "stalker-like" after she ended their year-long relationship. "He was quite controlling," she says. "He'd try to make sure I wasn't with another guy. There was no doubt in my mind that we had broken up forever but he just couldn't accept that."
However, Alice thinks you can be genuine buddies with an ex. Her six-year "on-and-off" relationship with another man ended a year ago and, although both have new relationships, she says they still care deeply about one another. "We call each other up, we go out together," she says. "It wasn't one of those break-ups where we were never going to see each other again."
There are new boundaries, though. "You're so accustomed to being familiar with each other, you have to consciously stop yourself from being physical," she says.
Green says the question of remaining friends after a break-up depends on how the relationship ended. Often it is easier to be friends if the split was a mutual decision. "It also depends on the maturity of the couple and how well they can hold honest, authentic and courageous conversations," she says.
"At first you think you shouldn't agree with anything they say, or laugh at anything they say," Juliet says. "But it's not true - you can be friends with them but not like them [in a romantic way]."
The important thing, she says, is "figuring out what made you friends with them before you went out and finding that. But it can take a long time to get there."
* Some names have been changed.