Breaking up is so painful (and probably the reason why so many songs are about break-
ups). It’s the kind of loss that we often gloss over, especially when the relationship has been relatively short. However, no matter how long you were dating, breaking up hurts.
Bottom line up front: I recommend yes be friends, but only after two or three months of not spending time together or texting. Here comes my long winded background to this response…
The best romantic partnerships are also grounded in friendship, and so this question often comes up. Indeed, the longer you are with your partner, the more relevant it may be because your friendship groups may have combined. If you have gotten serious, then you may also be involved in each other’s families as well. You probably have several activities in common, and perhaps have learned to rely on each other for help, advice, or maybe just sending silly memes. They may be your emergency contact or your carpool partner. You are likely seeing things throughout the day that you remind you of your ex, and you may be itching to text them about it. Bottom line: it’s hard to just go cold turkey and completely cut off the relationship.
I write all this to normalize the difficulty. Truly, I’ve also been tempted to try to jump into friendship too soon, and it’s problematic. It can lead to feeling rejected all over again because now if your ex doesn’t respond to a text you can start reading in many other meanings (whereas if your other friends took a day to get back to you, it might not be a big deal).
Healing from a break-up takes time (even if you initiated the break-up) because you are losing more than just a romantic partner. You lose a friend, a confidant, and the potential future you had in your mind’s eye (if you were ever thinking about getting more serious and moving in, getting married, having children, or other long term plans). The longer we are in partnerships, the more of these plans we start thinking of and cutting them off can feel physically painful. Different people take different amounts of time to heal (although I once heard good advice that it’s typically about half the time of the relationship). However, every time you meet up with your ex (especially if you hook up and have sex or even just have an emotionally intimate conversation), the clock starts over. You are reopening that wound before it’s fully healed.
I’ll also throw this out there: if you are hoping to get together in the future, then you haven’t really processed the fact that this relationship is over. Although it may be counter-intuitive, I believe that engaging in the mourning process and growing will help you later on if you do get back together. If you get back together after a few months apart, you will have matured and increased your insight into what you are looking for. Further, if you get back together now you may just hop back into the negative patterns that led you to break up in the first place.