There is a phrase “Anyone who has loved must have known heart-break” and I’m sure all of you have had the experience of breaking up with someone. However, much of the time, when we really have to say good-bye to someone who has walked part of our path in life with us we can find it very hard to let go. At such times, should we stay friends or go on having a sexual relationship? Today, we will discuss the psychology of breaking up and talk about why some people want to remain friends after they have split up. If any of you are going through a similar situation what issues do we need to keep in mind? Do we decide to keep seeing someone as a friend after saying good-bye to them as a lover? If you’re watching this channel for the first time then hello to you, I’m your host, Peter. In Five-minute Psychology, we are dedicated to using psychology to walk in solidarity with the people of Hong Kong enabling us to make use of psychology to respond to the questions asked of us by life, our relationships and our society. Building Resilience for the Times Right, let’s get straight into today’s topic. Should we remain friends even if we’ve split up with someone? Before we try to answer this question, let us try to understand the reasons why people would want to stay friends after a split. There is research that points out that there could be four factors. The first factor is Security. For example, when a couple is dating in many instances we become a protector and carer for the other person. When this relationship ends if you still wish for the other person to go on playing this role then that is Security. The second factor is Practicality. What we call “love” is the uniting of two people. Even if they split up, there are still many threads connecting them. For instance, perhaps you borrowed a book from the other person when you were dating or there is a camera that the two of you use and it’s hard to say who it belongs to. It’s as if going on being friends makes it relatively easier to deal with such practicalities. This may not only apply to the dating stage. Later when you are married you might share the bringing up of children. To choose to remain friends in order to solve certain practicalities also has to do with the reason of Practicality. The third reason for remaining friends after a break-up is Civility. What does this refer to? Here’s an example: perhaps your partner was a classmate at university or possibly you are colleagues involved in an office romance. You find that if you remain friends with your former partner it would not impact on your social circle very much so for the sake of protecting that harmony we need to remain friends with the other person. This is because the two of you move in the same social circles. It’s impossible for you to meet every day as if you were strangers. If for this reason you choose to remain friends, it’s a case of Civility. The final reason and the one I think most people would choose for staying friends with their ex is Unresolved romantic desires This of course can refer to sex and it can also refer to that very deep exchange between souls. Your relationship with the other person is no longer one of sweethearts but you wish to go on satisfying this need for sensual desire. By continuing to be friends or even to take things a step further and perhaps becoming sexual partners or arranging casual meetings as “friends with benefits” you can continue to satisfy these needs. After we know what the reasons are, we can start to ask ourselves about what our needs are in choosing to remain friends with the other person and whether this is good or bad for me. Should we make a clean break or continue to stay on friendly terms? I am sure the answer for many people is “it depends”. When we look at the actual research literature on this the answer is also most probably “it depends”. This paper points out that when we go on being friends with our ex there can be both advantages and disadvantages. Some of these disadvantages include jealousy and when you weigh up the amount of satisfaction that keeping your ex as a friend brings you it may not be as much as you get from other friends. It is easy to understand why this is the cases. This is because you and the other person have enjoyed an intimate relation. How can you compare what it gives you to the pure friendship of other friends? Naturally, all sorts of feelings are mixed up in it. For example, one factor that gets discussed is jealousy. You are friends with that person but when you find the person getting close to someone else of the opposite sex would you be able to keep your feelings of jealousy under control? You will find that you are not in a position to comment on the fact. However, I’m sure that when you see such scenes your feelings will not, at least to some extent, be very pleasant. Seeing the other person form an intimate relationship especially when it is someone you care about will give you some rather uncomfortable feelings. This being a disadvantage, why do we keep being friends with those we have broken up with? One major reason is because we can protect ourselves from the pain of breaking up. When we establish an intimate relationship we attach our life and our emotional needs to another person including the need to be understood, as well as sexual needs and even our need for relationships. After breaking up with someone else those attachments are completely lost and this will mean a great deal of pain for us. How can we make this pain a bit easier to bear? By maintaining a friendly relationship, or even a sexual one. In this way, even though officially you aren’t in a relationship still, connections between you exist including the chance to have deep, meaningful discussions with the other person or even to make love. This satisfies part of the needs that an intimate relationship gives you without the responsibilities. But does this mean that the arrangement is definitely a good one? As they say, “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. According to popular wisdom, the harder you fall, the faster in fact you will grow. Research shows that this is indeed the case. In actual fact, this very painful separation is a crucial chance for growth in our lives. This is because when you have extremely painful experiences you begin to reflect on many things about yourself: Do I make a good partner? How can I treat the other person in a relationship better? To some degree, deep self-questioning can make us into a better person but when you reduce the pain of separation it’s hard to avoid also reducing what you can learn from it. Apart from the issue of whether to keep a friendship or not another question you might have is whether you should go to bed with the other person after a break-up. It would seem that no local research has been done in Hong Kong. However, elsewhere, roughly one in four people in fact continue to have sex with their ex. Research has also been done on whether this kind of behaviour is good or not. First of all, let me say something about why people go on having sex with the other person after they have broken up. There is research concluding that there are three main factors. The first is an Ambivalent factor which involves having some doubts about yourself. Just think about it: when a person has sex with you it means, to some degree, that you are a person who can enjoy intimacy with others. In order to satisfy this need of yours you might wish to have sex with the other person. The second factor is about Hedonic needs. I don’t need to say much about this: it’s simply about enjoyment. The third factor is Relationship maintenance a factor to do with the maintaining of relations. Making love is an extremely intimate activity that creates emotional connection. If you want maintain a relationship with someone you have split up with sex, of course, is one useful way to do this. The research also shows that in this regard there are differences between men and women. Men tend towards Hedonic needs as well as the Ambivalent factor I mentioned before in choosing to have sex with their former partner. In women’s motivations, these two factors are less important. As for the question of whether it is a bad thing for our relationships there is research showing that this is not necessarily the case. It shows that couples that continue to make love together after a break-up will have a stronger emotional attachment to each other but this does not necessarily have much of an effect on other aspects of their recovery including a reduction in the degree of pain they feel. This is because, in the aftermath of a break-up it is the time straight after that hurts the most. After that, the pain gradually decreases. Research has found that sex after a break-up does not necessarily affect these episodes very much. We have talked a lot about what research has discovered. You can see that in much of this, opinions vary. There are both advantages and disadvantages. Of course, when we ourselves are facing this issue how can we make a good judgement about the situation? I think one important issue here is that you need to ask yourself what you wish to gain from this friendship. Do you think the other person is a very good soulmate? Do you wish to keep this connection with the other person? Or are you hoping for friendship and even sex after the break-up in order to salvage that relationship? It’s not a matter of right or wrong but when you are clear about what your objective is you can then consider whether you should continue the relationship or not. For example, if you enjoy the relationship itself perhaps you should consider whether this behaviour will affect your developing a relationship with other intimate partners or whether you should go on being friends. As a friend, you must of course show concern for the other person. Could this have an influence on the other party? If it isn’t like that, do you hope to rely on friendship after splitting up and even sex as a way to salvage the relationship? Have you set a clear timeline for yourself? How much time will you need to achieve this? If it doesn’t work out, will you abandon the relationship? Because if this effort goes on endlessly it could have an impact on you or the other person developing a new relationship. It could also affect your moving on from the old relationship. We have looked many factors involved with staying friends after a break-up. A very important factor you should consider is whether you both share the same motive for staying friends. If the motive is the same it will probably be easier to handle things but if your motives differ if could easily create many extremely negative outcomes for the both of you. For instance, if you want to win back the other person by this method and if, to put it crudely, the other person simply uses you for sexual release you will be very damaged by this relationship. What’s more, according to the theory of the Love Triangle in the majority of long-term couples, the attraction of sexual love gradually diminishes leaving a growing sense of intimacy and commitment. Research has also found that when people first meet, the relationship is very good that is, very intimate and with few arguments. The emotional connection is strong and there is deep concern for each other. In fact, to some degree, the source of this precious relationship can be extended into that friendly relationship that comes after a break-up. Perhaps through truly understanding each other better, the relationship is raised to a higher level. Possibly, you find that you are soulmates for each another but this may not be a suitable love relationship in this society. If you can sometimes find one or two people like this in your life then this might not be a bad thing. hat is about all for this episode of Five-minute Psychology. We hope you have enjoyed this extended discussion on the topic of love. Please remember: if you’re interested in psychology subscribe, like and share our channel. Apart from watching our YouTube channel if you want to make further use of psychology for your personal improvement and to become wiser in how you handle relationships, your work and social issues I invite you to join MindForest. Here, we offer a consultation service as well as various activities and more in-depth psychological materials. We believe that knowledge is power. By means of psychology, we can build our own personal growth, one piece at a time. If you’re interested in such things then hopefully we’ll see you in MindForest. That’s all from us for today. See you all again next time.
