Staying in contact with your ex partners.

Personally, not generally - if the relationship broke down there was something fundamentally wrong in the first place.  I couldn't or would want to be "friends" with such a person.  Move on....

But I have to maintain contact with my childrens fathers.  Not always wanted to but we successfully managed it. Now my children are grown and have left home I still stay in contact both through our children and personally.  Hurt mellows with time and you can look back objectively and understand where it all went wrong.

I keep in contact with one ex.  We were both young at the time and living with parents.  When the time came to start considering moving in together I realised that he would have wanted me to stay bare foot and pregnant, whereas at the time I wanted to be a career high flyer (OK, not to that extreme, but you get the gist).

We still get on great together, but I know that I could never live with him so it will never go any further.  I do have to be a little careful that Hubby doesn't get jealous which prevents me from seeing him too often, but that is probably a good thing as I could easily get caught up in having a good time with him and end up doing things that I would regret.

I'm still on very good terms with two of my exes and pretty good terms, albeit distantly, with another.  I had one relationship that eventually ended on quite unfriendly terms, which was very sad as we'd been very close friends but maintaining that would have been impossible.  I honestly can't see how I'd be able to keep contact with Mr CD should the worst happen but that's purely because I suspect it would hurt too much and that I'd go in to self protection mode rather than any acrimony on either part.

Unfortunately I have no choice but to stay in touch with the kids' dad but that's becoming less of an issue as they get older.  That one's a very hard one to maintain as I'd rather see him burnt at the gates of Hades than utter a pleasant word to him but the kids need the stability of two parents who can be civil to one another rather than tearing chunks and using them as collateral like my parents did. 

I think it is possible in some cases but it's certainly a tricky one to get around. 

My ex Husband's mother and aunt and my mother are friends, so I still get to hear about where he is/what he is doing, and have seen him on a couple of occasions when parental visits coincide.  I assume that my mother passes info about me on to his mother (she sent a lovely hand knitted blanket when A was born), and she probably tells him what's happening with me.  We are both now remarried and have families, and it has been amicable and relaxed on the whole. 

I did have contact with one other ex via Friends Reunited a few years ago.  Again, we had both moved on, and it was more like old friends catching up than ex partners.  There was quite an age gap, so that sort of helped.

Thinking back to most of my exes, there's probably only one I'd blank in the street if I met him, because he was a complete arse and screwed up my head/life when I was with him.  All the rest, I'd happily have a coffee/chat with, but wouldn't keep in regular contact, because my life and my brain are in a completely different place now, and I'm happy as I am.

Thinking about it, most of my other exes have since left the country.  Not sure whether that says something about me...

I guess I also never left myself get too emotionally involved with most of my exes, even though I had been with some of them a couple of years. The ones that were treating me badly didn't hurt me as I knew about their behaviour and accepted it at the time (and that really does tell me a lot about my state of mind at that time).  I didn't have many that treated me good.

I can't imagine not being with Hubby, so I have no idea how I would react if we seperated. We are soulmates.

Yup, works for me and my ex.  Both of us are now re-married, stay in contact regularly and have socialised as a 'four' with our current partners. 

I've not stayed in touch with my ex-husbands.

We had no children, don't have the same friends. 

Someone I know did tell me my last ex had moved to such-and-such road, as her son lives in that road and she had seen my ex there.

My former window-cleaner also told me the same thing when I bumped into him in the street a couple of weeks ago - and I hadn't seen him in about seven years!

I'm sometimes tempted to google, but they both have very ordinary names so I'd have to wade through hundreds of hits.

Mmmm

Well I didn;t keep in touch, ad then we got in touch after 27 years.. and look what happened !

As for the ex-wife.............. err Nope haven't seen in her in a couple of years

With most of my ex's no contact and do not want any of it. I've only kept in contact with one ex as we had such an amicable split - we realised that we'd hurt our friendship if we stayed together.

There's one ex that tried getting in touch via Facebook but I just didnt reply. It was easier. I just keep remember "It was called a break up because it was broken".

I'm best mates with an ex-boyfriend.... we'd been great friends for several years before getting together then dated for 5 years but, looking back, we really weren't suited to each other as a couple at all. After we split up there was an initial period of animosity but, because we had so many mutual friends, it was difficult to avoid each other and we came to the conclusion we ought to be grown-ups and just get along together; eventually we just became the mates that we'd always been.

That was about 10 years ago now and it's very much a brother-sister relationship; we really should never have got together as a couple in the first place and we should always have stuck with being just friends. There's absolutely no romantic feelings between us now - that would be just plain weird!

As for other exes (and there aren't many!), I'd be quite happy to have a drink with them, catch up with their lives and wish them well, knowing that I've completely moved on and would neither want to re-kindle anything or hold any bad feelings towards them.

one ex is still good for the occasional sh@g even 10 years later but if there's no prospect of that then what is the point?

Not in touch with any of them.

After a few years cooling off, the first bf and I did become friends again. We'd known each other since we were 4, went out together at 14 and it was a massive mistake! Started talking again after moving to college, but after that we went off in different directions and lost contact. I do regret that a bit. Should never have dated, it was never going to work.

There's only one that leaves me with "what if" feelings. I can't help but think in another time/place or a parallel universe he'd have been perfect; as it was, he was too dangerous for me. Exciting, but too close to the edge for my need for stability. I've looked him up on FB etc over the years, but never got in contact.

I'm friends with my ex.  We regularly stay in contact and occasionally do the same races.  We were together for 4 and half years and just drifted apart and realised actually we were just friends.  We never fell out and we still have a lot of respect for each other, but we look out for each other more as brother/sister.  We certainly don't fancy each other, he is about to get married and I'm very happy for him, and she is cool with the fact we are friends.  We are all grown ups at the end of the day.

I also stay in contact with another ex.  Although we haven't seen each other for years we keep in touch by email and have a catch up every few months.  I would happily meet for a catch up/coffee with any of my exes, and if I ever bump into them in the street we will always stop and speak.

There is only one ex that I would never speak to again, but that was because he treated me like sh*t and doesn't deserve the time of day. 

Nessie wrote (see)

Thinking back to most of my exes, there's probably only one I'd blank in the street if I met him, because he was a complete arse and screwed up my head/life when I was with him.  All the rest, I'd happily have a coffee/chat with, but wouldn't keep in regular contact, because my life and my brain are in a completely different place now, and I'm happy as I am.

That goes for me too.

Out of the blue I had 2 text me last week on the same day after a long period of no contact (and no I don't think it was a complete coincidence, they know each other). One of them I asked to stop trying to contact me in any way well over 8/9 years ago. He knows why, but he still sends me messages. He's trying to be a head f*ck, it's a power thing, he knows I won't reply.

Anyway, the other one I can go have a coffee, beer with, but I don't seek it out. I ignored his text too because he was reminiscing about people and places, and I don't need that or want to think about it.

Part of me feels I should have just replied with a platitude but the past is the past for a reason.

And I've been married for 10 years now, it really IS the past. 

And I've matured into a grumpy middle aged woman. Well, maybe matured isn't the right word.

I don't have any hard feelings about my exes. 

I was upset at the time, but neither of them treated me badly. 

I don't avoid them, I just don't ever encounter them - and I don't mind that, either. 

I'd kind of like to know what they're doing, how they've aged, etc., but not enough to seek them out!