 Recently, one of our members shared a post about a man she's been in relationship for about seven months. She found out that he's been regularly visiting an ex, and I don't mean an ex-spouse, an ex-girlfriend, helping out with things around the house. And he hid this from her, meaning he did not tell her he was doing these things. And they had a confrontation, if you will. And I used the term confrontation, but something occurred. Okay. And his claim was he didn't want to tell you, he didn't want to tell her, because he didn't want to hurt her, okay? And she feels very betrayed, and she has difficulty now trusting this person. So I want to address a few things here with respects to, can a man or woman be a friend with an ex, number one, and really diving into this for a second, because I think it depends, okay? And the second thing is how should she react to this, or in other words, how should she address this? And these are just merely my opinions with respects to this. So number one, can a man or woman be friends with an ex, let's first define ex. Is it an ex-spouse? Is an ex-spouse you have children with? Or is it an ex-boyfriend, a girlfriend, or we could call them an ex-lover. So I just want to differentiate between an ex-spouse and an ex-lover. Okay. And certainly when we share children with a person, in other words, or we have been married to someone, the spouse, and share children, it's natural that you're going to be a part of this person's life for quite frankly the life of your children. And if they are young children and you're in this particular case, let's just say he was visiting to help the collective group, I don't see any problem with that, okay? Now with that said, you know, certainly being upfront with your partner about that is critically important, okay? So I just wanted to find out. Now if it's an ex-lover and you're helping around the house, well, you know, I don't see anything wrong with that per se. Certainly not telling your partner, which I'm going to get into in a little bit more detail, is certainly, I believe, unacceptable. Now here's where it gets tricky being friends with an ex-spouse or an ex-lover. Where it gets tricky is that if your friendship has an emotional connection to it, where you're very vulnerable, authentic, transparent with this ex in your life, in other words, you're sharing intimate things about your life and more importantly intimate things about your relationship with your new partner, I don't believe that's healthy to do that if it's based on an emotional connection. Now listen, social activities, you know, social conversations about people. I don't see a real problem with that and yet intimate conversations I believe can lead to what's known as emotional sex and what that means is that can literally continue an emotional relationship with this ex-person even though you're in a new relationship and I don't believe that is healthy and frankly if it were in my relationship it wouldn't be acceptable. Now let me be candid with you in with respects to my relationship with my girlfriend and I, we are both very friendly with our ex-spouses and I'm actually very friendly with an ex-girlfriend of mine and because we treat each other like family and in the case of my partner she is very friendly with her ex-spouse and she's still somewhat friendly with men that she had seen in the past. Now when I say friendly, again, friendly and you know wishing them a happy birthday kind of benign, you know, if there was habitual conversation and it was of an intimate nature about the existing relationship I don't believe that's healthy. Now he did not want to tell her because he was afraid it hurt her. Well then on some level he knew this truth would hurt her, then the real question is why did you think it would hurt me? Would be the kind of the question I asked if you thought it was okay, is it okay to do something to hide something from me that would hurt me? I think it's important to have a very serious conversation about this with respects to the viability of this relationship because if it's seven months in and there's deception going on what more deception could happen in the future? That's certainly a question to ask. Now he might think it was benign that he was doing these things for her but at the same time he knew by her finding out it would hurt her then it really begs him to say why do you think you'd do something that would want to hurt her? Because you're saying well it's okay that I do these things for this ex-lover or ex-relationship. It's okay that I do it but it's not okay that you know about it. That's not a way to build a healthy happy relationship with a person. Now here's the struggle that she has. She's bonded with this man. She's very attached to this man. That makes it difficult. The minute you become bonded and attached with someone it's natural to attach and bond with people. We do it with our children. We do it with our family member. That's a natural thing. If this person is no longer in our life that feels like a devastation. At the same time when you bond with someone it's important to bond with someone that you've built a solid foundation with each other from a healthy perspective if you want viability in the relationship. This particular case this relationship is built on mistrust. I don't believe that unless there's some radical therapy that happens in this relationship unless there's radical conversations it doesn't make sense in my mind to continue in a relationship with someone who is not going to be forthcoming with you or at least has not been forthcoming. Then the real question is what is he willing to do to change this dynamic? Is he willing to end this relationship with this ex-person doing chores around the house? Which most likely he's not going to want to give up on that because he doesn't value the new relationship because the fact that he didn't say something and knew it would hurt her means he doesn't value this relationship enough to think of it as serious. And folks here's the bottom line if two people make or if two people begin exploring a relationship and they're having regular sex together the real challenge today is pinning down a solid commitment outside of monogamy and exclusivity. Let me repeat that really nailing down commitment beyond monogamy and exclusivity because you can be monogamous with someone you could or claim to be monogamous you can claim that you won't actively be dating in the in the dating marketplace like being on the apps and such that's certainly a form of commitment at the same time. What's lacking today at least what I witness is so most relationships are are a casual relationship or casual relationship meaning you can get out of it whenever you want there's no real commitment to it other than again maybe companionship connection and maybe sex that's the commitment to it. I think we need something stronger than that you know it used to be marriage was a definition of commitment that kind of forced it up on some level be committed to it because there was a there was a there was a consequence if it broke up yeah you know what splitting assets really sucks you know having to pay alimony and child support really sucks so maybe the value is that it may make some people work harder to sustain the relationship when you've got something to lose but today casual relationships you have nothing to lose to enter in that except your emotional well-being do you know dating triggers the number one emotional health issue most people are faced with I'm not good enough I'm not lovable and I'm not likeable and quite frankly dating today in my opinion is just a very long strung out friends with benefits that's right it's a friend you get the benefit of sex without any real commitment built in how do we build in deeper commitment with someone one thing like what I've done is and we live together we made a financial commitment to one other we signed the lease together and there's a sacrifice if something doesn't happen there's a consequence if that gets broken and maybe that helps us work harder in the relationship I say this as a question not as a statement of fact but what is real partnership for you I invite you to ask that this is why in my private coaching I teach how to have radically honest conversations with people sooner rather than later so you don't find yourself in a casual relationship or or as I said before dating is just a real series of strung out it's a it's a really a long version of friends with benefits you might be monogamous you might be exclusive but are you really building a deep foundation that's going to go the distance with a person that's my invitation to invite okay so I went off tangent let me come back to can you be friends with an ex yes you can be friendly with an ex I fully believe that and you can even have some social interaction with an ex I don't believe there's anything wrong with it if it's done in a healthy way without emotional communication with one another number two by willfully knowing this would hurt someone that's being deceptive and I would call this person out and if they're unwilling to make some compromise in the relationship by maybe ending this dynamic which he may say he'll do but he'll still do it most likely I think it's time to look for a partner that actually has an honest bone in their body that's my two cents anyway all right folks I'd like to hear your thoughts on this please post a comment below if this resonated with you or if not as always if you find value in the group please tell your friends about midlife love mastery send them to my website jonathanasley.com have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group and I'm going to sign up this video as I always do first off give myself a big gigantic job the barrel of self love I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm going to ask you to turn to someone a bet teddy bear pillow there's a teddy bear give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and let's face it we could all use more love in our lives thanks a bunch bye bye now bye bye