Ask most women to describe their ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands and you might hear the phrases “expressive as a boulder,” “cheaper than Jack Benny,” “more egocentric than a 2-year-old.” Others might sum up an ex with the concise “What a jerk!” or the descriptive “He’s dead and burned at the stake!”
That sort of thinking is often the norm whether women are talking ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands. Once women and men unhinge as a couple, there is usually little inclination to refashion the relationship into a friendship. That’s because most breakups involve a dumper and a dumpee.
“It’s hard to ask someone to be friends with someone who they feel has wounded them,” says Bonnie Maslin, a psychologist and author of “The Angry Marriage” (Hyperion, $13.95).
Yet women and men exist who do exactly that. Some women say they are so fond of their exes they want them to remain in their lives even after they’ve shelved the romance. So they break up and then glue enough of the pieces back together to become pals who chat on the phone and meet for brunch. The route to reconnect isn’t smooth–these couples navigate largely uncharted waters filled with sharp-edged rocks that might be labeled Old Hurts and Dashed Dreams.
But if they make it, the perks are tremendous. They don’t lose each other as friends. Perhaps the men can still be counted on to fix a leaky sink, babysit and listen sympathetically when a woman has a crisis at work. And they don’t have to sever ties with their former lovers’ pals and family.
“Maybe the second best thing to a decent marriage is a good friendship–if two people can sustain a good friendship. Half a loaf is better than none,” says Susan Heitler, a Denver-based clinical psychologist and the author of “The Power of Two: Secrets to a Strong and Loving Marriage” (New Harbinger, 1997).
Barbara Quick’s ex-boyfriend recently took her 7-year-old son, Julian, bowling and for a haircut, and then bought him a sleek Razor scooter. In turn, her ex retains Quick’s loyal friendship and the warm feeling of extended family he shares with her and her son. Bonuses are Quick’s jambalaya and risotto dinners–he stops over for dinner once a week. Sometimes Quick and her ex-beau go out for dinner alone.
“If you heard us talking you would think we were married. It’s always `sweetheart’ and `darling, I love you.’ We are really like brother and sister, even better,” says Quick, 46, an Oakland, Calif., novelist and poet who wrote “Still Friends” (Wildcat Canyon Press, $12.95), a book about how to become buddies with your former spouse.
Naturally, she is friends with her soon-to-be ex-husband, John Quick, a filmmaker and the father of Julian. John Quick comes over for dinner parties, gave Quick a ride home from work the other day and helped her hang all her mirrors and artwork when she moved to a cottage last spring. She tries to help him find contacts for his work. They’re flexible with their child-care arrangements too.
“It’s wonderful for me as a single woman,” says Quick, who also pens a new column on male and female relationships called “The Gender Dialogues” for MyPrimeTime.com. “It’s a way of maximizing the resources . . . for myself and my child, having these wonderful male friends who really help us. . . . I cherish their friendship. It’s the community my son and I depend on.”
So how do Quick and other couples create this almost too-good-to-be-true post-romance friendship?
“You have to get past the grief and anger before you can get to the forgiveness and healing and insight,” Quick says. “Forgiveness is giving up on trying to change the past. A lot of people get stuck in the anger stage because they really are still hoping for justice. They really are still hoping that person will see their point of view.”
She had to wade through considerable grief before she could become friends with her ex-boyfriend.
“I had a lot of images of a future together, especially because he is so close to my son. It was hard to give those images up,” she admits. It helped, she says, when “I felt how strong I was on my own.”
They ended their exclusive relationship because he didn’t want a traditional nuclear family and she did. “The paths we wanted to take were really different.”
Leaping from passionate to platonic is complicated.
“Most relationships don’t have a reverse,” says Heitler. “Most couples have to disengage for a while, then at some point they can reconnect at another level.”
When Linda Bracanovich, a 38-year-old magazine sales executive in Los Angeles, sadly ended a one-year relationship with Scott Kilgour, she learned she needed a significant wedge of time before the two could comfortably become pals. At first they tried to immediately shift into a friendship and hit some potholes.
“For me it was extremely difficult to let go,” says Bracanovich. “. . . underlying anger would squeak out. . . . It was because we didn’t give ourselves time to separate and get out of the mental space of [a romantic relationship].
“We were almost like kindred spirits,” says Bracanovich, a bit wistfully.
They both loved the arts (Kilgour is a professional artist), haunted galleries and read poetry and philosophy. But Bracanovich realized the passion was missing that she needed “to go the distance of a marriage.”
She recalls, “I was hurt but it wasn’t as if he hurt me, it was just a hurt.”
Nine months after they broke up, the newly minted friends got into a big argument and didn’t speak for two years. Then Bracanovich bumped into Kilgour at a friend’s wedding. She felt a brief surge of the old romantic feelings, but they quickly dissipated.
“That’s when I thought `Oh! This is good. The time and the distance is good. I can really put the romance behind and explore the possibilities of a real solid friendship,'” she says. She realized there are different kinds of love. “Sometimes it’s better to look at what is there and be really thankful for that.”
Today she considers Kilgour, who lives in New York, one of her closest pals. She flew to his gallery opening in Glasgow, Scotland; he came to visit her in L.A. and stayed in her apartment. Whenever she’s in New York on business they take in an art exhibit and have lunch or dinner. They also talk on the phone once a month, sharing problems they have in new romances.
Some women need to work through intense anger before they can even consider becoming buddies with their exes.
Carolyn Mobley, 36, was furious when her then-husband, Mike Doll, left her when she was still nursing their 3-month-old daughter. But now, 12 years later, they’re pals.
“He’s grown a lot and I’ve changed a lot myself. I’m a lot more forgiving person now,” says Mobley, a medical assistant in Bel Air, Md. “I never got to the point where I forgave what he did. I just respect the person he is now.”
Mobley chats with Doll several times a week when he calls to talk to their daughter, Samantha. “I can talk to him about anything now,” she says, including her ongoing divorce from her second husband. When she drops Samantha off at Doll’s home for a visit, she’ll spend a few hours having coffee with him and his parents.
She feels their friendship gives Samantha a strong foundation.
“It definitely gives my daughter something to rely on–strength, some sort of stability,” says Mobley, who also plans to be friends with her second husband when the acrimonious winds from their divorce blow over. “It’s hard. You have to swallow a lot of crow. Your instinct is to say he was wrong and just to stay mad, but you can’t. It just eats at you.”
Platonic couples have to define the new parameters of their relationship. When Karen Bickler, 44, remodeled her romance with Kurt Holtz into a friendship, they stopped traveling together, attending each other’s family parties and sleeping together.
“That was the first thing to go, otherwise there is still an emotional tie,” says Bickler, a medical sales representative from Arlington Heights.
But for other women it’s not that cut and dried.
“There is an almost irresistible [sexual] pull after you’ve broken up with somebody,” notes Quick.
She didn’t end the sexual relationship with her ex-boyfriend until she became involved with another man. But she doesn’t recommend post-relationship sex.
“It makes the transition muddy,” she says.
There can be a downside to friendship with an ex if it prevents a woman from forming a new romantic relationship, notes Heitler. Other negatives: An ex-cum-friend may suddenly vanish from your life when he finds a new girlfriend, or, if you find a new significant other, your friendship with an ex-spouse or ex-boyfriend may cause problems, Heitler warns.
Still, Karen Bickler enjoys this new chapter in her relationship with Holtz. She meets him for Chinese food; they give each other rides to the airport; they chat on the phone.
“It’s very refreshing to have him as a friend,” she says. “I used to look at people [who were close to an ex] like they had three heads. I thought, `How can you possibly be friends with this person who didn’t want to marry you?’ Now I understand.”
A SPECIAL FRIENDSHIP THAT GOES THE DISTANCE
The pair: North Sider Nancy McDaniel, 53, a retired advertising executive and partner in a contemporary African art business, and Ann Hendrickson, 46, an at-home mom in Mequon, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee.
How they met: In 1988 on an Earthwatch volunteer trip in western Australia to track kangaroos, echidna and birds. “Ann and I started to talk. And talk. And talk. It didn’t take long for us to open up completely to each other,” McDaniel says.
Why they connected: “Nancy is so many things I’m not but want to be,” says Hendrickson. “I was drawn to her free spirit, her ability to color outside the lines, her total self-confidence and moxie.”
McDaniel was attracted to Hendrickson’s “spunk, self-confidence and her amazing blue eyes.” “She’s assertive; I’m not. She’s brilliant; I’m just smart. I’m little Miss Do-Be, never wanting to rock the boat. Ann likes to shake things up a bit sometimes.”
Staying in touch: They talk on the phone every few days, e-mail several times a day and visit every couple months. McDaniel is host to Hendrickson, her husband, Bill, and their teenage son, Paul, for Thanksgiving; she celebrates a belated Christmas and New Year’s Eve at their place. “We have a `Nancy Room’ at our house,” says Hendrickson, whose son is so close to McDaniel he drew her on his family tree and refers to her as “The Spare,” short for “the spare mom.” The two women still travel together–to Madagascar to study lemurs and Costa Rica to help build a medical clinic.
Most beloved quirk: “Ann believes she can have it all and do it all,” says McDaniel. “Also, her love of chocolate. She used to have her across-the-street friend keep a backup stash for her.”
What they value most about each other: “Her loyalty to me,” says McDaniel. “Ann would do anything for me and will always be there for me. And I for her. And we both know and treasure that.”
Ditto for Hendrickson. “It’s different from a marriage or a sister where there are expectations of the relationship,” she explained. “There are none with Nancy and me, which I guess makes it so special.”
Their worst fight: “We had a major misunderstanding a year ago. My fault, I will admit!” says Hendrickson. “We had planned on a trip together and Nancy decided against going. I thought she didn’t want to go with me and I was totally heartsick, thinking perhaps she didn’t want to spend the time together. I was afraid she wasn’t as invested in this friendship as I was.” Hendrickson says she avoided her friend for 24 hours. “I was so hurt and, knowing my short temper, I didn’t want to blow up. Nancy kept calling and e-mailing and I finally cooled off. We talked it through. Both of us shed many tears over it and we are stronger for having dealt with it.”
Some favorite memories: McDaniel recalls when “Ann and her husband and son bought me a locust tree for my 50th birthday, brought it 190 miles in a pickup truck and planted it in my back yard.”
Hendrickson remembers going to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field together on Harry Caray day. “I love baseball. Nancy will only go because she knows I love it. We got the big silly plastic Harry Caray glasses, wore them all day and even walked back home with them on.”
The hardest part of a long-distance friendship: “My phone bills,” says Hendrickson.
— Compiled by Marla Paul
