Being friends depends on a lot of things.....I think AAAAA has said it well...if you are using the friendship to cling onto hope of getting back together....then no, it isn't a good idea.

I have had a strange marriage. 34 years ago just before I got married, I realized that I didn't want to get married to him.....attitudes & other issues just rubbed me wrong.....but I listened to my mother because he was a nice person & he is a nice person......but his childish attitudes never grew up......his ability to be a truly responsible husband never matured. He never cheated, so it had nothing to do with that. His attitudes about credit, spending & his lack of taking on true responsibility other than holding down a job (his career) drove the relationship into huge fights. It got to the point where the marriage was nothing but a business partnership as I had my own career that I was focused on....his thinking & mine at the time was that we could have more together than separate (that was his thinking that I seemed to go along with).

I lost my career, & the need for him to be responsible became even more important & he refused to rise to the occasion...instead, he dug us deeper into debt & I became suicidal.....it was a basic nightmare period of my life that I don't remember much of.

Five years ago, my mother died of cancer....I sold her house & moved across the country.....at first, it wasn't with the intention of really leaving him, but when I did leave & I had the time to spend away from him & sort out my thoughts, I realized that I had never really loved him. The things that irritated me before we were married had created a disrespect that made it impossible for me to love him.....& everything along the years only made it worse as he never did change the things that my Mother said he would when he "grew up".

I look back & see that I really lost the values I had before I got married also......I really lost the ME that I was.....All the things he said that I was so uncooperative about were just me trying to stand up for the values I had lost.....with his spending & use of credit & being so into monitary items....I got caught up into that too & I realized that I wasn't happy in that life style.....but I kept living that way.....my fights with her were bad enough let alone if I had added all that to the fights also. His irresponsible ways just kept getting worse & not better on top of it.

After leaving & clearing my mind from the anger/rage I felt toward him, I was finally able to realize that I went into the marriage not loving him....it wasn't something that was lost.

Who knows what you husband will realize or if he will ever be able to communicate it to you. I have been able to tell my husband what I feel......we will never be able to get divorced because if the debt & the financial mess we are in......but it's a sure thing, I will never go back to living with him either.....there were too many times when I felt that because I was married, that trust should be part of it & he failed every time I trusted him for anything....my only answer to not trusting him is to never be around him so I don't get caught into that trust thing I always felt should be part of a marriage.

Maybe some years down the road, you ex will be able to tell you why the love went away.....or maybe that there was something that made the love not be there really from the start.

Hanging on wishing that he might come back.....definitely not a good reason to stay friends. It sounds like you need to find yourself......who knows, maybe he felt that after you got married you lost being who you were before you got married. (not suggesting that this is really the case, just throwing out a thought from what I experienced happened to me).

Nothing in a relationship is easy.....I understand the concept of decoupling.....as there is that feeling of depending on the other person while being married & loosing that person to depend on & having to completely depend on yourself isn't an easy thing to do without help.

Wishing you the best with your future.....it's a good time to learn your boundaries, to learn to depend on no one but yourself. It's a good time to grow & mature & learn who you really are.....this can be a very good thing really.....I know I have never been happier in my life than now that I left my husband. Getting a strong sense of being able to take care of myself & my life is really very fulfilling....more so than marriage ever was.

Best wishes,
Debbie