Trying to keep your ex-partner as your current best friend is a project that is guaranteed to bring you one heartache after another. It is unhealthy. You cannot get your best friend "back" in this situation. You need to do 2 things that you don't want to do. You need to let go of your ex. That means you must stop monitoring your ex's moods and episodes and what kind of relationship your ex has gotten into. It's not your business . . . even though you still love and care for this person. You must let go. Secondly, you need to not let your ex hang on to you as a handy security blanket to grab onto when their new relationship isn't going well.

If your ex is telling you how beautiful you are, that is not a loving way to speak to you. That is exploiting you. That's called "trying to have one's cake and eat it too."

Keeping an ex-partner as a close friend comes up in this forum a lot. I've never seen it be anything but a source of ongoing misery. Suppose your ex decided to come back to you as a partner again. Are you hoping for that? If it happened, how much trust could you have? You'ld always worry about being left again, which probably would happen.

You need to be open to a new relationship, where you are #1 in that person's heart . . . and vice versa. How would that new person feel, seeing you all tangled up with your ex? The new person would resent that - and rightfully so.

Let go of your ex, so that you have room in your life for new relationships that will offer you more. Stop letting yourself be clung to by someone who is not coming to you for your sake, but just looking to be comforted by you . . . and then leaving you, when the grass is greener elsewhere. Cut the cord. That will be painful and hurt for awhile. Then you'll move on and heal. Or stay ensnarled in something that will just keep on feeling hurtful. You can do better than that.