Working With Your Ex When You Don't Want To Be Friends: How To Cope

Imagine this: After dating your emotionally unavailable co-worker, he ended the relationship. I can't give you what you want; it's me, not you; I'm not ready for a relationship; I still have feelings for my ex; you knew my situation; I can't be in a relationship with someone at work. You get the essentials. Now you are working with your ex.

Breakups are hard enough without having to see them every day and maybe even have them sitting across from you. Then, to add insult to injury, you feel hurt by everything that happened between you, and they not only act like everything is normal, but they try to be your friend.

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Infuriated by their positive and happy attitude as you fear guilt, anger, resentment and feeling like a victim, you find it increasingly difficult to work together. Based on how you're feeling right now, it's hard to imagine you'll ever get over this breakup, let alone be able to work and be friends with this person. Help is at hand.

If you're working with your ex and you don't want (or aren't ready) to be friends, you have my deepest sympathy. When I broke up with a colleague, he sat on the same row of desks in our open plan office and we sometimes had to attend client meetings together. Outside of work, we were also in the same social group. Total. pain. in the. ass. Some days I was seething so much from his flippant manner and harangue when chatting or connecting that I would come home and scream into a pillow.

Here's the craic:

When you have to keep working with an ex, friendship isn't necessary. What you need is to be civil and professional. There is a difference.

Anything that makes work easier requires courtesy, as you work within professional boundaries that respect both you and the workplace, including team members.

You don't have to act like you're bezzy buddies to work together. Hell, you're probably working with at least one person who gets on your boobs and (hopefully) manages to get that off! Put on your "work hat", not your "I want you back hat" or your "despised lover's hat". No one, including your ex, your co-workers, your boss, or even you, has the right to expect you to commit beyond being professional. This is especially the case when forcing you to be "friends" will harm your well-being. Let the awareness of being at work and the need for healthy work boundaries guide your behavior. Yes, even if it is sometimes gritted.

Besides being civil and professional, you have to create boundaries from a place where you decide how you want to feel and the level you want to commit to.

You are the feeler of your feelings. That's not to say your ex may not have had his share of clown moments, but you are the feeler of your feelings. If you're feeling hard as a result of the breakup, take responsibility for anything you've said or done to contribute to those feelings. So, yes, your ex may not have behaved well during the relationship or handled the breakup badly. What you need to acknowledge is the story you told yourself about their behavior or the relationship not working.

Your ex is not responsible for how you are feeling right now.

You both participated in this romantic involvement situation while working together. Each of you had your own motivations for doing this, some of which may not have been obvious to you at the time. By being involved despite the implications at work if your relationship didn't pan out, you both took a risk that, yes, you may have felt good about in the short term, but that's made it pretty awkward now that you are no longer together.

That doesn't mean your ex didn't do anything. You will stop feeling so victimized, however, when you recognize those split-second decisions that led you to move forward with your involvement even though, on some level, you were aware that it would not be a good idea. Admitting your guilt in this involvement does not make you responsible for their actions, including any mistreatment.

Determine what you need to stop or start doing to support yourself after your breakup.

For example, for me, it was not about forcing myself to participate in all social events and putting my feelings before the social group. This meant that when I went to something, I didn't force myself to participate in a friendship performance with my ex. I stopped giving each other a hard time because I always felt angry and didn't want to be friends. The guilt gnawed at me. I was not