Got a question that would scandalize your group chat? That’s what this column is for. Go Ask Alex is an anonymous space for queer readers to ask the questions they’re afraid to ask anyone else—about sex, love, life, and everything in between. It’s judgment-free and completely anonymous.
My best friend and my ex-husband are dating. Is it OK for me to be upset about this, or should I let them have their fun? We were together for 13 years, and mostly split amicably. Thanks!
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Hey there!
Yes, it’s OK to be upset. You are upset, or else you wouldn't have asked, and being upset will, to many readers of this post, seem very reasonable. Feelings are things we have little control over, but what we can control is what we do with them and how we treat people when feelings are particularly unpleasant.
If you were married to someone for 13 years, thoughts and feelings about him now dating your best friend might be a little unpleasant.
Above all, you might reasonably fear that you're losing your best friend. A best friend is someone you can fully confide in, someone you can tell your darkest secrets to, someone you can be your unfiltered self with, and if that person were to suddenly start dating someone you had an intimate relationship with for 13 years, that would reasonably change your friend dynamic; they are suddenly not a neutral person.
You might also reasonably wonder if maybe the feelings between them were there all along, that maybe your friendship with this person was just a strategy to get your guy, or worse, that your guy, while you were with him, always had eyes for your best buddy. Yeah, this setup complicates everything, but the only real relationship it threatens is your friendship, the relationship you have with your friend.
What you can do is talk. Sit down with these two people who you believe must care about you and tell them that you feel strange and that you're scared of losing your friend. If they really care about you, they should expect some questions, some anger, and some upset feelings from you. If they really care about you, they would have talked privately about how this news might feel for you before doing it and before telling you. They should welcome your thoughts and feelings. If they don't — if they tell you you're being too dramatic, that you're overreacting — then you have learned something important about both of them.
While I've never been exactly in your shoes in this scenario, I have been in the role of your ex. I have separated from one guy only to, a very short time later, start dating his best friend. It worked out great because the breakup with the first guy was not amicable, was not nice, and he and I no longer speak. His friend was and is a much better person in my life, but we had to agree not to talk about his best friend, my ex, and I know for a fact that, between the two of them, they have mutually agreed not to talk about me. I lost one person for the other.
But that’s not how it has to go. I genuinely believe that gay culture, at its best, is a magical land where, with the right communication and understanding, any number of unconventional setups and constellations, intricate webs of sex and love, can work. We do it so well, and this is the thing I love most about us: Friends become lovers and lovers become friends and exes evolve into friendships and friendships evolve into love so much more easily among gay and queer men than they seem to for our straight counterparts. Gay social and sexual networks so often blur the tender lines between friendship and love that these kinds of setups are more than doable; they are common.
I love that we're all, at our best, a little playful, a little horny for each other, a little in love. I know so many casual best-friend lovers and unfinished exes in gay land, and these little fires fill our lives and make them colorful. They make our relationships rich, messy, and wondrous. So I'll never say it's impossible that you can remain best friends with someone who is now dating your ex. Stranger things have happened.
But it will require solid communication and self-awareness, and not lashing out. It will require kindness. It will require these men to be empathetic and sensitive to your feelings. And above all else, it will require you to love your ex enough that you're actually glad he's found love with someone you esteem so much: your best friend. And it will require you to eventually be happy for your best friend that he found love, even if with your ex.
And that’s the hard part: Setting your own personal feelings aside and being genuinely happy that these two people are happy. But if you manage to do that — if you can focus on the happiness of others and be happy with them — I think that will make you happier, too.
Hey there! I’m Alexander Cheves. I’m a sex writer and former sex worker—I worked in the business for over 12 years. You can read my sex-and-culture column Last Call in Out and my book My Love Is a Beast: Confessions, from Unbound Edition Press. But be warned: Kirkus Reviews says the book is "not for squeamish readers.”
Here, I’m offering sex and relationship advice to Out’s readers. Send your question to askbeastly@gmail.com.
