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Japanese Yes, a Christian can stay friends with an ex. No verse in the Bible forbids friendship with a former boyfriend or girlfriend, and Scripture says nothing about dating breakups, because it describes betrothal and marriage rather than dating. The passages that bear on the question are about guarding the heart, sexual purity, forgiveness and living at peace with others.
Scripture does tell of friends who parted. Paul and Barnabas disagreed so sharply over John Mark that they went their separate ways, and later Paul writes asking for Mark by name. Some partings heal. Some are better left as partings. Either way, what we owe the other person is peace, “so far as it depends on you” (Romans 12:18).
Does the Bible say anything about breakups?
Not about the end of a dating relationship. The nearest cases in Scripture involve betrothal, which was binding in a way dating is not. When Joseph learned that Mary, his betrothed, was pregnant, Matthew says that “being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, [he] resolved to divorce her quietly” until an angel told him to take her as his wife (Matthew 1:19–20). Matthew calls ending a betrothal a divorce.
What the New Testament says about separation concerns marriage. Paul gives the Lord’s charge that “the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:10–11). Those rules apply to spouses. For two unmarried people who end a relationship, Scripture sets no rule about the breakup itself or about what their friendship should look like afterward.
Is it biblical to be friends with an ex?
Nothing in Scripture makes such a friendship wrong in itself. Several passages apply to it, depending on what remains between the two people. Proverbs says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Jesus taught that “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28), and Paul told the Corinthians to “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Where romantic or sexual feelings are still present, these passages speak to the friendship directly.
Paul also wrote, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). If either person has a new partner or spouse, that partner’s interests are part of the question. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s 2009 social statement on sexuality addresses friendships in which romantic interest arises. “Erotic interest can also create conflicts and danger,” it says. “These have to be faced honestly when one or both of the people involved already have made promises of fidelity to another.” It adds that “reintroducing distance into such friendships or breaking them off may entail an acceptance of loss that requires courage and maturity.” The same statement says that friends “have the responsibility to respect one another’s physical and emotional boundaries.”
Does forgiving an ex mean staying friends?
Scripture commands forgiveness. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32), and “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13). Jesus said, “if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:15). None of these passages says that forgiving someone requires keeping a close friendship with them. Paul’s instruction is to live at peace “if possible, so far as it depends on you” (Romans 12:18).
The Bible records people who parted without enmity. When the herdsmen of Abram and Lot quarreled, Abram said, “Let there be no strife between you and me,” and proposed that they separate, one going left and the other right (Genesis 13:8–9). Paul and Barnabas had “a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other” over whether to take John Mark with them on a return visit to the churches (Acts 15:36–39). Later, in 2 Timothy, Paul asks for Mark: “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).
When should a Christian walk away from a friendship?
Scripture warns against friendships that draw a person into sin. “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare” (Proverbs 22:24–25). “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm” (Proverbs 13:20). Paul quoted a saying to the Corinthians: “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals’” (1 Corinthians 15:33). These passages apply to any friendship, including one with a former partner.
What does research say about staying friends with an ex?
In two studies published in Personal Relationships in 2017, Rebecca Griffith and colleagues at the University of Kansas identified four reasons people stay friends with a former partner: security, practical reasons, civility, and unresolved romantic desires. Staying friends because of unresolved romantic desires was linked to negative outcomes, while staying friends for security or practical reasons was linked to more positive ones. Friendships kept for practical reasons or out of civility were less likely to last. Whether people stayed friends at all was predicted by, among other things, the time since the breakup, the reasons for it, and each person’s personality and attachment style.
Research can say which friendships tend to last. Scripture asks something quieter of us: to keep our hearts, to forgive as we have been forgiven, and, if we must part, to part as Abram did from Lot: “Let there be no strife between you and me” (Genesis 13:8).
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