Has anyone remained friends with someone whom they truly loved at one time?

@jmah: Before I met my husband, I was engaged to a man I had been dating for 4 years. Essentially, I broke up with him because I realized I was developing feelings for my (now) husband. I knew that if that was happening, I wasn’t ready to commit to my fiancé. It wasn’t as contentious a breakup as it was confusing for both of us. I was leaving him for an unrequited crush and he didn’t get it. I only knew that I had to break it off with him before I explored my feelings for someone else.

Fast forward 4 years…I am now getting married and so is he. We meet for lunch. We start out uneasy, we lay blame, we cry, and end up laughing. Both of us having realized we are in much better places.

Fast forward 17 years…we are very close friends. We chat on the phone & online. We go to each other for advice and we share spouse & children stories. Our respective spouses have met the other and our friendship is accepted.

I adore him, and I know him very well. I do not however have any romantic feelings for him at all. That seems like ancient history and has no place in the present because he is my friend. Just as it should be. For the record; I remain friends with all my ex’s (going all the way to High School) – I don’t chat with them daily but there are no hostile feelings.

Still friends with my ex who I was going out with for over a year. I was angry with her for a while for what she did, followed up by her moving on quickly, but I was still friends with her.
People just have to remember at some point they liked that person t be in love with them, therefore why not still be friends?

Yeah, she hurt me, but you fall out with your best mates form time to time right?

Sophomore year of college (ie, about 11 years ago), I dated an amazingly wonderful woman. I fell completely head-over-heels, 100%, “I’m thinking of marrying her when we graduate” in love. Then she broke up with me. The next 6 months SUCKED. We tried, and succeeded, at remaining friends, but it was not easy.

I eventually got past my old feelings, and the hurt and bitterness, and we were able to become very very good friends. She got married shortly after we graduated. She lacked any good female friends, and so asked me to be her Bride’s Attendant in lieu of a Maid of Honor.

We are still great friends to this day. I see her (and her husband) about twice a month, and am in fact playing Racquetball with her husband today after work, as we do generally every Thursday.

She, however, is the only ex-girlfriend with whom the “let’s stay friends” thing has ever worked for longer than a couple months.

I’ve never been able to become friends, although I have been able to maintain an easy, though irregular, contact.

I admire those like bythebay who can do it. I have never been able to.

I’m just like bythebay here. With the exception of one guy who cheated on me, I am at least on good speaking terms with every single one of my exes. I’m very close with two of them in particular—the two I was the most serious with. I was engaged to one of them and called it off because of circumstances that made me think I wasn’t prepared to fully commit and I didn’t think that was fair to him. Now he’s one of my best friends (second only to my “other half,” who isn’t a romantic interest, either) and we go to each other for advice and support and whenever one of us is in the other’s area, we hang out as much as possible.