Ok so I was watching Cougar Town the other night (don’t judge me, it’s super funny), and the episode mainly revolved around whether or not it’d be possible to have sex with an ex without one of the parties getting some of the old feelings back.

We all know how it goes, you promise yourself that you wouldn’t have anything to do again with the ex and removed any trace of the relationship from your home and of course facebook. Then one night it happens — you are out at a bar and run into your former partner. You have a few drinks and reminisce about old times and find yourself strangely aroused. The next morning arrives and you awaken to find the loser next to you in your bed, causing you to put a pillow over your head in regret. Your ex wakes up and says, “I had a great time with you. Do you want to do it again?”

Sound familiar? If you have slept with your ex-partner, you are not alone. It’s only natural to want to return to what’s familiar. How often have you heard someone say, “We never really got along — but the sex was great,” or “We had nothing in common except for the bedroom.”

Having sex with your ex isn’t necessarily a bad thing, provided you are able to keep things into an emotional perspective. For most of us however, this is a near impossibility given our relational history with the person and the harm they caused us. How do you avoid an emotional disaster when confronted with the decision of having “sex with the ex?” I am still trying to master this skill with no luck seeing as I constantly seem to run into ex’s, but before I do anything too stupid like hoping back into bed with them I ask myself the following 8 questions.

  1. Will having sex with my ex cause emotional pain?
  2. Is my ex trying to use sex as a way of getting back into a relationship?
  3. Will I be repeating the same patterns of the past with this person by opening up the sexual door?
  4. Will I be betraying any promises to myself by allowing this person into my life again, if even in a sexual capacity?
  5. How will having sex with my ex cause me to feel afterwards?
  6. Are my motives purely physical, or is there something more?
  7. Will having sex with this person help me to create a sense of closure or a misguided sense of connection?
  8. Am I having sex with the person because of repressed feelings of guilt for breaking off the relationship?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then sleeping with you ex is probably not a good idea. Not saying it won’t be fun, but it’s probably not the best idea because someone is going to develop feelings and it’s not going to end well.

There are plenty of fish out there in the sea so there’s no reason to keep reusing the same ones. So I’ll give up on my ex’s if you guys will, I will dedicate 2010 to meeting new and exciting people and to stop moving backwards to ex’s.

Until next time, have a good evening and a pleasant tomorrow!

~D. Walls

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