In your relationship, is it OK for either or both of you to be social media friends with ex's/lovers/random encounters? How about chatting to them?

[Mr_twoface]

Just a curious question cause my brother was totally against the idea when he got married so him and his wife deleted all ex's and even dates from their social media and neither communicated with any past dates, potential partners etc.

Me and and my wife are the opposite, we are totally fine with having ex's/lovers on our social media and we go a step further with being OK chatting to them. We never ask nor share what we have chatted about unless we feel its necessary or needed. We have no golden rule of topic to be excluded. We simply have enough trust and also couldn't care less what conversations each have.

How about you?

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I have two exes who are actually now close friends with my wife and now they actually hang out more with her than me. 😅 They're both married though.

Normally I consider it disrespectful for me to continue hanging out with my exes when I have a girlfriend or wife since it might make her feel uncomfortable. Yet in our particular case, it was unavoidable.

I met my wife through an inner circle of friends (friend of a mutual friend) which included those two exes. We also became close friends for almost a year before we started dating and just talked as friends, hanging out together with our mutual friends. This is actually rather common here in Japan for us to form large and expanding friend groups and date amongst our friends, like this:

So my particular friend group already included two of my exes when I met my wife. She was the newcomer to our friend group but then started hanging out with us. So there was no way to avoid constantly meeting and hanging out with my exes unless we avoided the group entirely. My wife became completely fine with it since she already knew, long before we started dating, that they were my exes.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Also this Western stigma that men and women can't become close friends without developing a romantic interest is alien to us here in Japan (we do tend to develop some sexual interests but that because a source of joking and laughter, not something that interferes with the friendship). The average Japanese man will typically has as many close male friends as female friends, and the average Japanese woman the same. We all hang out in large groups like this.

So, for example, I don't mind when my wife goes out to dinner with one of her male friends, just the two of them. She also doesn't mind when I go out to dinner with one of my female friends, just the two of us. This is normal and common in Japan.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

* (we do tend to develop some sexual interests but that [becomes] a source of joking and laughter, not something that interferes with the friendship)

[NathanDavis]

we both were in good terms with exes, whether friendly or not... but in good terms

at least in my experience, it was never any kind of issue at all

[lorenzomichael]

Lastime I checked texting or talking isn't fucking. However if you can't trust your partner what are you doing with them? Think about it.

[Zestyassmf1997]

Hmmm…I can’t really think of a compelling reason for her to have her exes or whoever added, or to talk to them.