After a breakup, you are feeling so vulnerable and you are an easy target for unscrupulous cads out there who consider themselves God's gift to the frustrated, lonely woman. It can be difficult when you've had regular meals to be satisfied with starvation, but for your own self-esteem, don't be tempted to substitute sex for love. It really doesn't work. At the same time, it's natural to want to enter into a new relationship straight away, but that's heading down Disaster Road, too. Give yourself time to recover, time to find yourself again before diving into bed with anyone.

Press firmly down on the OFF button. It takes a while to click in, and you'll be climbing walls and crying yourself to sleep if DIY methods don't work for you, but you get used to anything, given time enough. You'll know when you're ready to start again.

Actually, if your Ex is willing, I think it's not a bad idea to have an infrequent, occasional Relief Session with him. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I haven't found any temptation to start again with an Ex, but I have continued with a friendship and I don't think that hurts anyone, as long as both people understand where you each stand. It stops when one of you finds another partner, of course. But it gets you through some bad times in the early days.

Maybe in a perfect world, Ex'es can have sex and think of it as just relieving themselves but the only thing this does is to keep each of you from finding a real relationship......I just don't see how anything productive can come out of this...there is a reason why we separated from these people in the first place and to think that seeking sexual gratifacation just to survive is beyond my scruples anyway....I hope there aren't many out there that fall into this trap.

I can't imagine having sex with my ex ever, ever, ever again!

I cannot believe I just read, a "sympathy" liasion is better than a stranger in RISK???

He/she left and has gone on to others maybe or maybe not and you would take it as a better risk?
I would like to see the statistics of married/committed who have contracted a STD or worse.

I would rather take my chance and not depend on the ex, yuk, and do what I see in my best interest.

I'm glad to see that I am not the only one that feels this way...thank you, ladies....My ex caused me enough heartache that to even have the desire to even touch the woman again is infathomable....if we didn't share a child together, she would be completely gone from my life.
Unfortunately even after my daughter goes off into the real world, we will still share that common bond, and even if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't do one thing different, because that would mean that I wouldn't have my "little girl" in my life

Well, in all honesty... I would kill to have sex with my ex... It´s been 4 months since breakup and I´m having a real rough time getting over it. I would love to try again, but she wont give me a chance...and trust me, I didn´t do nothing "evil" or mean to motivate this situation. We just found ourselves incompatible. I think when this happens, you can still keep something alive, in stead of trying to erase me from her life, which is what she has been doing these last months. Dunno, every girl is different, but in this case Im having a real bad time, and I can´t even think of sex with other girls yet...I only want it with her, and the fact that she might be already having sex with somebody else...kills me. You girls will probably see this as selfish or whatever, but im a guy, and thats how I feel it. I just wanna move on and get better. Im in the point now where I have 4 decent days a week, but then I have 3 horrible days that I dont even wanna eat. I guess with time it´ll get better cause its not the first time this happens to me, but I just wanna forget, although I still love her to death... This sucks!

The 2 girls I really loved in my life ended up leaving me, and the other 5 girls I didnt love as much, I had to leave them...why is this like that? There must be something wrong with me! :(

No difference for me. Nothing during the (short) marriage anyway, so nothing to miss. I don't think there's any excuse I haven't heard. Squashed my desire like a bug.

Must say she was a great actress during courtship. By actress, I mean fraud. If I'm to believe what I'm told by both sexes, there's a lot of that going around.

Thankfully, my error was a long time ago. Having since become accustomed to normal human beings, I can't remember what I saw in her. If she showed up on my doorstep naked except for a come-hither look this afternoon, I'd happily send her away without a second glance or second thought.

Hi Jo - Great topic! I was just thinking about this the other day, and was going to post. Thanks for doing the honors, and bringing some folks out of the woodwork.

My thoughts on this - don't do it, unless you intend to maintain a together but separate relationship. I've see this work many times, especially with mid-to-older couples. They love each other and have the trust and enjoyment in that love, but can't handle the trapped feeling of living under one roof. BUT, that said, most of us break up because we haven't had a good relationship, and have exhausted all energies trying to make it work. It's difficult enough, even when things have turned very sour, to start over, without muddying the waters with the flop-flopping back and forth with sex. You really can't move on, with or without someone else. Staying on the fence only confuses life. When I moved out, I didn't plan on a divorce. He went on with his life, after a few long months of adjustment, and I went on with mine. But we didn't discuss divorce. When his new SO moaned and groaned (putting it mildly!) about his still being married, he filed. We went through a number of years without speaking, although are families remained close, which was awkward for some - especially at weddings, funerals, etc. Because of that we began speaking. Now we speak almost every day. NOW, I'm on the fence, again. I believe that there is one person for one person - don't ask/long story. And I often wonder whether that is the reason we haven't stopped speaking. There is no sex - he's away a lot, so that's a stress that only comes once in a while. But, my mind is always filled with thoughts of when he will beging to pressure me more for that. If we had maintained arms-length, I don't think we would be in this situation. It's not a bad situation, but not good because it's still an indecision.

My story isn't the only reason for my thoughts, but it does give me pause. If we, and our families didn't get along so well, especially the nieces and nephews, it wouldn't be as complicated. But, based on this experience, I think it would definitely be a mistake to "stay in the bedroom" with your ex. You remain stuck in a moment that you decided to move from when you separated.

My girl-friend and I split up about a month ago, we were only together 6 months, the last month of our relationship she moved in with me....everything went to hell after that...she quit her job, and all she did was lay on the couch and watch TV....and to make things worse we each have 2 kids! (I have two boy with my X that stay with me half the time, she has two girls) I got sick of cleaning up after everyone...I started griping at her quite a bit, and one day she just said she was leaving...to mother's. Despite our problems, we always had good sex...well, a couple of weeks after all this she had found her a new boy-friend, I was devastated, so I found went and found another woman, after about a month, through mutal friends we have, I found out she dated that guy for a week & split up with him, & a couple of days after my new girl posted kissy faced comments all over my myspace profile she was right here at my house asking me if I had a girl-friend....she came back 3 times that day and we ended up having sex in the living room floor...the next day she came back for more....she says she wants to stay single but she just doesn't want me with anyone else...I don't really know what to think about this...

My girl-friend and I split up about a month ago, we were only together 6 months, the last month of our relationship she moved in with me....everything went to hell after that...she quit her job, and all she did was lay on the couch and watch TV....and to make things worse we each have 2 kids! (I have two boy with my X that stay with me half the time, she has two girls) I got sick of cleaning up after everyone...I started griping at her quite a bit, and one day she just said she was leaving...to mother's. Despite our problems, we always had good sex...well, a couple of weeks after all this she had found her a new boy-friend, I was devastated, so I found went and found another woman, after about a month, through mutal friends we have, I found out she dated that guy for a week & split up with him, & a couple of days after my new girl posted kissy faced comments all over my myspace profile she was right here at my house asking me if I had a girl-friend....she came back 3 times that day and we ended up having sex in the living room floor...the next day she came back for more....she says she wants to stay single but she just doesn't want me with anyone else...I don't really know what to think about this...

Lots to think about. What do you want and need in a relationship. With 2 children to think about, it might be a good thing to include them in your thoughts as well. I your "girlfriend" wants to have a relationship, she should also want to share in the responsibilities - especially since she has 2 children herself. Running to Mommy's house when things aren't going well, is not showing responsibility. Won't try to tell you wahat to do here, but I would think about moving on. If you find later that she has settled down and is a little more responsible and mature, and does not want you (a man) just to take care of her, then maybe you could think about rekindling the relationship. With 4 kids - there won't be time / space for the two of you to establish a relationship. Even in six months I don't think you've had the time to do that, even without kids.

Best of luck to you, but I think you need to take care of yourself, and your children before taking on additional responsibilities.

Guitarman----She has 2 kids and moves in with a man after only 5-6 months???

That,in itself, should tell you "mountains" about a woman/mother like that. IMO, she wasn't too considerate of her kids.

She's only looking for someone to take care of her and her kids. It isn't "love". It's "needing".

Go find someone who wants you for you, not for your money.

************

Eyeshif --- How can you call it "love" after only 4 months?? It could only be lust, who knows? But I wouldn't say it's "love".

There's also a BIG difference between "loving someone" and "being IN LOVE". Remember that.

I'm consider a one night stand from a old over. Help put some separation between me and my new X. I still love hime as before but he was cheating and not honest. I am considering drinking a voldka and have some nice sex. It would help put me into my new life as single person. I know that it would be best if i dont even talk to my ex. (which i still do and desire to) but having sex with him is not ending the relationship. got to take my open heart and move on down the road.

I announced I didnt want to live with him anymore today after 2.5 yrs dating and 1 yr living together in my flat. He's a really good,nice,caring, hardworking etc guy but I just don't love him so no point wasting each others time. I'm 31 and long for a kid and we've been trying for last 18 months and 6 months ago i had a miscarriage. still want to have the kid with him even though there is next to no chance I will marry him. I'm ready to be a single mom. So for that we are going to keep having sex (i hope...havent agreed this with him yet...i'll let him stop hurting first) until he finds his own place and we can both really move on.

I think if you break up and you are still living together but making concrete plans to separate sex is fine until one person moves out. If you have no move out plans and plan to remain roommates then sex is not a good idea if the roommate situation is not to be doomed to fail. If you already live apart then sex will definitely blur the breakup.

Are you using him as a sperm donor ? Is he happy with this ? How are both of you going to move on ?

My ex & I broke up almost 3 years ago. We didn't speak for 6 months before we started talking again. Everytime we saw eachother we hooked up and had sex. It's been this way for 3 years! My feelings for him were very strong at the beginning of the 3 years but now have slowly gone away. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy & he's great in bed but I know he's not the one for me!

But now he's the one who wants to work things out.
The point is...sex with your ex lead to confusion, either for you or them.
Bc someone is gonna have strong feelings and get hurt in the end.

It's been a while, but I had sex with my ex-girlfriend after we went through a bad breakup. I messed up, I cheated. But we both still wanted to physical part every now and then. Let's just say, we both never found another relationship until 3 years later. prolonging something like that is never a good idea.