Have you ever broken up with someone, only to have them latch onto your friendship group like it was theirs to begin with? Leaving you in an awkward position where you have to choose between seeing your friends or protecting your sanity? You may be a victim of “barnacling”, a term we coined to describe the phenomenon of exes hitching an (unsolicited) free ride with your friends.
Mariam is one such victim of barnacling, and it’s actually a pretty shit position to find yourself in.
“When we broke up it was around his birthday, and he invited most of my friends to the party but not me,” she tells PEDESTRIAN.TV, which would have been fine if not for the fact that “a lot of them showed up”.
Mariam’s ex was a bit of an insecure guy, and the type to deeply fear loneliness — so perhaps his latching onto her friends after their breakup wasn’t a big surprise, especially given he also worked with a couple of them at the time.
But that didn’t stop it being uncomfortable for Mariam, with him messaging and making plans with people he only befriended through their relationship. Obviously, this also led to some exclusion, since she wouldn’t be invited to any event her ex was at. Which was way too many of them.
“It still stings quite a bit from both ends,” she said.
While Mariam said perhaps it makes sense that her friends would become close to her now-ex boyfriend, the whole thing still left her feeling “betrayed” — even though they “didn’t seem to think much of it”.
So, why do exes steal your friends?
We spoke to relationship therapist and sexologist Tanya Koens about how to navigate this surprisingly hurtful trend, and she gave us some really great advice.
Koens said there are a lot of reasons exes might try to latch onto the friends of their partner: sometimes they genuinely really value those friends, sometimes one half of the relationship cheated or broke some kind of trust and so the group sided with the other half, and sometimes they’re just insecure.
“I think what I hear is that somebody tends to get the friendship group in the split up, and sometimes people will make an active bid for it, trying to get all the friends on their side,” she said.
“Sometimes friends will decide for [themselves], but yes, most people hang on when it’s time to go away because they didn’t want the relationship to break up.”
Real-life barnacle Ally told us she was guilty of latching onto an ex’s friends from a relationship when she was 18.
“As soon as I met his friends, I knew they were the kind of people I wish I had met in high school,” she said.
“We broke up after six months, but I clung on because at that rate, the friendships I’d developed with them existed outside the relationship. They’re still my best friends 13 years later.
“[However], if it were me now and an ex stayed in the group, I’d be pretty miffed.”
So, barnacling isn’t always nasty, but it can still leave you feeling like shit. What should you do if you find that your ex has barnacled onto your friends and it’s made you super uncomfortable?
Tanya said confronting your friends and making them choose isn’t always a good way to start. Instead, if you’ve had somewhat of an amicable breakup and aren’t on bad terms with your ex, it’s them you should approach first — because sometimes barnacling is a cry for help.
“I’d actually suggest, if you’ve been on good terms with your ex, to talk to them about it,” she said.
“First of all, let’s check in: ‘Are you okay? I noticed that you’re spending a lot of time with my friends, which I find a bit strange, but I first want to say, are you okay?’
“If they say ‘No, I need support’, you can have a chat about that. What would support look like? And also let them know that some support for you looks like maybe leaving my friendship circle alone while I have the support that I need? I think you’re gonna have to say what’s okay and what’s not okay in the situation.”
However, Koens said this advice does NOT apply to people who have had a bad breakup and are not on good terms with their ex.
If your ex is the type to delight in your distress, Koens suggests this time it’s better you talk to your friends. But by talk, she means actually talk, not demand they choose a side — which can lead to friends thinking you’re just being petty rather than actually expressing discomfort. (This can also be the next step for people who tried to talk to their ex and it didn’t go well.)
“I would suggest talking to your closest friends and saying ‘Hey, we’ve split up and it’s really distressing. I want the support of my friends and I kind of feel betrayed because my ex is still being included in social relationships. How do you feel about this?'”
This way, you give your friends a chance to explain themselves. Most of the time, Koens said they’ll respond like “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’d be happy to support you”. But sometimes, uncomfortable truths might come out — maybe your friends see an issue with your side of the breakup that you don’t.
Either way, a mature conversation that doesn’t throw around blame is a good way to go. And if there are uncomfy truths, you have to be receptive to them.
“At the end of the day, it’s communication that is going to sort the issue out, for better or for worse,” she said.
“People don’t know what’s going on in our minds. There’s no hard and fast rule about how people split up and who gets the ex and who doesn’t, and what’s okay behaviour.”
Wow, I feel like that healed something in me that I didn’t know was broken.
Good luck and godspeed, friends. I hope you can use these tools to pry off your pesky barnacle from the glory that is your (friend)ship.
The post Introducing ‘Barnacling’, AKA One Of The Most Irritating & Hurtful Dating Trends To Plague Us appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
