Am I (27F) out of line staying friends with my best friend’s ex? Best friend (29F) & her ex (27F)
TL;DR: My best friend encouraged me to become close friends with her girlfriend while they were dating, but now they’ve broken up and she’s upset that I’m still friends with her ex even though nothing inappropriate ever happened.
So, as the title says, I’m still friends with my best friend’s ex, and it’s causing a huge issue now. For context, we’re all girls. My best friend, 29F, let’s call her Ana, dated 27F Emily for about four months. Ana and Emily are bi/lesbian, and I’m 27F completely straight, so there’s absolutely nothing romantic going on here.
The thing is, Ana was actually the one who encouraged Emily and I to become friends in the first place. I think she really wanted the two most important people in her life to get along, and honestly, it worked. Emily and I became genuinely close. We’d go for coffee, to the theatre, or hang out at each other’s houses when Ana was away, and Ana always knew about it and seemed genuinely happy that her girlfriend and best friend were bonding.
Then they broke up.
There was no cheating, their relationship just wasn’t working romantically. I love Ana deeply because she’s my best friend, but if I’m honest, she could be very overpowering in the relationship and would often start arguments over tiny things, while Emily was always calm and patient. Eventually Ana ended things, and afterward she repeatedly told me that she didn’t expect me to stop being friends with Emily just because they broke up.
Tbh, the breakup affected me too. I’d grown really attached to Emily as a friend, and I genuinely felt sad at the thought of losing her from my life, so we kept texting occasionally.
About three weeks after the breakup, I met up Emily for coffee, and I told Ana beforehand because I didn’t want her finding out another way and feeling like I was hiding something from her. I thought honesty was the right thing to do.
But she got so upset over this. She told me she thought she’d be okay with it in theory, but didn’t actually think I’d go through with staying friends with Emily. Now she believes Emily is talking badly about her and trying to “pull me away” from her, which honestly couldn’t be further from the truth. Emily barely even talks about the breakup unless I bring it up. I like Emily because of who she is as a person, not because of her connection to Ana.
But now Ana seems convinced that Emily is somehow trying to ruin her life by staying connected to her friends…
I feel completely stuck. One minute Ana was reassuring me over and over that she didn’t want us to stop being friends because of the breakup, and now every time I see Emily it feels like I’m betraying her somehow. I understand that she’s hurt and jealous, but at the same time it’s starting to feel controlling. I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to “break up” with Emily too when this friendship only exists because Ana encouraged it so strongly in the first place.
I honestly don’t know how to navigate this without hurting someone. Has anyone else been through something similar?