A lot of the time people want to stay friends with their exes as a way of alleviating their own guilt. They think if they’re still friends, they’re forgiven and what they didn’t couldn’t have been that bad. The “I’m sorry”s really mean “please carry this weight for me.” Other times, we stay, however painful, because it’s better to have some semblance of them than nothing at all. For me, staying friends is disrespectful what you once shared. It’s a shallow imitation of what was: you’re sharing space with shrinking ghosts. That’s just my two cents (loved the article, by the way)