An ex for a brother

Gwyneth Paltrow recently said that her ex-husband, the lead vocalist of Coldplay Chris Martin, is a brother to her. Because they live not far away from each other, spend time together with their family and friends, go on holiday together,… while they are both dating other people.

[Chris and I] spend a lot of time together. He’s been away for two weeks [promoting his album]. Last night he got in at midnight and slept here so he could surprise the kids in the morning, we could all have breakfast, and he could take them to school. So…we’re not living together, but he’s more than welcome to be with us whenever he wants. And vice versa: I sleep in his house in Malibu a lot with the kids. We’ll have a weekend all together; holidays, we’re together. We’re still very much a family, even though we don’t have a romantic relationship. He’s like my brother

Is it possible to be like brother and sister with our ex’s? I guess it’s the same equation than being friends without benefits with the opposite sex. It asks also how far we can be close to the opposite sex.

One of my friends is really close to a man, who is gay and a photographer. He’s not her ex. She often told me he’s the brother she wish she had. But she has never got closer to an other man without being in love and lust with him. She had a friend with benefits, but she never referred to him as a brother, unlike her friend the photographer.

One of my friends, who is divorced and has the joint custody of her two children with her ex, isn’t convinced she can be like brother and sister with her ex. They don’t spend time together anymore, nor go on holiday together, they’re not even friends.  She spent the New Year eve with me and her children this year. I invited her to a party and she accepted. She told me she would have spent the evening at home with just her two kids, like the year before. She spent Christmas day with her kids and her family. Her ex wasn’t in the picture at all.

Like her, I don’t spend my holidays nor my evenings with my ex’s and I’m not inviting my ex’s at my apartment. So, no, I don’t feel like brother and sister with any of them. I do have male friends I feel close to. But I’ve never slept or dated one of them.

One of my friends really thinks it’s possible to feel like brother and sister with her ex’s. Because he just bought a house with her. But he’s not living there with her. It’s just a house they can use, alternatively, without being there together at the same time. He feels close to her.

But my friend has real sisters, and was the only man in his family. While many of my friends, including the one with the photographer and the divorced one, have only sisters. It’s also my case, I only have a sister. I grew up close to my male cousin, but when we were teenagers, we drifted apart.

When I looked at Gwyneth Paltrow’s family tree, I realized she has a brother too. I guess this helps her a lot to consider her ex like a brother. Like it helps also my friend to consider his ex like a sister.