When you break up with someone is it for the best to just make a clean break and have no more contact with each other so that you can move on or should you keep in touch as friends?

I've seen it happen but it takes two people willing to behave nicely.

it depends upon the reason for break up

if the person willfully and with malice hurt you, than Id say make a clean cut

if you had real feelings for each other, and the issue wasnt one filled with malice,, why not?

for instance, if the partner constantly verbally assaulted and cheated on me, Id cut clean

but if the partner 'only' had an inability to be faithful,,,I would (and have) remained friends,,,,

Clean break! As much as he or she may try, you tend to bring old habits with you in the " friendship"

I think I agree with this and I'm not sure if you are being fair to the other person or yourself to try to continue as friends. If you still have feelings for someone you might say that you want to stay friends in the hope that you will get back together. Saying that you don't want to be friends and that you don't think that you should see each other anymore if you are breaking up can also be a way to make them choose. They can't have your friendship if they don't want to be with you. It hurts too much being around them and wanting them back. You want a commitment or nothing.

If I really like him, I would keep in touch. Often times, when you split after a Relationship men usually do start new Relationships.

this is very true, future partners may frown upon their continued friendship,,,I have lost a very good friend because of that before,,,,but life goes on

when/if you realize you just dont relate to each other romantically anymore , its easier to be 'friends'

if one or both still have any type of romantic feeling,, its best to cut it loose and not lead the other on

right times when one person having the other around just hurts.....a clean break for a period of time is needed. Even if neither did anything horrible, it's hard to heal and move on w/out a "no contact" rule. Eventually you can probably be friends from a distance if that is ok with ALL parties involved (including new partners you've subsequently met).

In my expereince a boyfriend wanting to remain "friends" means he wants a back up for occasional sex..ummmm.......no

You can still be friends but it will be rough until your new boundaries are set.

Depends upon what "being friends" entails, what happened, and the kind of folk we're talking about.

exactly but he has to accept that there ARE going to be new boundaries before anything else can happen

I don't think being friends is a good idea or in eithers best interest. yet i think being amicable is fine.
I have had two serious relationships and both times we parted with sadness and pain yet with no animosity. What I shared with both will always remain a fond memory and for that reason I will always have a place for them in my heart and mind. Doesn't mean I call them to chat or want to hang out as buds.
But if I had to reach out to them in necessity I would be cordially received.

Well, an ex girlfriend of mine did that to me. She had started seeing somebody else after one of our many breakups and one night she showed up at my door again. Even before she had met that guy she had been telling me that we were just "friends" and the relationship had never worked that well. She told me (to start off with at least) that she was happy with the other guy but then she started saying that she found him annoying sometimes and that he was just a friend as well and she even said that it was over. She saw me behind his back and maybe I was kidding myself but I thought that if she was treating him like that she didn't really want to be with him. Then one night I realised that they were in a relationship and I was just her "backup", or whatever you want to call it. That hurt and I made the decision to tell her that I didn't think that we should see each other anymore. I met her a few times in the street after that because she lives in the same area as me but I avoided getting into long conversations with her. I haven't seen her for a long time now but she had added me on Facebook and I said hi to her a few times on there. Now after another relationship hasn't worked out for me I found myself contacting her telling her that I just need a friend right now and that if she wanted to give me a call it would be nice to hear from her. She hasn't called me and she didn't reply to the letter that I sent her.

For a long time I felt that because we could never just be friends and because the relationship didn't work we should just go our seperate ways and get on with our own lives but now I wish that we could be friends and that we could forgive each other for what happened in the past. We did have a good friendship and just didn't get on all that well together as a couple. It is maybe for the best because history would keep repeating and perhaps there will always be feelings there that made it not possible for us to just be friends. I do think of what we had together as being special, even though our relationship was not good a lot of the time and maybe I am still trying to hold onto something or salvage something from it that I should just put behind me.

I think clean (as can be) break. If you can be cool enough to each other to maintain a friendship, why in the heck did you break up in the first place?

Maybe that's to black and white, or to rigid thinking, but really?

Clean break to see what it's like without that person. This way you can see for yourself how much a part of your life that person was. I too have seen folks split, and once they saw a big piece of themselves was missing, they got back together - usually for the better.

You can still be friendly towards them. :)

If you have kids it's easier if you can both be adults about the whole thing, and try to be sociable to each other for the sake of the children.

Do you mean I become some kind of emotional tampon she uses a few days a month, but we never have sex? No thank you. However, there's no reason not be be friendly (civil) to one another.

My ex and me still have the fifteen minute rule. We can stand each other for 15 minutes. Agreeing to disagree still works for us.

That rule sounds good and agreeing to disagree is what "the experts" recommend. The problems come when the disagreement gathers moss, mold, and resentment. In those cases, discussion is a must, and if you can't accomplish that, then you have a mess similar to mine!

Heck no.