Updated July 7, Reviewed by Michelle Quirk. I had been teaching college courses on human sexuality for a few years and often got questions on this subject from my students. For example, they would often ask whether it's possible to stay friends afterward and how to make these relationships work without getting complicated. I struggled to answer the questions confidently because I couldn't really find any good data on them, so I decided to explore the topic myself.
As a result, it's perhaps not surprising that partners often report having wildly different expectations for the future. Some people said they wanted to become romantic partners, others hoped to go back to being friends, and yet others just wanted to stay FWBs for as long as possible. All of this variability led me to wonder what ultimately happens to FWBs over time and what the most likely outcome is.
So my colleagues and I conducted a one-year longitudinal study to find the answer. We studied people who reported having a current FWB.
We surveyed them at two different points in time, spaced apart by about one year. The sample was predominately female-identified 70 percent , white 74 percent , and heterosexual 72 percent , with an average age of Participants reported that they had known their FWB in some capacity for about three years on average at the start of the study. In the first survey, participants were asked what they hoped would happen to their current FWB in the future. They were also asked how satisfied they were with their relationship and how much they communicated about relationship rules and boundaries.
In the second survey, we asked whether the nature of their relationship was the same or if it had changed over the course of time—and, if so, why. Put another way, the vast majority of FWBs dissolved or changed form over the course of the year. However, most participants still maintained at least some type of relationship with the other person, with only about one in three cutting off all contact. In looking at people's initial relationship goals , we found that some seemed more attainable than others.
