The Friends and Ex boyfriends debate.

Ending a relationship is always hard, and it’s always hard to see your friends going through break ups too. One of the main uncertainties during and after a break up is the state of relationships with your ex partner and the people around you both. A lot of people take sides when a break up happens, usually more so when that break up isn’t the smoothest of ones.
But is there really any need half of time? I’ve seen a lot of petty shit get thrown around over things that happened in a relationship that really has nothing to do with them.
I have a question for you, how close is too close when you’re closest friends are friends with your ex partner? Obviously we have the unwritten rule that you just don’t get involved romantically with your friends ex right? And most people would say they wouldn’t mind their friends being friends with their ex, as long as nothing more was going on between them, yes?
I have a scenario I’d like to share with you, and there’s a lot of mixed emotions involved with this, and your opinion would be really really appreciated!

Your friend and their partner break up, and in the months they have been together, you’ve developed a friendship with this person your friend has been with. A while goes by and your friend is still rather devastated over the break up, they ask you to talk to their ex partner to try and see if there’s any chance of them working things out. As their friend you agree, and start talking to their ex partner to see what’s going on with their life etc, and you find out this person has moved on and wants to be with someone else, and asks you not to tell your friend because they‘re unsure on what‘s going on with this person yet. As a friend to them you agree not to say anything.

Would you be doing a particularly bad thing? To your friend if they ever found out, would you have gone behind their back? Or lied to them etc? Or would you say you’re just trying to be good friend?
People argue all the time with their friends as to where their ‘priorities lie.’ Should we really expect our friends to go behind our back and fake promises to just to find out things that inevitably going to hurt us?
Or do we do it, in the hope our ex partners are missing us, and hoping they haven’t moved on.

I love my friends, and for the most part I really get on with the people they’re with, if anything between them and my friends, providing they weren’t a dick to them, I would still want to have some kind of friendship with them. Same if I broke up with my boyfriend, I’ve met a few really cool people that he’s pretty close with, I’d still want to keep in contact with them...
But then what if it was the other way around? If my friends started hanging around or having a close relationship with my most recent ex, I don’t quite know how I’d feel. Every relationship is different from all the others. What happens in them determines how sensitive a subject or situation is to the people involved.

As friends should we try and stay away from their ex, or would a real friend be honest and say where their friendships lie. Would you really want to be friends with someone who would drop a friendship just like that? Do we expect too much from our friends? What do you guys think?