I have mapped a many-to-many relation like this:

It's between customers and passes.
In the java classes the sets are declared as java.util.Set.

Now I want to clear all the relations related to a pass instance without deleting the instance it self.
I tried Set.clear(), this does clear the set in java but the relations in de DB remain.
I tried to iterate through pass.getCustomers(), which contains the relations from the pass, and delete it like pass.remove(customer instance), same as with Set.clear().
It does work when I iterate the same way but use customer.remove(pass instance).

This isn't very efficient, so does someone know how I can improve this?

It worked on this side, because it is the 'owner-side' (= not the inverse side) of the relation.
Did you also try if customer.getPasses().clear() might work ?

Anyway Hibernate documentation says, that on bidirectional relations always both sides of associations must be set.
I guess this is also meant for removals, so at least on one side you cannot simply call clear(), but you have to do some iteration.

Thanks. I made the other side the inverse="true" and now it works.

I thought it worked, but the solution created another problem.

When I delete a Pass or a Customer, not only the relation is deleted but the object related to is also deleted. This shouldn't happen.

Can someone help me?

My mappings: