No matter how you do it, breaking up is a painful process for at least the person getting dumped. Feelings of rejection will plague them just as guilt eats away at you. So as you make the decision to end your relationship, follow some simple guidelines to minimize the angst.
- Breaking up over email- Okay if the “relationship” is less than 1 month old, or if coitus (or whatever you consider to be sex) has not yet occurred. Also okay in any situation if the person has the potential for verbal aka psychological aka emotional or physical abuse. (see my “break up email” post for a real life example)
- Breaking up over the phone- Okay for relationships between 1 month and 3 months in length. This approach leaves room for argument however, such that you must stand your ground and not be persuaded to change your mind. This method also requires listening to the other person’s side of the story, which may make them feel better, but make you feel worse.
- Breaking up in person- Required for all relationships over 3 months in length (no matter how old you are). Best to do this in a public venue, keep your physical distance (sit across the table), be short and sweet. Don’t pussy foot around about it. If you’ve made up your mind, just stick to your guns. It’s not ethical to leave someone wondering what happened. Be clear and precise. Make sure to let the person know that you are moving on and they should too.
Special Consideration:
- If you’ve cheated – Fess up right away, but do so over the phone or in person. Never give them a “written” record of your confession for them to read over and over again.
- If they cheated – You have every right to give them the old “FUCK YOU!” text message or email. No need to consider the other person’s feelings here or give them the opportunity to explain.
- If you value the person and really do want to be friends – Always do it face to face and assure the person that you care for them and want them in your life, just NOT as your lover.
- If you want to break up temporarily and get back together at some point in the future – First of all, this is stupid and annoying. However, sometimes people really do need “a break” from their partner. They may need to deal with personal issues but be too wrapped up in the other person to do so. They may selfishly want simply to screw around with other people for a while, without the guilt of cheating. Whatever the reason, the best way to do a short term break up is with a lot of mystery. Don’t hurt the other person so bad that you can never get back together. Just leave them wondering… “What the hell just happened.” Then pick up that phone when you’re ready to give it another try.
6 comments
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July 19, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Socrates
I’ve seen a couple sites now that all have some arbitrary measures (such as length of the relationship, or occurrence of sex) that supposedly determine when it is “permissible” to break up by email, or “absolutely required” to break up in person. You are not required to do anything. This is your life and you can make your own choices. If you need to break and you know it, but you can’t bring yourself to do it face-to-face, send an email and get out! You need to, or you will be stuck in this situation for a lot longer than you should be. Forget what people say about being a wimp. Would you rather be a wimp stuck in a relationship you hate, or a wimp free and clear to start over, grow and learn, and try to get it right the next time?
July 23, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Lenore
What you say has merit Socrates, *but* I still think breaking up over e-mail is tacky, tacky, tacky…
Unless the relationship is super short term or violence is feared, I think I owe a bit more than that to anyone who has been close to me.
September 27, 2008 at 2:24 am
Brandon
Socrates, I bet you’ve gone your whole life finding ways to rationalize moments of weakness.
I’d be willing to bet you’re a very needy son or daughter. (Daughter, I’m sure. You just sound like a little girl. A little girl named Socrates. lol) You are probably way too close with your mother or father or both. So close that it’s unhealthy. So close that you run to them when you’ve done something that warrants feelings of guilt. You tell them your side of the story when you’ve been shitty to someone and then they say all the things you need to hear for your little conscience to relax. Your parents have probably helped you develop the skill to rationalize your irresponsible, insensitive behavior.
I feel sorry for anyone who has ever attempted to love you romantically. I’m sure your heart is cold. Do daddy and mommy always side with little Socrates and encourage you to do what you feel and make your own decisions, etc? That sounds so strong and courageous, but it’s all a coverup. Ah, the irony. You continue to decieve yourself and others. You do what feels good and whatever requires the least amount of accountability and emotion.
Stay close to mommy and daddy because they are probably the only people in the world who could love you. And I’m sure they are the only people you are capable of loving. Continue to rationalize your weak behavior so that you can sleep at night. If you’ve ever loved someone you would know that sometimes OTHER people are actually entitled to a certain amount of respect even if that means allowing THEM to speak THEIR mind and express THEIR feelings. That’s right. The other person that might actually have something they’d like to say. They might have an opinion on the situation. If you are not adult enough to understand that then you owe it to the world to never become romantically involved. You are a danger to a loving heart and your blind to how evil you can be. I’m sure you are always the victim in your stories. Move back in with mommy and daddy and continue to rationalize being weak. I feel sorry for you. To love is a wonderful feeling and you will never know what it’s like to care for someone other than yourself.
September 27, 2008 at 2:33 am
poetreearborist
Wow peeps! Such heat over this topic. Please, if reading what someone wrote on a silly blog like my lil soapbox (especially regarding this extremely trivial and uninteresting topic) – do for yourself what I encourage myself to do – ask yourself why this trigger occurs. If that person has said something that reminds you of an old hurt, or someone who has hurt you… give yourself the courtesy of taking an honest moment and examine your life. It is a good opportunity for healing. And that is why we must always love our enemies! Because they have more to teach us about ourselves than our friends.
April 13, 2009 at 7:52 pm
armaini
Well said. Didn’t really roll down your blogs before (because my limitation of time), but once I did I found a lot of different expressions coming out and speaking through your words. I don’t totally agree (I am always like that) on any opinions because I believe that we are all different in seeing things, solving problems and value the life. But I must say that you have an interesting way in expressing your thought and the strength of your unblocked words are moving and inspiring to me (in many ways). I do agree that we learn from enemies. I m just not sure that if we learn from them more than our friends. True friends I believe would teach us the most. Just because their existence is not alerting to us then we are not aware of what they have shared with us. When facing enemies, our adrenaline is high;defensive mode is on, we start thinking more effectively because all of our senses work well that very moment. Then we can remember and underline the lesson that was taken from the enemies. But I don’t think that we really need enemies to learn. Learn from others experience will save a lot of our time rather than have to experience it by ourselves one by one. I wish I was that lucky. Just because most of the time I ignore the gift that was given to me which is called brain and logical thinking, I always have to learn the hard way.Somehow, a part of me love that.
Yes, I’m studying English. Yeah…, maybe I want to be a lecturer. Because I love sharing. Whatever I will be, it doesn’t really matter for me. I just love to share things, knowledge, feelings, experiences, inspirations with others who are lack of them. Filling them in and watching them growing, progressing, and improving, isn’t it thrilling? Used to totally think about only my self as if the world was only around me. Fed up with that kind of life stage, I moved on (I hope). Fed myself too much before, now it’s time to feed others. The part of me which was so selfish and narcissistic (for no good reason), is somehow still there. I forced my self to change. It is weird that sometimes I am really aware of what I want but I intensely force my self not to want it. This concept of controlling my self is sometimes useful for me. But now I think I’m loosing my control because I’ve started to talk too much
Nice meeting you, I hope you can make a good use of your strength in words and put it to the good use more, and more. I’ll be waiting for that. I need more shower of the positive energy. Share me more.
May 7, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Anonymous
Be a real man/woman. Show respect. Are you really that much of a coward or lack that much respect for people to break up in an email. What do you do to your enemies? Shoot them if the look at you the wrong way?