How To Break Up With Your Partner Without Breaking Their Hearts

Alright, I don’t know why or how you stumbled into this article, but I imagine that you probably feel that something’s a little off with your relationship right now.

Unless you’re one of those people who imagine scenarios with a partner, and then instead of imagining the happy dates and *insert saxophone music* moments, you imagine breaking up with them.

Considering you’re not reading “should I break up” instead, I’m guessing you’ve already made up your mind. Maybe it’s a toxic relationship, or there are no more feels, or that it just doesn’t work.

How to break up is actually pretty simple.

First, you lure them to the mountains.

Then you promise to do an obstacle course with them and then do this:

They’ll be too scared to be broken-hearted at the end of it!

Just kidding. That’s the worst possible way to do a breakup.

Here’s the only thing you’ll need to know when you want to have a breakup:

Don’t be an asshole.

What I mean is to be a decent human being and try to understand why the relationship isn’t working. A breakup that leaves both parties satisfied with the conclusion is not only going to be cleaner, but it will also make your next relationship (if any) better with the lessons learned.

And for the steps to not being an asshole:

1. Understand Why You Want To Break Up

You’ll need to be absolutely clear in your reasons why here. Is it because they cheated? Or that the relationship just somehow lost its magic? Or is it something a little more petty like they have smelly socks or that they pick their noses all the time?

The clearer you can articulate the reasons, the better. Remember that when you break up, your partner will want to know the reasons why and most likely won’t be satisfied with a non-answer. A clear answer that tells them why you think a break up is required will sink in better than something vague.

The other purpose of this: to see if you really needed to break up.

If you can’t find a clear answer as to why then perhaps the problem is a lack of understanding. You’ll need to articulate your feelings and tell them what you feel is wrong here.

Which brings me to the next step.

2. Telling Them Face To Face

You’ll want to do this gently and take your time. Even if the problems in the relationship might be clear to both of you, they probably will not see this coming. Sudden breakups leave a sour feeling and will hurt both parties more.

Stay calm. Be very clear in stating the reasons. It’s also why you’ll want to do this face to face. You want to prevent miscommunications.

No shouting, no blaming. Tell it from your perspective rather than saying “because you did this and you did that”. Instead, say things like “I didn’t get what I wanted from this relationship, and I want to move on.” or “I stopped appreciating you and took you for granted.”

Just explain, surgically, like a doctor telling the symptoms of flu to a patient. Or if the relationship problem is really bad, like a doctor telling their patient they have terminal cancer.

No buts, no maybe. Saying words like that give false hope. And false hope hurts.

I wish you all the best in pursuing a better relationship.

I guess it’s time to clean my browser history for the research of this article just in case…