I was looking around on AskMen.com the other day and found this article about how to end a relationship, in which some of the suggestions included: Gradually move away from regular communication; Don’t give in to sex once the process of ending a relationship has begun; Surrounding yourself with female friends will make her feel like she’s not “the one.” I’m not sure if it was tongue-in-cheek or what, but it got me wondering about how people typically end a relationship. How have you broken up with someone? And do you have any breakup horror stories you want to share? Because what better way to exorcise a bad relationship (or at least a bad breakup) than to find some entertainment value in your past suffering?
[polldaddy poll=”4856751″]
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SasLinna September 16, 2015, 12:44 pm
I’ve sometimes had problems with the “knowing I’m sure” part and waited too long to call it quits. I feel like it’s a bit of a catch-22 sometimes – you don’t want to break up when you’re not sure it’s what you need to do (and if you’re not sure it’s more difficult to make it stick), but you also don’t want to wait until the relationship has deteriorated too much. Also, when I was living with my ex and wanted to break up with him, I just felt like the decision was too big and the fact that I was interacting with him so much in my daily life and we were so close kind of paralyzed me. Like I’d come home and he was doing something in the apartment and I would think “I can’t break up with you while you’re folding towels”. It was such a mess to get out of that situation. I hope if I ever have to break up with someone again I’ll finally be better at it.
Rachel September 17, 2015, 11:40 am
Oh man, I get this so much, it’s why I didn’t break up with my ex and he ended up being the one to initiate that breakup! He felt so guilty for a such a long time, and I had to keep reminding him that I wanted to break up too, he just got the courage to initiate the process sooner than I would have. You get so used to that person being a huge part of your life and you’re scared of how messy it’ll be to end things, that it overshadows how great your future could be without being their partner. My ex breaking up with me was such a positive thing, because now I have the kind of life and relationship that I have always wanted.
gigi September 16, 2015, 12:44 pm
The funniest one was when I broke up with a guy because he saw an Obama election pin in my bathroom. He said nothing at the time, but a couple weeks later when he was drunk at his house & obviously in a foul mood, he called me up to berate me for having that pin, & being dim-witted enough to “drink the kool-aid”. Literally the first time I had ever heard that expression. I don’t feel like my political views have to be in perfect harmony with my friends, relatives, co-workers etc, but I do feel that one should be respectful of those beliefs & if that’s not possible then don’t discuss it. I took it for a few minutes, arugues for a few minutes & then hung up on him. He called back to scream at me for that too & I just said we are done. Thank you President Obama for exposing an asshole & saving me from wasting anymore time on this clown.
TaraMonster September 16, 2015, 1:49 pm
THANKS, Obama. (sorry. I had to. haha.)
anonymousse September 16, 2015, 2:11 pm
Ha! Thanks, Obama! I love it.
dinoceros September 16, 2015, 1:13 pm
A guy texted me once at 2 am. to ask if I was no longer into the relationship. The irony was that I had been telling them the entire time that I was not interested in a relationship at that point and that he could not consider me his girlfriend. Since we were not in a relationship, I did not feel obligated to text every day or see him as often as he wanted. This was apparently what prompted him to wonder if I was interested in ending things. I hadn’t necessarily been planning to have the talk, but I called him immediately and “broke up” with him. It just seemed odd to me because most people prefer not to be broken up with via text, yet he was trying to force me to do that.
Kate September 16, 2015, 1:17 pm
There’s no option for “bottle it up until I explode and tell the person I can’t take it anymore and want to break up.” That’s kind of what I do, but I’ll take “grown up discussion” instead.
Nookie September 17, 2015, 3:50 am
Amen Sister.
Ale September 16, 2015, 1:18 pm
I’ve never ended a formal relationship. My ex boyfriend broke up with me the three times we broke up.
Ale September 16, 2015, 1:24 pm
I’ve also been ghosted.
And a FWB once called me crying to break up with me.
Haha, I guess I am lucky.
Anon September 16, 2015, 1:20 pm
Text, email, IM, post-it note — anything that’s quick, easy and painless (for me, that is!).
Treat the other person like crap until s/he breaks up with ME!
I “disappear” and hope the other person gets the message.
^^^^^ I’m astonished at how many votes these picks have gotten. Rotten people with no soul whoever the ones voted this.
norabb September 16, 2015, 1:22 pm
None of these apply…try “We fight and hate each other so much and are so immature that we have no other choice to break up”. I only had really shitty breakups with really shitty people because I was young and dumb and put up with shitty behavior.
Stonegypsy September 16, 2015, 2:52 pm
When I was young, I was really awful at breaking up with people, because I was legitimately terrified of people being upset with me or thinking negatively about me. So instead I would just distance myself a whole lot until they forced the conversation, and then it would be a fight and they were *definitely* upset at me (justifiably). That continued until I was 22, and my relationship with someone I’d been with for 4 years ended really really badly.
Since then, I have forced myself to be a lot more direct and up front, and when I’m not feeling things and I want to break up, I just have a conversation with them about it. Surprise surprise, I’m now on really good terms with all of the people I have dated in the last 6 years.
RedRoverRedRover September 16, 2015, 3:07 pm
That’s what I do, and I can’t think of an ex I’ve ever had that I’ve ended up on bad terms with.
Stonegypsy September 16, 2015, 3:12 pm
Funny how that works, huh?
SasLinna September 16, 2015, 3:33 pm
There are also those exes who will hate you no matter how you act, unfortunately. I think they’re often the same ones who make the break up seem extra excruciating.
After seeing a lot of people stuck in bad relationships, I now kind of think that how you break up is overrated (not that it doesn’t matter, obviously, just that it’s given an excessive amount of attention). Oftentimes the bigger problem is simply breaking up AT ALL. Like, it would have been better if I had left my ex with a note half a year before I actually did it, compared to having a MOA conversation with him at the time I finally did. He was going to be extremely disappointed either way.
Stonegypsy September 16, 2015, 3:38 pm
This is true. There are people who are going to hate you no matter what because you didn’t give them what the wanted. But for the most part, the people I have dated as an adult have not been that type of person.
SasLinna September 16, 2015, 3:50 pm
Yeah, better to avoid that type of person altogether – I could have read the signs with my ex, he had had drama-filled falling outs with some friends of his so I could have known that it was a possibility that if our relationship ended it would lead to this. I didn’t really make that connection until after the break up.
Basically I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that you can’t entirely control the outcome of a break up. Obviously if you behave honorably you will have a much better shot at getting along with exes, but it’s not 100% a “reap what you sow” situation.
Stonegypsy September 16, 2015, 3:11 pm
I did have one relationship where I did just disappear. Literally. Packed my stuff in my car and moved to another city while he was at Christmas dinner at his mom’s. I left a letter.
But it was completely justified.
csp September 16, 2015, 2:53 pm
I had one breakup with a guy that I dated on and off for years. He was deployed to Iraq and things were a mess but you can’t break up with someone deployed. So when he came back we went out once and neither of us ever contacted the other again. I have been with my husband for 10 years but in the back of my head I think that, in a weird way, I am still technically dating that other guy.
RedRoverRedRover September 16, 2015, 3:06 pm
That article’s awful. It started out well with “be honest”, but then just moved into basically treating the person like shit. Which doesn’t line up AT ALL with “be honest”. If you did that one you don’t need any of the others. I don’t know, unless it had only been one or two dates, I wouldn’t do that to someone. I just couldn’t treat someone who I’d become close to like shit. I guess maybe if the relationship had devolved to the point where we hated each other I might, but that’s never happened to me.
Nookie September 17, 2015, 3:57 am
Have you ladies seen the comments on this article? I think that lady needs a drink and a lady’s night, she seems quite tightly wound.
Rachel September 17, 2015, 11:54 am
The guy I was seeing before my current bf suddenly and drastically pulled back his communication, and finally I was the one who initiated the formal “we’re done” talk. I felt resentment over that, like we still parted on good terms because I’m a gracious person, but I would have been a lot happier if he hadn’t tried to just fade me out, yet keep occasionally texting me. It was weird, people need to give their partners some more respect and stop being such wimps about the tough break up talks.