A Good And Kind Way To Break Up With Someone

Relationships. They're difficult to get into and they're maybe even more difficult to get out of. But also hey: They happen. Unless you happen to believe in marriage and also happen to meet the Perfect Partner your first time through eventually you're going to have to do a break-up. A conscious uncoupling. A farewell to someone else's arms.

Like making friends or influencing people, one might assume that the self-help gurus have figured this out for us. That they have, yet again, cracked the code on human emotion and can deliver us a way to end a relationship that is both simple and relatively painless for either party.

The bad news is that this doesn't really exist. The good news is that there are people like Chuck Hill, the department chair and professor of social psychology at Whittier College, who has dedicated his life's work to studying interpersonal relationships. If there's anyone who might have some advice on how best to navigate a break-up, it's Hill. You can do this.

​Use Major Life Changes To Assess Your Relationship

It sounds obvious, but the first step in breaking up with someone is to determine if you should, well, break up with them. Relationships are complex and varied and it's counter-productive to say — barring some extreme circumstances when your immediate safety is concerned — that you should break up with someone if they do X, Y and Z.

Instead, Charles Hill suggests, you should use major life changes as opportunities to assess your relationship. Whether intentionally or not, we naturally do this, says Hill — whether it's graduating from school, getting a new job or moving to a new city. "These changes provide convenient excuses for separations that can phase out or end the relationship," says Hill.

In fact, Hill argues, these sorts of "milestone events" are actually a pretty good time to break up. That's not to say you should use them as an excuse, but in terms of the logistics of breaking up — shared friends, proximity or forced interactions — they can help make things easier for both people involved.

"The best way to end a relationship, would be to do it at a time when there are changes external to the relationship, that raise issues about the relationship and make it harder to maintain the relationship at the previous level," says Hill. "This provides an excuse to see the other less often, to date others, or to 'need' to end the relationship altogether."

Realize That It'll Probably Be Messy, Which Is OK

Of course, you still need to tell the person that you wish to break up with them. This is, arguably, the hardest part about ending a relationship. Finding the courage to face the person you may have once truly loved, and tell them that you do not love them anymore.

The first thing to realize is that what you are about to do is a normal and regular thing. "People typically go through two or three relationships before going onto a more serious relationship," says Hill. "Which means these breakups are common."

The second thing to realize is that, no matter how you say it or where you say it or when you say it, the other person is not going to take it well. "It's awkward, it's embarrassing. and there's tremendous ambivalence," says Hill. "You have all the good times and the good things and you don't want to give those up."

Your natural instinct, unless this person really hurt you, is to soften the blow. Maybe you offer friendship instead, or that you need some time to yourself to figure things out. And maybe it's true! But more often than not, the best course of action is to just make a clean break. 

"In the long-run that's probably better, the person isn't being strung along and they don't have any false hope," says Hill. "In cases of divorce, the divorce isn't final until someone remarries — one of them may secretly hope that they get back together."

Time can heal all wounds, but the thing is you need to let time do it's thing. Keeping the option open will just keep rubbing your sore of a relationship raw — never to heal and always to hurt.

In Either Case, Encourage The Use Of Support Systems

Just because you've vowed to break total contact doesn't mean you need to be cruel about it. How you leave it with this person is crucial to how they — and to some degree even you — handle the next few days and weeks post-separation.

What you shouldn't do, is just dump them and leave them to pick up the pieces.

"It can be really, really devastating if they've invested so much in the other person, and don't perceive they have an alternative out there," says Hill. "It's not just a loss of the person, of the relationship, but of the potential damage of your self-esteem."

That's not to say you have to hold their hand through the breakup, nor should you feel personally responsible for their wellbeing going forward. But it's helpful to reassure the person that there are people out there that they can talk to. That even though this relationship didn't work out, they still have so much in their life to lean back on. Remind them of that.

"It would be helpful if you could find ways to make sure the other person has a support network," says Hill. "Encourage the person to spend more time with friends, family and with others."

Lastly, outside of an empty promise that things will get better, try and remind the person of the bigger picture. 

"Hopefully from each one of these breakups you learn about relationships and about coping with breakups and how to make relationships work," says Hill. "These should be learning experiences."

FAQ

What if we just try to remain friends?

"It really depends on how the other person is going to take it," says Hill. If the relationship is new and you're both in agreement that it's not going to work out, then sure, it's probably okay. Otherwise, a clean break is best.

Will this hurt forever?

It won't, but it might feel like it. "It takes awhile to go through hell and climb up again," says Hill. A wise friend once told me that a breakup is a good time to tend to the friendships you've probably been neglecting. So do that, and it'll at least help distract you.

Do I Have To Get On Tinder Now?

You know there are worse things. Online dating may be the end of us all, but goddamn does it deliver on the dopamine rush of knowing someone finds you attractive. Whether or not this is a selfish and gross way to find validation, well, that's up for you to decide.