There is nothing worse in life (at least temporarily) than getting your heart broken. But it gets even worse when insult and humiliation is added to injury; usually because the one breaking up does not have the integrity, balls or decency to be honest, maybe because a) they might not know how and b) they probably hate confrontation.
It is never easy to break up with someone. One of the worst lines in the world is the good old “it’s not you, it’s me…” BS line. Uhm, no, it IS actually you, because if you’d be the one, I wouldn’t dump your butt right now.
The issue is that sometimes people get into relationships they should have never gotten into from the start; reasons include “I was lonely,” and “it made sense at the time.” Sometimes we change who we are/were when we met the person, and other times we may fall out of love; to name a couple reasons. The truth is that it usually takes two to break a relationship; unless you are a jerk (and no, I am not going into detail here regarding what constitutes a relationship jerk).
At the end of the day, the worst thing one can do is to keep dragging it out, because you are too afraid to say how you feel. Most people rather not deal with any confrontation anyway; and then, there is the fine line between being honest and being cruel. However, if you got into the relationship, you should have the decency to get out of it, instead of being inconsiderate and selfish enough to waste another person’s time and breaking their heart.
So how does a person break up with integrity? Well, the first step is absolute honesty. This can include explaining that maybe you are at a weird cross-road in life where you need to figure out what your path is. When we communicate with honesty and an open heart, even the worst messages are at least heard. Telling someone where you truly are at in life and explaining to your partner that this really doesn’t have enough to do with them (this is where it truly is you, not them) will generally deliver the message gently enough to do the least amount of damage.
What people are not open to is BS. Telling someone that it isn’t them but you, when you can’t even explain yourself correctly will only deliver one message, namely that you are rejecting them for something they did or for something they are lacking. This will also often backfire and launch the dumpee into “fix it,” or “chase” mode. They are thinking that they did something, which means to them that they can do something to fix it. The heart-break is going to be worse, once they realize that you’ve cowardly abandoned them and lied to them on top of it all.
I broke up with two of my long-term boyfriends. I did so by sitting them down and truly opening my heart, sharing what space I was in and why I couldn’t continue my path with them. I delivered my message with raw honesty and clearly showing how much I cared for them and respected them. I did not take their dignity, nor did I insult them or blame them for anything that was going on with me. As a result, I am great friends with them to this day. There was and still is no animosity, anger or resentment between us.
It is not ever OK to drag out a break-up. Doing so only makes you look like a selfish and heartless tool. It also isn’t OK to simply run, lie or worse, move on to someone else. It doesn’t matter if you believe in karma or not, but how you treat others does and will come back to you. I, for one, always remember that in how I treat those around me.
In my opinion, there are plenty of people who have neither the emotional, nor mental maturity to be in a relationship. The sad thing is that it is usually that type who not only does get into one, but also does the most amount of damage to others. The only thing you can do to not get your heart broken by them is to make sure that you don’t engage in anything with “the type,” but pay attention to who they are, how they behave and whom they hang out with from the very beginning.
Hearts are too precious to waste. So make sure you take care of yours; and those who entrust you with theirs!
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I would like to thank you so much for writing this article. I am hoping there will be more like it.