Dating : A Drama-Free Guide To Breaking-Up

One of my college friends dated a girl he met in his apartment complex. After six months together, he couldn’t ignore how toxic she was: creating arguments to feel loved and unwilling to have a mature conversation about fixing things. So one night, he met her at her apartment to break up.

She did not handle it well.

Every night she would call his phone incessantly, even after he blocked her number. One day, she showed up at his front door and rang his doorbell for hours. She’d “happen” to be walking to her car at the same time he was. And the same coincidence occurred several times on the elevator.

This lasted for almost a year after they broke up. It was dramatic. I felt terrible, for him and for her.

The fact is, no one likes breaking up. Hurting someone else’s feelings is a crappy undertaking. But you create more drama for yourself by not planning how you’ll handle the situation. Ending a relationship isn’t an easy or comfortable experience to go through. But it’s something that eventually has to be done. You can either cop-out and be immature about it, or step up to the plate and respect that you’re dealing with another human being’s feelings.

If you’re about to go through a breakup with someone and want to avoid drama while causing them as little pain as possible, here’s what you need to do:

Breaking up is a very permanent solution. It’s not something to take lightly. Once you’ve suggested it, your partner won’t be able to trust you like theyonce did, if you ever change your mind.

Ask yourself if you’re temporarily upset or if a life without your partner is what you really want. Are the problems too grand to fix, or have you not even brought up any issues to your S.O.?

Be honest with yourself about what’s going on. If you’re scared of commitment, stressed about work, or don’t feel heard in your relationship, there’s room to fix things. All relationships have inevitable obstacles, the question you need to ask yourself is if the person you’re with is worth working on those issues for.

During one of my relationships, we planned a weekend getaway at a friend’s mom’s house in Oregon. My boyfriend left a couple of days before me because I needed to get some work done before I left. During those two days, we got in a nasty fight. Out of nowhere, he sent me a text saying he wanted to breakup.

The kicker? We lived together.

“Take this weekend to get your things out of the apartment,” he said. I was livid.

A sure-fire way to make the person you’re breaking up with resent you is initiating the breakup via technology. Unless there’s a reason you can’t physically see them (i.e., long-distance or COVID), you should always break up in person.

Don’t fall back on saying, “I need a break.” You’re giving false hope where there is none. If you know you want to breakup, you’re better off being honest about that decision.

Two years ago, a guy I was dating broke up with me on my front porch *cue Taylor Swift.* I convinced him to let things cool off and re-visit the idea of getting back together in a week or so. He agreed.

What followed was me anxiously waiting for a week to pass, only for him to tell me he wasn’t actually considering getting back together. I would’ve preferred the honesty.

“Staying friends” is great and all. I’m pro-being-on-good-terms-with-your-exes. In fact, I’ve helped one of my ex-boos get jobs for his podcast editing business, and I just congratulated my other ex on his newborn son.

But what all of those relationships had in common was that we went without talking for months, even years. It wasn’t a block-them-on-Instagram or send-their-calls-to-voicemail type of ending. We agreed that we needed time to heal from our breakup.

Staying in contact leaves room for feelings to wiggle their way into places where you need to heal. It’s a chance for one person to become jealous or want to get back together. And once that happens, ever if you try to handle it amicably, things never end well.

Your ex should get more than “you deserve better than me” or “it’s not you, it’s me.” Be honest about what didn’t work in the relationship. You don’t need to spew honesty all over them — especially if feelings for other people are involved, or you just want to be single for a bit — but give them solid closure as to why the breakup is happening.

It’ll be easier for them to keep from sending late-night texts or calling you from a private number if they know why things just weren’t meant to be.

Just because you initiated the breakup doesn’t mean it won’t hurt for you. You’re not only celebrating the loss of all the things you didn’t like about your relationship, but you’re also mourning the loss of what you did like.

Emotions are healthy for any person to feel (regardless of your gender, sex, or non-sensical societal norms places upon you). Judging yourself for watching a movie months after a break up that spark an old memory that brings a tear to your eye is like popping open champagne and expecting there to be no bubbles.

When I experienced my last breakup, I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. I let out all my emotions surrounding the breakup because I’d learned a year before that ignoring your feelings doesn’t make them go away. It merely makes them burst out of you later down the line.