How to Break Up With Anyone

by Jamye Waxman

  On top of all that, there’s talking about the reasons we’re ending these relationships. In long-term romantic relationships, someone may do something wrong that puts the kibosh on the union. They may cheat, lie, have a hard time saying “I love you,” or refuse to introduce you to their family. Perhaps you just don’t see yourself with them any longer. In most romantic instances, you can come up with obvious reasons why you’re breaking up with someone.

  Even if your best friend lied, or your mother was a cold-hearted bitch, having to explain these things to another human being is more difficult than having to explain how an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend did something that took you over the edge.3 Because a lot of the time, when it comes to non-romantic relationships, the attachments are still there, even if we aren’t attaching to them anymore.

  What if you’re relieved to end a relationship because it was flat and unfulfilling? How do you handle that explanation? While it’s sort of like falling out of love, in that sometimes it just happens, that’s not exactly what happened. And still, saying “I fell out of love” feels more justified than saying “the relationship was boring.” That sounds like you didn’t try hard enough to make it work.

  There are also common experiences people have after a break up with a lover. We know that in romantic break ups, our heart is oftentimes “broken.” You don’t have to explain that to anyone—it’s a given. But what breaks for you when you end another type of relationship? And what do you call the experience of your sadness and loss? In therapeutic terms, it can be called disenfranchised grief4—a term used for the grief experienced when we mourn losses that aren’t seen as acceptable in society (like the loss of your stepdaughter in a divorce or a best friend in a break up).

  Once it’s over, feelings take time to subside and thoughts take time to process. Physically, you may feel that pit in your stomach or that ache in your heart. Psychologically, you have to deal with the loss of a person, or thing, who may still be very much alive but no longer a part of your life.

  Whether or not there is a specific reason to end the relationship, other people (be it your family, friends, or spouse) may not understand why you’re making such a big deal over ending a non-romantic union. And that can make talking about the end of the relationship feel more like a high-drama mini-series than a way for you to cope with your decision.

  When it comes to non-romantic relationships, there’s no rulebook on how to get your swagger back. With a romantic break up, you get tons of advice—“The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” go out, or hang out with your girlfriends—but non-romantic break ups don’t always have the same support system in place. If you end it with your mom, you may not be able to turn to your family for support. If you end it with your bestie, you may not find support from your other friends. While support systems will shift, a non-romantic break up can feel lonelier and more isolating because you’re not sure where to turn, especially when you just ended things with the only community you’ve had.

  Plus, these people don’t get replaced, not in the same way your ex can. Yes, some people adopt a new “parent” when their parent sucks, but in general, when you find a new best friend, there’s a different bond, one that isn’t exactly the same as your last best friend. And yeah, romantic partners aren’t exactly the same either, but you are going to do a lot of the same things with them—like date, have sex, and cuddle.

  Even if it doesn’t quite feel “right” to end a relationship with the other people in your life, breaking up doesn’t have to feel taboo anymore. It’s like therapy. Not too long ago, going to a therapist was never talked about. Nobody wanted to admit to going to a “shrink” or any other professional that could help them sort their head out. If you needed head help, you were crazy, right? Wrong. Nowadays, it’s cool to have a therapist. And not only is it cool, now there are multiple TV shows about therapy, including HBO’s In Treatment, VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn, and Showtime’s Web Therapy. So, just like therapy is about helping our head, so is breaking up. And breaking up is also about helping our heart (and soul). Maybe someday soon we’ll be seeing more TV shows about other kinds of break ups.

  Why Does Breaking Up Hurt So Much?

  Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis, called suffering an inevitable part of life. But that doesn’t make me feel any better about dealing with the pain of a break up. And although I don’t feel as alone when I listen to Neil Sedaka sing “Breakin’ Up Is Hard to Do,” it doesn’t make the process any easier.

  There’s at least one scientific component to all this pain. In 2010, researchers from the University of Amsterdam published a study on the impact of social rejection on the heart.5 The research, focusing on the functioning of the autonomic nervous system, found there was a measurable, and sizable, response in how the parasympathetic nervous system processes rejection. By measuring beat-by-beat heart rate changes, the researchers found that the sympathetic system (your fight-or-flight, or in some cases fight-flight-freeze, system) took several seconds to get the heart racing. This happened while the parasympathetic system (your conserve-and-preserve response) worked very quickly to slow down your heartbeat. They hypothesized that social rejection and the feelings of hurt that affect the parasympathetic nervous system also play a part in slowing down the timing of the heart beat for a short while.

  What that means in terms of break ups is that it actually hurts your heart to go through a break up. That’s evidenced in the considerable delay in the return of a normal heartbeat in response to social rejection. And whether you’re rejecting or feeling rejected, there’s a sense of loss either way.

  Isolation and loneliness can increase our stress levels and make us more susceptible to pain. Especially when breaking up with one person means breaking up with other people too. It can feel like losing a part of your identity or your family. If you think of it in terms of losing a limb, you need to learn to operate without a part of you that you may have relied on for your entire life. And without physical therapy (in the case of the limb) or without the resources (in the case of the break up) we need to feel safe and healthy, this whole process is going to take a lot longer to recover from.

  In less scientific research, you can’t overlook the emotional pain of letting go of the expectations, desires, and plans for the future of a relationship that no longer exits. Breaking up is a loss of dreams and plans. Whether it’s no longer spending holidays together, discarding a particular pronoun to describe your identity, or leaving the office or community you helped build up, it hurts to let go of the dreams and ideas of what you thought it would be like. While it helps to embrace where you are, it can be painful to get to that place.

  Sometimes breaking up can make you masochistic, like when you spend a lot of time beating yourself up about the break up. You may second-guess your actions. You may question your decisions. These things can take an incredible toll on your self-esteem. If you are the one doing the breaking up, you may be embarrassed or annoyed that you stayed in the relationship as long as you did. Or you may wonder if you were too harsh, or impulsive, in your decision to end things.

  Then there’s the matter of feeling dependent. We are all dependent on others. This dependency starts at birth, and it’s not always unhealthy. In fact, it’s a natural, normal way of experiencing other people. Still, when we break up with someone, we have to learn to undo some level of dependence. When people are intertwined in our lives, we have to find a way to delicately remove ourselves from their web. And sometimes, when our history goes back pretty far, getting out of the mess can take a lot of time and preparation. You bring them into your inner circle of family and friends, and then one day they aren’t there anymore.

  With all this pain, there is some pleasure. It does get easier, and you (most likely) will feel better. Plus, you are giving yourself a huge gift—growth. You are making this choice for a reason, and you’re finally taking action to move forward. Don’t look back. Change is in our nature, an
d change doesn’t have to feel bad. In fact, you may both agree that ending things is the way to go, making the whole process amicable.

  Still, if it’s taking more time than you want it to take, you can always talk to a therapist (remember, that’s not taboo any longer). As famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Or, if it doesn’t make us stronger, it teaches us that we can survive.

  “As humans we mourn the loss of things, good or bad. But when we ‘lose’ or let go of what zaps our energy and depletes our emotional reservoir, we become empowered to fill the void with better-feeling experiences and relationships. In this lifetime, we have only but one task: to choose. The choice isn’t between staying in a relationship or breaking it off. It’s deeper than that. It’s choosing between clinging or letting go.”

  —YVETTE BOWLIN, AKA THE DECLUTTERIST

  Break Ups Aren’t Always Forever

  Some relationships end and then begin again. In a number of non-romantic relationships (especially ones with family and close friends), you can reconcile. I reconciled with my best friend and my sister. And while we got back together after time apart, the break ups helped us to alter the relationships. We’ll explore this further in Chapter Four, but for now, rest assured knowing that even in romantic relationships, 50 percent of young couples try again.6

  That’s because sometimes it’s easier to find the common ground needed to work it out after you shake up the foundation. It can be easier than in a romantic relationship because there’s usually no sex involved in these relationships (of course friends or business partners may slip up). And without sex, it can be less complicated when you’re trying to overcome some of the emotional baggage, making it easier to pave the path to a new place in your relationship.

  Breaking Up Is Taking Care of You

  You may not be ready to shout it out loud, but say it with me: in the words of Twisted Sister, “We’re not going to take it anymore.” And by not taking it anymore, you have made the decision to change your life and put your needs first. You’re putting your big girl panties on and communicating with the people in your life about what is, and isn’t, working. That’s all part of the process.

  Even if you’re just in the beginning stages of thinking about breaking up with someone, it gets better—although it does take time. And if you’re reading this right after being broken up with, I know that may not make you feel better. But down the road, you’ll know it’s true. A break up is a shake up. It’s a relationship earthquake, and when things get rocked, it takes time to rebuild, but eventually you do. Your foundation is still there, even if the rest of your world feels like it’s in a million little pieces. And while it doesn’t get better overnight—sometimes it takes weeks, months, or maybe years—one day, possibly when you least expect it, you’ll feel good about doing what you felt needed to be done. You’ll feel stronger because you gave yourself permission to grieve. You will thank yourself for being able to break it off, when there may have been easier options.

  In the next chapter, we’ll get into the ins and outs of breaking up. But, however you go about the process, there are ways to help you take care of you right now. You can exercise, eat a tub of ice cream (which may make you feel bad later on, but sometimes you have to live in the moment), make lists of things that make you feel good, take a trip, get a massage, cry, dance, dive into your work, go out—whatever it is that makes you feel and deal is a good way to take care of you.

  While there’s been a lot of talk about the sad and hard parts of breaking up, it’s also healthy to remember that breaking up can feel amazing, especially once you break on through to the other side.

  CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE BROKEN UP

  1.Odds are, the person breaking up with you cares a lot about you. In fact, they’ve probably been trying to care a little less. So before you try to dismiss their hurt, push all the blame onto them, or start begging for forgiveness, take a step back and enjoy some space.

  2.Although you may not choose the break up, you have a choice in how you deal with the break up.

  3.In order to figure out how this break up impacts you, make a list of feelings, thoughts, hopes, and fears so you can have a clearer picture of what you’re dealing with.

  4.Find compassion in the process. Have you ever been the one doing the breaking up? If yes, allow yourself to remember what it’s like to be on the other end too.

  5.Accept that you may never have all the answers.

  6.Look at this break up as a chance for more personal growth.

  TWO

  The Ins and Outs of Breaking Up

  “Although you may not always be able to avoid difficult situations, you can modify the extent to which you can suffer by how you choose to respond to the situation.”

  —DALAI LAMA XIV, FROM THE BOOK THE ART OF HAPPINESS

  You’re not bad for wanting to end a relationship, but sometimes relationships end badly. And even if you go out of your way to save the day while you save yourself, you can’t always avoid an unhappy ending. But you can still try for a happy ending, just not in the massage-parlor sort of way.

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No matter how you go about planning the break up, no two break ups are created equally. The way one person breaks it off with a bestie isn’t going to be the way you break it off with your bestie. The way one family handles a change in gender identity isn’t going to be the way your family handles the change. No two people are the same, so the way one person handles a break up is not the way somebody else will go through the process. And even though all break ups are like tiny snowflakes—unique in all their minute details—all snowflakes are still made of snow, just like all break ups are an act that puts an end to a relationship.

  In order to curtail dissatisfaction in the resolution of the relationship, there are some things you can do to minimize the potential emotional harm. For example, in order to avoid an unfinished conversation that leaves you questioning, “Did I just end this relationship?” make sure you are extremely clear in your communication when ending the relationship. Say something like, “This is our last conversation. I don’t want to be in this relationship any longer, and after we speak right now, we will not be talking again.” Or in order to avoid a dramatic fight, you can first write a letter or text and agree to meet only after the recipient understands the terms of the meeting. And you can avoid a circular argument that ends in frustration around the inability to actually listen or hear one another by sticking to your key points and placing a time limit on your final meeting.

  It always helps to be as fair and honest in your feelings (both with yourself and the other party) as you can be. Along those same lines, be thoughtful with your choice of words. Keep in mind that “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,”1 but also remember that you can’t have a backup plan without an initial plan. And whether or not the break up happens the way you intended, you should always go into a break up with confidence and the best of intentions.

  Break Ups Shouldn’t Be Spontaneous

  It’s almost never a good idea to break up out of thin air. Blurting out your breaking up words in the midst of an emotional fight, for example, isn’t a sensitive or productive way to end things. Nor is threatening a break up every time your best friend mentions something you don’t want to talk about. And using breaking up as an incentive to get things to happen your way, that’s not cool either.

  In most cases, ending a relationship doesn’t happen in an instant (even if it feels like it does). It usually takes a whole lot of time and a good deal of thought. Even what you think of as a “spontaneous” break up has often been brewing for quite a while.

  There are lots of good reasons that a break up should not be spontaneous. Especially since a spontaneous break up will, more often than not, lead you right back to the relationship—problems and all. That’s because a spontaneous break up hasn’t been well thought out, and if the person being broken up with
pleads and promises to change, you’re more likely to cave in. After all, it is easier to go back to the way things were than to pave a new way for them to be.

  If you haven’t figured out your exit strategy, or if you don’t have a support structure in place, you will likely fall into your own never-ending story. For a moment, this “fake up” (fake break up) may make you feel like you’re being heard, or that you’ve accomplished something big. But ultimately the other party will call your bluff. They’ll return to the way the relationship was, and you will have to either go through this all over again or live with the consequences.

  Without thinking through the break up, you’re less likely to feel good and stand strong in your decision. It may even leave you looking bad. You might doubt yourself after it’s done. It may be because your own brain can’t completely comprehend what just happened. Or people around you are questioning your actions. Constant questions—whether your own, or from other people—can drive a person mad.

  If your friend or business partner didn’t see it coming, a spontaneous break up could leave them shattered too. They may be so stunned or hurt that they try to ruin your reputation. They could talk badly about how you handled the situation, or didn’t handle it. And unless your purpose is to really hurt the person you’re breaking up with, letting them in on your unhappiness beforehand is the mature way of dealing with things.

  With all that being said, once in a while, a necessary spontaneous break up does happen. But that’s often because you need to get out NOW. That means you’re in a dire situation, possibly with an abusive partner. Whether it’s your best friend who has threatened to hurt you with a knife or your business partner taking a hammer to the walls of your office, if immediate harm is coming your way, it’s time to end the relationship. Otherwise, take the long way home and figure out how you’re going to break up—not fake up or make up.