I wrote an entire article about this. I'll copy paste the bits about ending a serious relationship:
Girls that are Serious (Relationships)
If it’s a girl I’ve seen for longer and built a connection with, I have this conversation in person, not over text. Usually somewhere public but semi-private, eg a park during the day. Somewhere you can be relatively alone, but still out in public.
You’ll have to take it on a case-by-case basis, depending on the type of relationship you had with the girl, how close you were, how long you were together, etc. I’ve had a few of these conversations now with girls I deeply cared about (and a couple I loved), and all I can tell you is
breaking up sucks and there’s no right way to do it. No matter how you do it, you’ll feel like you could have done it a whole lot better. Go easy on yourself; nobody is good at breaking up with people.
Try your best not to hurt the other person – be honest, but to a point. If she starts demanding you tell her everything she did wrong or reasons why you don’t want to be with her anymore, don’t say things that are likely to hurt her. With a breakup,
it’s often better to say less than more.
Talk for as long as you both want to, but at some point you’re going to have to leave – and that point really hurts (for both of you). Some stuff to remember:
- There’s no nice way to break up with someone. It will suck, no matter what.
- There’s no perfect time to break up with someone. I’ll be bad timing, no matter when you do it.
- No matter how hard you try, you’ll probably look like the bad guy… Until a few days or weeks later when emotions die down a bit. You’re not an asshole for breaking up with someone in an empathetic way. You’re only an asshole if you don’t break up with someone you don’t really want to be with – especially if you only stay with them because you’re scared to break up.
- She may cry, you may cry – doesn’t matter. Breakups suck. They’re messy. There’s no avoiding the pain.
- After you break up, you may have a few days where you think, “Oh god what have I done? I should apologise to her and get back together with her.” Fuck no. Do NOT get back together with someone you’ve broken up with. You’ll feel strong emotions for a few days after the breakup; emotions that’ll make you second-guess your decision. Tell yourself, “I’ll just wait 4 weeks, and if in 4 weeks when I’m more rational I still want to get back with her, then I’ll reassess at that time.” If it helps, remind yourself of the reasons you broke up with her. Remember: an ex is an ex for a reason. What happens every single time is you’ll wait a week or two, and all of a sudden you won’t feel so emotional, you won’t feel like you’re grieving as much, and you’ll start moving on with your life.
- After you break up with her, go spend time with your mates and family. Keep busy. Hit on other chicks if you’re up for it (when you’re ready) – nothing assuages the pain of losing a girl than moving on and showing yourself there are other people out there for you.
My most recent serious breakup was a pretty painful one (most breakups will usually be somewhat painful, remember). I’d been seeing her for about 8 months and was in a 3some relationship with her and another girl. I just wasn’t feeling the chemistry any more and hadn’t been for a month or two. I told her, “I have something to discuss with you, let’s meet at [a cafe in the city].”
We met, grabbed a coffee, and went to a nearby park. I explained I felt like I wasn’t really that into her any more, and as shit as it was, I’d rather break up with her than keep leading her on by staying. She argued and tried desperately to get me to stay. I ended up talking everything through with her for a few hours, as she went through all the stages of grief – anger (“you’re horrible for doing this!”), denial (“you’re just emotional, tomorrow you won’t really feel like breaking up with me”), etc.
Eventually she came to acceptance as she agreed things hadn’t been great between us for a while now, and she had definitely felt like we were growing apart. I walked her back to her car, she looked at me sadly and said, “I’m going to miss you.” I gave her one last hug and replied, “I’m going to miss you too.” We parted ways, and that was that.
Watching her cry was fucking
painful, because I still cared about her very deeply. I’ll say it again:
there’s no easy way to break up with someone. And it can be fucking tempting to do it over text. Whilst text is perfectly fine for anything casual, if it’s a serious relationship it’s always better done in person. Once you get through those tough minutes/hours while you talk it all through, you’ll be glad you did, and you can go grab yourself an icecream or a giant chocolate bar to make yourself feel (a little) better.
To Block or Not to Block
For super casual girls I only saw once or twice, and know I’ll definitely never want to see them again, I send them a breakup text and block their number so they can’t text/call me in the future. I do this because it makes it easier for me to say in my mind, “Ok, I’ve cut her off for good now – the communication is cut off.
I can move on.” I like being able to move on and focus on other girls/other projects, without that feeling of, “She might try to get back in contact with me in a week/month/year”. I don’t like things feeling like they’re half-complete.
Blocking a girl and moving on means you won’t have her number sitting in your phone, tempting you on one of those lonely saturday nights. There’s no worse feeling than being desperate/lonely/horny, reaching into the metaphorical garbage can of your phone contacts list, and pulling out an old flame you broke up with. I’ve done that a few times in the past and it always felt
horrible; you’d invite her over again, have sex with her, and remember the reason(s) you ended things with her. Then you’d have to end things a second time, not to mention have to deal with the fact you’re not a man of principle. I felt like I’d just used the girl in my moment of neediness/horniness; bringing her back into my life for a quick bang, only to immediate discard her once again. Not a nice feeling.
Think with the head on your shoulders, not the head on your dick.
Some guys also choose to block a girl immediately after sending the breakup text, because they’re worried she might send something mean/emotional/angry. That’s perfectly fine too; as long as you’ve done the right thing and sent a polite breakup text instead of ghosting, you don’t have to read her reply if you really don’t want to.
For girls I’ve had a friends-with-benefits or relationship thing with, I don’t tend to block them. Some of them have hit me up months or years later, and I’ve been happy to message them a bit to tell each other what we’ve been up to (but only a few friendly messages – I don’t start up a friendship or anything). Given the type of relationships I tend to have (I tend to mentor girls a lot and offer them lots of life advice/guidance), I’ve had a few girls hit me up years later asking for advice on their current boyfriends/careers/etc, which I’ve been happy to give.
I don’t rekindle a relationship once I’ve decided to break up with a girl. One of my core principles is,
“When I say something, I mean it.” It’s something I very much live by. So once I send a girl a breakup text, I stick to that. I’ll happily talk to her later on down the track and give her advice/find out what she’s been up to, but I won’t get back into a friendship or a relationship – not even a casual fuckbuddy situation.
You Do You
All of this advice is what’s worked for me and what I like to do. You can do whatever feels right for
you, and take all this on a case-by-case basis. If you want to do what I do and block all short-term flings you definitely don’t plan on seeing again (after you’ve sent the breakup text, of course), then do that. If you don’t want to block them, then don’t. If you want to block even your long-term relationships after you’ve broken up with them, then definitely do that. Some guys need that in order to stop themselves calling her up on a lonely saturday night with those horrible words, “I’ve made a huge mistake”. They can’t trust their emotions not to take hold and make them do something they’ll regret. In that case, blocking and moving on is the best thing to do.
I also tend to be able to move on very quickly – much quicker than many guys, it seems. So if a girl I was in a full-on relationship with hits me up months or years after we break up wanting some advice, I’ll feel absolutely no emotions if we start talking again. It’s like all my emotions for her have been filed away in a neat little drawer called, “Nice Nostalgic Memories” and they’ll never be anything but that; memories.
Some guys will feel all the emotions come flooding back if they see or talk to a girl after they’ve broken up with her, even a year or two down the track. For those guys, blocking and not talking to her again is probably best.
Sometimes it’s trickier than that; such as when you have mutual friends or go to university together & can’t avoid seeing each other again. In that case I’d advise minimal contact; keep it polite, but don’t say more than a bit of casual smalltalk here and there. If you talk for too long, you’re just giving her hope of a rekindling, and that’s horrible.
Let’s Just Be Friends™ ?
The final question that’ll come up: should you be friends with a girl after a breakup? Can you downgrade to a friendship situation without it being weird?
That’s entirely up to you; I can’t tell you what the “right” or “wrong” thing to do there is. But I’ll make a case for both sides:
I personally
never be friends with girls I’ve slept with; I don’t like taking a backwards step and going from fuckbuddies/relationship down to just a friendship. There isn’t a single exception in my past; I’ve literally never ever ever been friends with a girl after we’d had sex. Being friends with a girl you’ve been intimate with means you’ll both be acutely aware that
something is missing – like an elephant in the room, you’ll both pretend there’s nothing weird but it’ll be obvious as hell and you’ll both know it deep down.
It’s also unfair in situations where you or her (or both of you) really cared about the other person. Now you’re just giving her (or yourself) a small sliver of hope that things will get fixed. “He’s still in my life, we’re still friends, so maybe there’s a chance we will get back together?” If you don’t get back together, then you just gave her false hope and dragged it out over several months/years; how shitty is that? And if you do get back together, then why the hell did you break up in the first place? Don’t you trust your own decisions? You broke up with her for a reason; stick with your principles, have faith in your own decision-making and don’t second-guess yourself or you’re only showing yourself you’re a liar and
that your word doesn’t mean anything.
A good mate of mine has the opposite opinion to me – he’s downgraded a lot of his fuckbuddies to just friends. In a couple of cases, that’s worked and he’s still friends with them to this day. But for every case where it worked, there’s several where it
really didn’t work out well… in fact, it was a nightmare. In those cases, it just prolonged the breakup, and caused anguish and pain for both of them over several months, until they both finally agreed, “Ok, let’s just end this properly. We can’t be friends; it’s too painful.” As his friend, that was hell to watch – nobody likes seeing their friend put himself through anguish, slowly drawn out over many months longer than it had to be.
So ultimately it’ll be up to you. My advice is
don’t be friends with girls you’ve slept with; there are a million other girls out there in the world you can be friends with. It leads to a lot of complications, it often delays the breakup, and it’s usually just a cheap excuse people use because they don’t want to break up properly. “If I offer friendship to the girl I’m ending things with, I’m not a bad person!”
Sometimes in life – especially in dating, and
especially as the one making the hard decision to end things – you have to be the bad guy. “Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind” was never more true than in a breakup.
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