The truth is, breakups don’t always have to be messy. A messy breakup will take longer to heal from because neither you nor your partner gets the closure you both need to move on. If you initiated the messy breakup, you might carry around feelings of guilt. Whilst your partner moves on holding a grudge against you for as long as it takes. This is why you have got to find a way to break up properly. In this article, I’d be exploring ten ways to break up with someone politely.
1. Process Your Feelings
Many times, what people actually need is a break and not a breakup. This is especially true if there have been a lot of arguments and fights lately, and you feel pressured—even truer if these fights come up suddenly, when there have been no prior misunderstandings.
The pressure which causes such sudden outbursts of misunderstandings can come from many things: work trouble and communication problems, and these things can usually be fixed easily by taking a break and processing your feeling.
So, take a break if you think there is something to hang on to in that relationship.
If you find that there is nothing to hold on to and that your attraction is gone completely, you have to go ahead and break up.
Related: How to Get Back to Dating After a Bad Breakup
2. Begin to Detach Slowly
When you have decided that you will be going ahead with a breakup, it is time to start detaching slowly. Detaching may be a bad idea sometimes because it may make your partner very insecure. But many times, it is a great idea, both for you and your partner.
This is why breakups that follow immediately after a break are not so painful. Since both parties have had the space to properly process their emotions, away from the conflict and drama, the pain from a breakup is usually less.
Detaching from your partner just before the breakup is going to send a subtle sign that a split is on its way. In other words, it is going to prepare them. This is a polite way to begin initiating things if you ask me. It might even present the perfect breakup opportunity, as most partners will ask why you are detaching. Then, you can begin to talk.
3. Empathy
When you want to break up with your partner politely, you have to be able to practice empathy. Empathy is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling.
You may have lost all attraction for your partner before initiating the breakup. But you should know they most likely haven’t lost attraction for you. This means they will feel hurt about a parting.
So, bear this in mind when you prepare to break the news to them. Feel what they are feeling, and steer the conversation away from any subject that brings them too much pain.
Show kindness to yourself too. Usually, during a breakup, the party who imitates the division starts to feel as though they are awful people. Don’t feel this way. Be polite to yourself too.
Tell yourself that you just can’t keep up anymore, and the breakup is necessary.
Related: What to Do When a Guy Ghosts You and Reappears
4. Don’t Break Up on a Special Day or Week of Their Lives
This is where empathy comes in. Be compassionate enough to shift the break up far from any day or week your partner holds dear. For example, don’t break up with a person around the time of a day they usually hold very special.
You are going to ruin that period of their year for them. So that each time their special day approaches, they think of a difficult breakup they had to go through then.
That resentment will make them have a lot of difficulties forgiving you or moving on.
I like for people to move the break up at least four to five months away from big events.
Break up at a point in your partner’s life when they are able to take it. This is such a heartfelt, loving, and polite way to break up.
The truth is, even though you may not exactly love them anymore, you still care about them—and you should. You should care about how people feel in response to your actions.
5. They May Blow Up; It is Fine
The breakup may not be the very quiet breakup you may expect it to be, and this is fine. Breakups are hard to take in. So, be open to the fact that your partner may have problems taking it in.
He or she may blow up badly. Develop a way to dissolve that if it happens.
Don’t blame them for blowing up. This will be you trying to take away their right to feel.
In my opinion, that is abusive and impolite. Most of all, the abuse, at least emotional abuse, we see comes from one person trying to take away another person’s ability to feel.
So, be polite enough to let them feel whatever they want.
Allow them to blow up. Don’t tell them to shut up or sit down. Give them the room to process, no matter how long this takes them, and it can take a long time.
Read: 10 Signs of Emotional Detachment and How to Fix It
6. Face to Face, please
It is such an impolite thing to do when a person breaks up with someone over text. It is downright disrespectful, and no one should have to go through such a breakup—getting closure this way is quite difficult, as the person who is being broken up with will keep asking themselves questions.
So, set up a face-to-face meeting.
I suggest you meet in an enclosed place. Be polite about this breakup; don’t end things with them in a public place.
End things in a private place—a place where you both can be yourselves and say both your minds without feeling watched.
When you set up the meeting, be sure to tell them that you have something important to say to them. Let the invite have some form of urgency.
7. Begin the Conversation Politely
To break up with someone politely, don’t just get right into the conversation. Don’t just say: “Hey, I want you to break up with you.” No.
Look them in the eye when they sit beside you and say the usual greetings. Then ask how they are doing. If possible, strike a conversation.
Talk about your day. Tell them you like the clothes they are putting on.
Talk about anything that seems fun. They are no rules. The goal is to make them less anxious so that they can take this in properly. They will blow if they are very anxious. And trust me, you just don’t want that.
Read: 8 Ways to Get Out of a Toxic Relationship For Good
8. Say it; Give Reasons
Now, you are to get right to it. If you have been talking, you can take a necessary pause. Inhale. Exhale. Now, say it to them. You don’t have to be mushy about it.
You can say it nicely, with a somber voice, or you can say it just the way it is. Just be sure you don’t sound mean. Sound polite.
I like people to be firm when announcing a breakup because it makes the other party acknowledge that there is no longer room for bargaining. If you sound too nice, I actually mean romantic; the other party might think you don’t really mean it.
Tell them exactly what you are breaking up with them for. Tell them you have made up their mind, and it will do them a lot of good if they don’t try to talk you out of your decision.
Being this firm might feel like a bad thing to do, but it is the best thing for both you and the party you are breaking up with.
Read: 10 Relationship Mistakes Women Make Now According to Relationship Experts
9. Give Them Closure
Many times, the person being broken up with will demand some kind of closure. I believe they deserve closure, so you should give it to them. A Study published in 2017 shows that following a breakup, people who gain closure and understand why a relationship is ending may experience less mental distress.
Sit there, and answer all their questions.
Answer each one in detail, and try to make them see that you understand how they feel. If you are breaking up with them on the grounds of infidelity, for example, let them see that as much as their actions hurt you, you don’t judge them for it.
Let them see that you understand that people make mistakes. Politely make it clear that you are leaving because they crossed boundaries, not because they are messy people.
Be polite to tell them that even good people cross boundaries. It doesn’t make them evil.
Advise them to move on—it is good practice to say that they have a great life ahead of them and would enjoy it if they don’t blame themselves.
10. Move On
Now, move on. Be polite to yourself. Just move on. You have said all you had to say to them. Don’t explain things further if it isn’t fine with you.
That is to say; you can go without taking their calls if it threatens your decision to leave them. Go no contact, and heal.
Photo by RODNAE Productions
