How To Break Up With Someone You Love Without Hurting Them?

If you’ve ever wondered how to break up with someone you love, this article is for you.

Love is a strange an overwhelming emotion. It often sneaks up on us when we least expect it. The power it holds is unlike anything we have ever experienced. We will turn our backs on friends, family and even ourselves to be with someone we love.

There are different levels of love that we will experience throughout life. When we are young, we might have crushes on someone so intense that we will cry at night and beg the Heavens to steer them our way. We would give anything for them to feel the same way about us as we do about them.

Then there are those who really like us, but we just aren’t into them. Or we find someone we date for a while through school and maybe even fall in love.

Then when summer rolls around and they go off to do their thing and/or you yours, the feelings change and breakups happen. Some date all the way through high school and do not hit rough patches until one or both leaves for college.

A lot of times these are just love’s growing pains that we all must go through in life. For some, they were nothing more than our being used to being together. More like a habit than real love. There are those who remain together for decades and even forever, but those schoolhouse love affairs rarely last.

It doesn’t mean that breaking up is any easier. It hurts no matter how much or little actual love was involved. It is pretty much like this as we grow older as well. Only as adults, there is often more time available to spend together, so the habits are harder to break.

There is also a lot more at stake when we are falling in or out of love as adults. It means more to us. We typically do not live with our parents or have friends occupying most of our time.

After you been with someone for a while you can easily get lonely and depressed without them around. Once again, even after overcoming the heartache, it is often the mental habit that we withdraw from the longest.

How To Break Up With Someone You Love

Whether it is real love or just a habit that you might confuse for love, having someone breakup with you hurts. There is an emotional tear across your heart that feels like it could never heal. At the same time you feel rejected and like it was something that was wrong with you, or something you did that led to the breakup.

Yes, having someone who you love and care about tell you that they no longer wish to be with you, had rather be with someone else and they hope you understand are all the absolute worst feelings in the world!

So, after knowing just how hard it is to hear yourself; how on earth could you ever do it yourself? To be the one that is doing the breaking up?

How can you break up with someone – even though you wish you didn’t have to? It isn’t like you can simply leave for cigarettes and never return! Though some have done just that. Nor can you just leave a note saying “goodbye.” Yet again, many have done just that.

Breaking up with someone takes courage but it also requires a bit of tact as well. To just bounce out the door and never return is wrong and those who do this are jerks! Leaving notes, text message breakups and Facebook post breakups are all distasteful, cowardly and cruel!

I can assure you of one thing. If that is your idea of a breakup, then you will one day feel the same fool you made them feel like. Karma is looking every day for jerks like that to deal with. Don’t be that jerk!

So with that being said: How do you break up with someone in a way that doesn’t make you look like a jerk, them look like a fool, as easy on their heart as you can be but still get your point across and make it final? One of the most important things is if you are going to breakup with someone, plan it out in advance and pick the right time and place.

The last thing you want to do is breakup with someone at a time and place that leaves them with no out, or feeling like crap at the wrong time.

So avoid breaking up at funerals (duh), weddings, office parties, at a club, birthday party, your parent’s house, while on a vacation and would have to travel hours together home, or on your way to work when the other person would have to go all day without a chance at a decent explanation.

Timing is crucial and can often make a breakup go considerably smoother than you thought, or horribly wrong if you chose the wrong time and place. Do not breakup while visiting your friends and they might already be uncomfortable.

Before it gets started

At some point we have all been there. A friend fixes you up with someone they know because they think “You two are going to hit it off.” You go out on a date and although they seem nice enough, they just are not exactly what you are looking for. The date went well but you are personally not interested in another.

Or perhaps you want to give them another chance and do go out again. Yet still, it just doesn’t seem like it would ever really work out between you two. You go home with the notion that you will not accept any more invitations for another date.

However, the next day or later in the week you see a text message on your phone or a missed call from the person asking you to “txt bk,” or “Call me.” You already know in your heart that you are not going back out with this person again. So do you just not answer them, text back or return their call?

True, some people do go this route and hope the person gets the hint and stops calling or texting… eventually. You get the point across without having to actually tell them you are not interested and avoid breaking their heart – right? Wrong!

When you text or call someone and they do not return your calls or text back it quite often not only hurts but it also pisses you off a bit. You know their phone is working. So the only real point that is getting across to you is that this person is ignoring you completely and is obviously a class A jerk!

That isn’t how you really want to be viewed by people is it? You do not want someone going around telling everyone you are a jerk that is too big of a coward to just say what you mean.

Instead, you should hope that people think highly of you and even if it didn’t work out between you, at least they can say you were honest and up front with them.

So yes, you should return their call or text them back explaining you will call or see them as soon as you have the time. Do not just leave them hanging or wondering what is going on.

Now this doesn’t mean you should send them a text saying how you feel. Although texting and instant messaging is now an acceptable form of communication, it is still better for your image and their respect for you to do it in person or at least over the phone in a voice call.

When you talk to them, be honest and up front but in a nice and tactful way. Simply explain to them that you are looking for a certain kind of person to enter a relationship with. While they would be perfect under other circumstances and you enjoyed being with them, you just do not think it is the right time or fit at the moment.

Tell them you really feel like you shouldn’t stretch this out any further and wish to end it now before any attachments are formed and someone gets their heart broke even worse later.

You do not have to be ugly or hurtful. Just truthful and to the point. It is a lot easier to end a new relationship at the beginning, when you realize it isn’t going to work, rather than string it along in hopes it gets better or to avoid hurting someone.

After Dating for a While

If you have been going out with someone for a month or so, then it is possible that you are actually in a dating relationship and might not realize it. You might see it has just having fun but the other person might see it differently. So be careful about the signals you send out to people you are just hanging out with and “having fun.”

Now if you been dating a couple of months and even staying over at one another’s place from time to time, then you are wise enough to know that you are in a relationship. The level has risen slightly and when you feel it has run its course and you should proceed any further, then the only real nice and respectable way to breakup is in person.

Over the phone will not cut it for a relationship that has been going on for more than a few dates. Don’t just gather up your things and bolt! Tell them you have something to talk about and do it in private.

Again, simply explain to them that you have enjoyed you moments together and really like the person, but that you feel like it is getting too serious and think it is time the two of you go on your separate ways.

You don’t have to make a list of all the annoying things they do that gets under your skin. Honesty is by far the best. Just not too honest that it hurts their feelings.

You might want to think about the reasons you want to end it. Imagine if there were several other people in the room and they listened to you explain why you want to break up with this person.

Would they understand your reasons? Or would you look like the biggest idiot, selfish jerk on the planet? If the answer is selfish jerk, then you might want to think of another, more respectable reason that actually makes sense without you looking like the fool here.

A good idea here is to get one of your closest friends or siblings to pretend they are the person you are going to break up with. Sit them down and pretend to breakup with them. Try a few different tactics and your reasoning and see how it really sounds out loud. Practice it and be sure this is the route you choose to go.

If the reasons are serious, such as drug use, alcohol abuse, their cheating on you or never locking down a commitment, then these are all viable reasons and should be used without worry of your being seen as the bad person. The main thing is to not let it go on for another minute once you realize this relationship isn’t for you.

Odds are that it will not only rarely get better, but it often gets even worse as time goes by and the other person realizes you will stay through anything. Then you become a door mat and can look forward to a miserable relationship.

You also want to be as civil as possible when breaking up. By this we mean try to keep all the emotions at a minimum. Avoid being too excited and happy about getting it over with.

You also don’t want to be crying and appearing as though you are being forced to breakup. This could send the wrong message and make the person think they might still have a chance.

Try to be somber and serious. You want them to understand that your breaking up with them is something that has to be done in order for either of you to ever be happy. While you really wish you didn’t have to break their heart or hurt their feelings, it is something that must happen and it is best that you do it now before it gets any more serious than it already is.

Don’t become hostile or react to something that makes you unload on the person. You will find that sometimes you run across people that simply do not handle breakups very well. They might cry, scream or even yell curse words while ranting and raving.

Just because they get overly emotional or become hostile, doesn’t mean you have to be as well. Try as hard as you can to remain calm and don’t react to their emotions. If it becomes far too intense and you feel threatened, then you should indeed leave or call someone.

A lot of times people do not really understand the signals they send out during dating. Often, our own words and actions make others believe it is more serious than we really want it to be.

Saying things like “I love you,” even when you don’t is always going to lead the person to believe you love them because this is what you led them to believe.

You also want to be decisive as well. The worst thing you could ever do is use a person’s feelings toward you as a safety net. Don’t just breakup with them because you want to go out with someone else, then after that doesn’t work, call the other person and ask them on another date. This is so very wrong.

If you have the courage to officially breakup with someone and risk hurting their feelings, then you sure as heck shouldn’t take it upon yourself to start it up again.

True, we all make these mistakes when we think someone isn’t right for us, breakup, then after thinking about it, wish we hadn’t. This is why if you plan on breaking up with someone, think long and hard about the reasons why before you do it.

It could be you are just having a bad day, or your emotions are running away with you and you are getting scared. It is possible that the problem isn’t really so much the other person as it is YOU.

Another thing that could screw you up in the long run is breaking up too many times.

If you become good at breaking up and start dating someone, realize you don’t like them, breakup and begin a pattern of this, you might have, or develop, your own commitment issues over time. This too is not a good thing.

You might find yourself starting or entering into relationships and actually looking for a reason to end them. If breaking up becomes too easy for you, then you might find yourself constantly breaking up and never finding exactly “what it is you are looking for.”

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my article about how to break up with someone you love. I sincerely hope its contents have been a good help to you.