The Breakup Process
Break Up or Stay Together?
Bad break ups our listeners have had
The build up: should we break up? reasons to break up, when do break up
The break up: how to break up with someone
The aftermath: why break ups hurt, healing after break up, getting over a break up
Break ups hurt :( but staying together can hurt more
We hear time and time again that in every relationship you either get married or break up. That is to say: most of our relationships will ultimately end, and so through another break up we must go.
This week, inspired by Honey's real life events!! (i.e. she recently went through a break up), we sit down and discuss the whole breakup process. In our segment we asked you to tell us about your worst breakups, or any general stories you have of times that you have been broke up with or have broken up with someone. Someone was genuinely followed by their ex to university, whilst someone else simply boils it down to 'right person, wrong time'. Ultimately, all break ups hurt, or suck in some kind of way.
We start talking about the build up to the break up; the beginning of the end. We ask how you can know when to leave the relationship, such as when the reasons to break up start showing, and we discuss whether in previous breakups we saw any warning signs. In some cases, we can feel really blindsided, perhaps we are broken up with and given no reasons, perhaps we just don't think that those reasons are good enough. As the person being broken up with, it is easy to feel blindsided as we can turn a blind eye sometimes to what are actually signs that the relationship isn't going well, or that our partner or even we are unhappy. We discuss both perspectives of the 'build up', for the person that is doing the breaking up, it is a very different, and sometimes equally painfully experience (which is often looked over).
We then move on to the actual breakup. Is there a good way to break up with someone? There's probably no perfect way to break up with someone, we can't give you a step by step guide or a 'breakup template', because every situation and person is different. However, having a conversation, or series of conversations, in which both people feel heard and understood seems like the ideal. Although, realistically breakups are messy, or over text, or FaceTime calls, it's impossible to have 'the perfect breakup'.
And finally, the aftermath, the heartbreak, and putting the pieces back together. We talk about how wanting to remain friends with an ex can be quite problematic, but completely understandable. But here's the thing: it's quite hard to move on from someone that you still talk to, or see all the time, and so Maria swears that she will definitely block her ex after her next breakup. It can feel so hard when someone that has become so engrained in your life, or your main point of contact, or in some ways your best friend, is not there anymore but we stress that it is more important to let them go, because you broke up for a reason. Honey tells us a little bit about her experience with a break up in a long distance relationship and how that has varied from her other relationships, and lets us know how she is dealing with it.
Your relationship ending doesn't mean you failed, or anyone failed, in any way. Not to sound too mushy, but every relationship has its purpose, and we learn from all our experiences, good and bad. We're here for you if you're going through it, we are too!