Six Steps to Breaking up Well

Only the truly cruel, player types actually enjoy breaking up with someone. For most of us, breaking up is hard to do. While it is hard (and yes, this is an understatement) for the person who has been told the relationship has ended, the person doing the breaking up often experiences some heartache as well. Even when we move on from a relationship because we know it is not for the best, we often still care in our hearts for the person we are leaving behind. Breaking up is hard to do.

So how do you break up with someone?  Here are six steps to breaking up well:

1. First and foremost, do not make a hasty decision.Arguments happen. Don’t assume that after your first fight that you need to break up. If you continue to fight and argue as a way of life, and there seems to be no resolutions, it is probably a good idea to consider your relationship to see if breaking up is best for you both.Pray and ask the Lord to reveal if you should break up with the person (hopefully, you prayed and asked if you should have entered the relationship in the first place). Get some wise counsel from people twenty years older than you whom you respect. Once you’ve decided to end the relationship, move on to the next step.
2. Make it a clean break.When you do break up with someone, be ready for a true, complete break. It is not fair to say that you want to break up, but then begin to miss them and go back on your decision. This leaves you with the upper hand and him or her with the awkward position of wondering if and when you are going to come back and break his or her heart again. Don’t be double minded. A clear, clean cut will definitely hurt, but it will heal faster than going back and forth and playing mind games. Those wounds take years to heal and the psychological damage can last even longer.If in the future, you are led back together by the Holy Spirit, then that is fine; however, do so very cautiously. Studies have shown that couples who cycle between getting together and breaking up multiple times have a significantly higher divorce rate. For the time being, break up and mean it.
3. Be honorable in the break up. Remember when breaking up that you are breaking up with a brother or sister in Christ (assuming the person is a believer). When breaking up with the person, you need to treat him or her as a joint heir with Christ, not a villain, no matter the reason you are leaving the relationship. Hurt feelings can give us the idea that we are entitled to hurt and humiliate someone we’ve dated, but God said that vengeance is His (Romans 12:19). Also remember that unjust anger (and this is justice to His standards, not yours) is unrighteous in His sight (Matthew 5:22).
4. Don’t patronize the other person.The temptation for some people is to try to lessen the pain by pointing out the other person’s good qualities. Statements like, “You are wonderful and you are going to make some other girl (or guy) so happy,” do not help. In fact, they often rub salt in the wound. Be honest with them, but don’t over dramatize the moment in an attempt to keep them from hating you or to lessen their pain.Instead, give honest reasons why you don’t see your relationship working out in the long-run. It may be separate life goals, temperament mismatches, immaturity, just not the right time, etc. Respect the other person enough to give an honest answer. Do not break up through a friend, e-mail, or the phone (unless it is a long-distance relationship). Make it as personable as possible.

   {Eric’s addition: Men, one other thing… in the reasons that you give, do not put down her physical appearance (and if you’re doing the breaking up, there should be more reasons than that from which to draw). God has made women to highly prize their appearance (as well as men to be attracted to that appearance). It will crush a woman’s self-esteem and self-worth to be dejected in this manner. Even if you are breaking up with her – or she is breaking up with you – men, do not insult her appearance; she is still a sister in Christ. In the same vein, women, do not insult his strength and ability. Just as women prize their beauty (as they should), men highly value their strength and competence (to which women are attracted).}

5. After breaking up with someone, respect the person enough to leave him or her alone – don’t try to be “just friends.”Don’t expect him to pick up the phone and have long conversations with you or for her to still want to hang out with you. If your ex was a good friend, it will be difficult to give up that friendship. However, it is selfish to try to keep the relationship alive for your sake, but with no intentions of reciprocating romantic feelings.Trying to be “just friends” does not work directly following a break up. As well, it usually doesn’t work well at any time after a break up, but especially not right after the breakup. No matter how strong someone seems, trying to back track from love to friendship is a losing battle. Usually one person, if not both people, involved will end up in more pain by holding on than if the relationship just ended.

   There were several occasions I tried to be just friends with a former boyfriend and it caused much more pain in the long-run. After all, the trust was already broken, so trusting them as a friend – or him trusting me as a friend, depending on who initiated the break up – was next to impossible.

6. Continue to pray for your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend. Ask God to bless them, to heal them, and to send the right person into their life if it be in His will to do so. This won’t necessarily be easy, but it is the right thing to do – after all, he or she is still your brother or sister in Christ.You cannot heal the hurt the break up caused the other party, but you can go to God on his or her behalf and plead for His grace and peace on his or her life.  After that, don’t interfere in their healing journey, unless it is clear that they are involved in self-destructive activities. Even then, it is best to place their care in the hands of a neutral party. Continue to give that person room to breathe and pray for God to do the healing.

Break ups are painful. God’s active healing hand and time are really the only effective medicines that can heal the heart. If you need to break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, follow the steps above to make the break up as easy as possible.

Because breaking up is so painful to do, be careful with whom you enter into a relationship. Observe the person for a while if you do not know him or her very well. Get wise counsel from others you respect and see if you two may be a good match.

Often, two people of the same church end up breaking up. It is not necessary for one or both to leave the church (though, sadly, many do). There are things you can do to keep your church family, even after a break up. Check out How to Handle Being Around Your Ex.

Can you think of an example of a break up done well – one you would like to emulate if you are ever in that situation?