"reasons" for breakups

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Can I ask something to the people who think there has to be a reason?

Has the reason given to you when you’ve gotten one ever been sufficient? Has it ever made it hurt less or lessened the amount of time it took to move on.

'Cause I was handed the granddaddy of “oh, thank god he is leaving me and I won’t be burdened with this nutcase” excuses and it didn’t help - at least not initially. In the end, it makes a funny story and makes me glad I’m not with him anymore - but if that is the goal, the best way to break up with someone is to do something unforgivable and make them want to get rid of you. And that is passive aggressive shit.

102

Well… that’s really not the point, is it?

Most of the time, people who break it up with a shallow line (I’ve only been in that position once, thank Og!) don’t care about reasons at all.

On the other hand, when you ARE in that position, the problem is it’s usually coming out of left field. Or, even if you unconsciously know the situation, you are repressing it in a bad way. No explanation will suffice, because you’re simply not ready to receive it.

However, the explanation itself may not fall on deaf ears. There may be much whining, complaining and rending of clothes. But at least there will be reasons for the sudden change. And maybe those reasons will change in the recipients minds, over time. But still, they will have some substance.

Will they lessen the wound? Will they shorten the time it takes to heal? I’d hope so. But it depends on the relationship, on the delivery, on many factors. Still, that cannot be the focus of the break-up-er. In this case, at least, his/her main goal should be to be truthful, both to him/herself and to her/his partner.

It’s the least both deserve.

103

I wish I were a boy so I could break up with you, too.

104

This whole thread is kind of scary because it points right at a big, nightmarish fear of mine, and maybe other people’s-- that someone you think you really love is just… going to stop loving you. You won’t know why, they won’t ever really tell you why. That person is already gone, but you have all that work ahead of you of figuring it out for yourself. Ultimately, you will get some sort of answer, which may or may not be related to the reason the other person had. You might not ever be satisfied with it, though you will accept it, because what the hell else are you supposed to do? Become a stalker? Kill yourself?

What it comes down to is-- “I don’t love you.” It’s frightening as hell. There isn’t always a reason that makes emotional sense. You feel betrayed, confused, and it hurts like hell. The other person, who was formerly a source of comfort, can’t comfort you anymore. You’re so screwed.

What I usually do is get pissed off and find a way to be glad it’s over. I mean, after all, if he doesn’t love me, and he broke my heart, he must be doing me a favor by leaving, right? Right? Bastard. Too bad he still owes me money. Or what have you.

I hope I never have to go through this again, btw.

105

But the truth is “I don’t want to be with you any more.” Anything else is rationalizing. Honestly, if you really deeply love someone, do you breakup because they don’t like Mexican food? Does their being a smoker suddenly become unacceptable, when you’ve put up with it for three months. Suddenly, the person you’ve been monogomous with doesn’t look nearly as good as the guy in the leather jacket at the bar? Twix put up with bad sex for THREE YEARS trying to fix it. The only thing meaningful is “I don’t want to continue to be with you.”

Moreover, what is unacceptable to someone else is perfect for the next person, who doesn’t care a whit about Mexican food. Who thinks that “Mr. Lousy Lay” is the best thing in bed they’ve ever had.

106

The best break up I had was with my school boyfriend. We had been going out for about 3 years, he was a few years older than me so was at university. Basically, he told me the truth, which boiled down to “when we were at school I was a geek, and you were the only girl who wanted to sleep with me. Now I am at Oxford, lots of girls like geeks, and I want to screw as many of them as possible”. Hurt like hell at the time, but I appreciated the honesty, and we are still close friends.

Worst line ever: “I’m not sure if I am gay”. Well why are you sleeping with people of the same gender then? :rolleyes:
Obvious translation : “Of course I am gay, just not for you (see post about rather fucking mud)”.

107

My first girlfriend ended after 3 years with:
“Well, I’m not into swinging, and I don’t want you to be the only guy I ever sleep with and I’d have to cheat on you, so I’m going to break up with you instead.”

I gotta say I was crushed at the time. The new girlfriend is much better anyway.

108

I hope so, too.

For you, that is. Me, I KNOW I’m going through this shitstorm a few dozen more times. (Your guy seemed nice at the Dopefest this summer, five hours with your assorted nutjob-pals and he didn’t say jackshit, gotta be a decent guy.) And again you’ve nailed what’s terrifying about breakups–the out-of-nowhere terror that turns your whole life upside down for a few weeks (if you’re lucky.)

Now, am I serially clueless not to know what’s happening, since this seems to happen to me at appallingly frequent intervals? Well, I know how challenging I am, what with my frequent retreats into the studio to work with the phone off the hook, and my pots of undrinkably strong espresso, and the whole unshaven-geek appearance thing, so I shouldn’t be surprised, except that I get a lot of “Nooooo, I love the way your cute face looks with all that hair growing out of it, and the coffee? Divine…” etc until the shitstorm starts.

But there’s shitstorms and there’s shitstorms.

One gf who I had a fairly pleasant breakup with asked me if I wanted to have (more) kids, and I said “I dunno, maybe” and she said No, she meant like this year. I said, No. She said, Well,I kinda do, and she left me and married another guy (with whom she hasn’t had kids in over five years, but that’s another story) but I dodged a bullet there. No real complaints, wouldn’t you agree? She was very nice and all, but I don’t see myself supporting another household full of kids at this point in my life so I’m well out of it. It doesn’t have to hurt too much.

But when you get told “I just don’t love you” and you thought he/she did love you, that is bad. And though it’s futile, that’s why I keep insisting you have a responsibility to talk it through for longer than you probably enjoy (which for most people would be a nano-second). Look at it like this: You’re getting what you want–OUT. The very least you can do would be to give him/her a tiny bit of what he/she wants, to have the blow cushioned a bit. So, try.

109

This is where I have issues with you. Sure, superficial crap like Mexican food is rationalizng. But you seem to think there aren’t real reasons deep down, if you look for them, and I believe there almost always are. It make take real work to find out what they are, and it may not be pleasant, or reflect well on the dumper, but I think that’s why the dumper has a moral responsibility to see what issues he/she brought to the relationship that caused it to fail.

It may seem to boil down to “I don’t love you” or “I dont want to be with you any more” but that’s kind of tautological, kind of like explaining it by saying “But I want to break up with you.” Duh, I got that part, but what the hell is going on here? If your answer is, “Dunno, but I’m outta here,” well, in a way that IS comfort because you’re a heartless prick who’s so self-centered you can’t even see the heartache you’re choosing to cause as being in any part your responsibility.

110

My last girlfriend and I were together for three years. Six weeks prior to our breakup, we had what I thought was a wonderful conversation – we both told each other that we thought we would get married within the year.

Six weeks later, after a conversation that in retrospect was all about breaking up (but that I didn’t catch onto until it was too late), she said she wanted to break up with me. The answer (which was probably technically honest): She’d re-evaluated what she wanted out of life and out of a relationship, and our relationship wasn’t giving her what she needed. This gave me no wiggle room, as she’d put the blame on the relationship, not on me or on her. Though it might be true, it didn’t explain anything. The woman I thought I was going to be with forever gave an abstract, cerebral reason and walked out of my life.

I don’t have the words to describe how abruptly it ended. “I love you, I love you, I love you, good-bye.” I spent months trying to figure out what had happened, and what I might have done wrong. We talked by phone several times, and it never became clearer. I was the nicest, most non-judgmental, kindest guy she’d ever met. I was a “great catch” for someone else. She was going through changes. She made it explicitly clear from our first phone call after the breakup that it was final and irrevocable, but she could never actually point to anything that made sense. It was just great until it started not being so great, so she ended it. Given that we’d basically been engaged to be engaged, I think she owed me more of an explanation than that.

This seriously fucked me up for several years (and still counting), because love can just stop, even when there are no reasons for it.

111

" I want to run a fruitstand, and you are always worried about paying bills and stuff. I can’t deal with you trying to be my mother, just do your thing, you have a job, pay the bills and let me sit at home with my fruitstand."

Wow i look back now and wonder why i laughed instead of sluggin him

112

Rational version?:

“I’m determined to fuck up my fruitstand business, by ignoring my suppliers bills and stuff that, and you seem determined to pester me to keep the business afloat, which I don’t want, so I’m cutting you loose so I can fuck up my life a little faster.”

He’s going to run a fruitstand at home? How’s that work?

113

But when you are given reasons - they aren’t good enough. The guy who dumped me because my boobs were too little you think was shallow and never liked ME to start with. Not only do you feel that a person is obligated to give you a reason, you feel like you get to judge that reason and make fun of it - call it irrational, say it stems from a belief in God. You don’t GET to disrespect my feelings like that, even if I’m breaking up with you, therefore, if I think that’s what you are going to do, I have no obligation to give you a reason.

The good reasons for dumping someone - you slept with someone else, you hit me, you don’t treat me with respect.

Everything else is going to seem shallow - and/or is going to be met with “I can change.” And this isn’t a negotiation. Once again, negotiation disrespects the feelings of the person doing the breaking up.

114

You kidding with that? Sure, I get to disrespect your feelings–by breaking up with me (unless it’s fine with me) you’re disrespecting mine. If that means you have to sit for a little more of my obnoxious bullshit while I process it, then that’s what you need to do.

Sorry, them’s the rules.

115

Not everyone meets “insert shallow reason here” with “I can change.” I didn’t quit smoking for 2 more years. I still (and will always) hate Mexican food. I didn’t even try to negotiate. What I regret is that I never gave him a piece of my mind-because I was in a state of shock.
If we had had a more lengthy discussion, I would have had a chance to have my say. Would I have regretted losing my temper? Maybe-but as it stands now, I look back and wish I had stood up for myself. Missed ops.

Re the disrespecting of feelings–this is a time when disrespect cannot be avoided–by either party. The breaker doesn’t need to get into deeply hurtful things (nor does the breakee), but it often can’t be helped. Emotions run high. I am advocating that the dumper try to not cause more trauma to the dumpee than is neccessary. Shallow reasons are as hurtful as anything-more so because they show the contempt the dumper now has for the dumpee. And frankly, longterm the shallowness stays with a person-as evidenced by this thread.

They, those who just want to be shed of a relationship, are the instigators of this-surely they should have to deal with at least some fallout. You dont’ get to rip someonen’s heart to pieces and walk home free, without some of the explosion spattered on yourself.

116

What Dangerosa said.

Plus, let’s go back to “bad in bed” boy. Perhaps a better way of saying that was not that he was bad in bed, but that I didn’t want to have sex with him. My not wanting to have sex with him wasn’t about this act or another, or his willingness to do x, y, or z – it was about the fact that he was not tuned into sensation (his *or * mine) in the ways that lead to the kind of mutual responsiveness that I find pleasurable. Whether this was a matter of neurological wiring or what, I don’t know, but the fact of the matter he simply was not that way, and couldn’t become that way through practice or sheer force of will. We tried various things, and the bottom line was that I didn’t want to have sex with him.

What way could I present that fact to him that would be anything other than extremely damaging and hurtful, and that might lead him to do … whatever … differently in his next relationship? His best bet was to find someone who wanted to have sex with him, and who found pleasure in his kind of responsiveness – what could I possibly say about this that would help him do so?

117

“Ya know, this sex thing with us, Marvin? It’s not really working out for me, and I’ve tried, really I have, and I know you have too. But I need better sex, and I’m giving up on ever getting it from you–and maybe it’s more my fault than yours, I’ll have to look into that and find out if I’ve got some physical problem, or something psychological, or whether it’s just a quirky you-and-me thing. But it’s definitely unsatisfying to me, and because you’re such a dear person to me, I want to assure you that it’s probably not your fault at all, but I need to find out if I’ll ever have good sex again with someone else, so that means breaking up with you. I’m so sorry.”

118

IOW – it’s not you, it’s me.

Which is what I said at the time.

119

I’m “disrespecting your feelings” by breaking up with you?

Oh, thank God I’m married.

120

So the answer to “what could I possibly say about this that would help him do so?” was “You had the answer all along, my dear, just click your ruby slippers three times…”?

There’s a difference between Dangerosa’s “I don’ owe you no steekin’ reasons, Gringo” and my (and seemingly your) “Ya know, this sex thing with us, Marvin?” approach. Mine takes more time and effort, and places more responsibility square on the dumper, but I think that’s the way to go.