by Jamye Waxman
How to Break Up with Anyone
Copyright © 2015 Jamye Waxman
Seal Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
1700 Fourth Street
Berkeley, California
sealpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Waxman, Jamye.
How to break up with anyone: letting go of friends, family, and everyone in-between / Jamye Waxman.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-58005-598-7
1.Friendship. 2.Conflict management. 3.Self-actualization (Psychology)I. Title.
BF575.F66W389 2015
158.2--dc23
2015019613
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover design by Jason Ramirez
Interior design by Domini Dragoone
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West
To everyone I have ever been in a relationship with—then and now
CONTENTS
Introduction: A Break Up Book for Anyone
One: Non-Romantic Break Ups 101
Two: The Ins and Outs of Breaking Up
Three: Relationships Gone Bad
Four: Breaking Up Verses Taking a Break (Do You Need One?)
Five: Best Friends Forever No More
Six: Breaking Up with Family
Seven: Kissing Community Goodbye
Eight: Breaking Up With Your Sexuality or Gender
Nine: Breaking Up With Your Career
Ten: Breaking Up With Anyone Else
Eleven: Being Broken Up With: The Other Side of the Same Coin
Twelve: Navigating the Aftermath
Notes
INTRODUCTION
A Break Up Book for Anyone
When’s the last time you counted how many relationships have ended in your life, and all the ways you let them go?
Odds are, you can’t actually count them all. That’s because relationships are like orgasms: sometimes they sneak up on you and then suddenly disappear, and other times they last a whole lot longer than that. But when you think about it, no orgasm or relationship lasts forever (spoiler alert: we all die); it’s just that some relationships, like orgasms, end sooner than others. The long and the short of it is that you hope to have many of both in your life, which makes it harder to remember them all and easier to remember the best, or the worst ones.
For me, it was only as I began to write this book that I honestly began to explore my own breakups in detail. And, when I reflected back on my past relationships, I realized that I had no idea that many more of them had ended by choice instead of by chance (meaning they were lost in the shuffle of life).
I’ve done a lot of breaking up. We all have. Whether or not we realize it, this is a common experience. People do just walk in—and out—of our lives. Sometimes they leave with a whimper, and other times it’s a lot bigger of a production.
The premise for this book came to me some years ago, after I had gone through a really difficult endship (a term I use for the ending of a close friendship). As I sat there feeling sorry for myself and for my loss (Or was it her loss?), I pondered the resources that were available to help me move on. After all, if I could no longer turn to the very friend I was losing, then I needed to find other outlets for my disenfranchised grief.
Sure, there were other people to turn to, but a lot of them were mutual friends who didn’t want to be put in the middle (nor should they). Other people didn’t understand why ending this friendship was such a big deal. And those who did understand only had limited time, or energy, to deal with a woman mourning the loss of a bestie.
So, I began looking around for other resources. I found that there were a lot of break up books for lost love of the sexy-time kind, but there was nothing out there for a girl who had lost another kind of love—one that was supposed to be guaranteed, like an everlasting gobstopper, to go on and on. It was then that I had this idea that a book about the subject could have helped me feel less alone. Not that a book would always make me feel better or be able to hug the hurt away, but that it could make me understand that this process is something we all process.
We may all do it a little differently, but there are general rules that can help guarantee a smoother and happier ending. And even though we don’t all break up, or get over a break up, in the same way, the experience can be similar. That’s because there aren’t 101 ways to break up, even though there are a myriad of twists on one of the ways you can do it (face-to-face, over the phone/via text, in writing, through a mediator, or by disappearing).
Writing this book also reminded me that there are surefire ways to feel satisfied with a break up. Especially when you have the confidence to be secure, and the ability to stay consistent, in your decision. On top of that, it’s important to get clear with your reasons and keep the break up conversation as short and sweet as possible.
Research proves that the gold standard in ending a relationship is face-to-face, and a face-to-face ending provides more personal satisfaction and feelings of closure. I’ve also talked with people who have ended relationships other ways, for example with parents over an email, by being kicked out of a cult, or with business partners via a text. It’s not ideal, but sometimes the ideal situation adds a whole layer of stress that nobody can, or wants to, deal with.
The last two chapters of this book focus on closure and forgiveness. I, along with spiritual advisors and religious leaders, discuss the concept of forgiveness. Yes, it’s a complicated word, and an emotional topic. One that can seriously shake the foundation of what you believe when it comes to choosing to forgive someone you’d rather forget.
I have since used this information to have happier and healthier break ups in my own life. I hope my words help empower you to make the choices that work best for you and to speak your mind when things aren’t working for you any longer. And whether it’s a break up or a break out, I hope this book helps you break free too.
—Jamye Waxman
Santa Cruz Mountains, 2015
ONE
Non-Romantic Break Ups 101
All sorts of relationships have expiration dates, not just romantic ones. Breaking up isn’t always about falling out of love or deciding that this person isn’t “the one.” Especially since being “the one” and falling in love aren’t options in all types of relationships in the first place.
Once it’s decided that a relationship with your mother, brother, best friend, cousin, gender identity, church, temple, cult, boss, business partner, acting coach, dentist, trainer, or even your own leg (or any other entity) is not working out, so begins the process known as breaking up.
There are lots of reasons people in non-romantic relationships break up. Sometimes they end because you’re not happy or fulfilled. Sometimes they end because being around a certain person makes you go numb. Sometimes you just can’t do it anymore, or you don’t want to.
You already know the reasons people usually have for breaking up. But when the relationship doesn’t involve romantic feelings, it can be way more difficult to explain the break up to anyone—including yourself. Especially when you’re still trying to justify your reasons for ending a relationship internally (For example, why did you finally get up the eggs to end the relationship with your sister?), or to explain the break up to other people (How do you tell your mother that you’re not talking to your sister any longer?). Most p
eople don’t expect you to break up with someone you’re not getting horizontal with.
It’s also difficult because you’re about to end a non-romantic relationship in a world that values new beginnings, or at least multiple second chances. We live in a society happy to “never say goodbye” or, if we have to say goodbye, then we hope to say, “Hello, again,” someday. When we refuse to fistpump to the theme song of “Everything is AWESOME!” we may find it takes a lot of convincing (both of ourselves and others) to go with our gut. Still, sticking to our gut is essential, because break ups, while not popular by choice, play an important role in our ability to choose how we live our lives.
The good news is, people are starting to talk openly about their own experiences around non-romantic break ups. Take, for example, the Boston Marathon runner who wrote a break up letter to her amputated leg.1 Using humor to offset a pretty sucky situation, she showed us that we could laugh about some of the things we have to let go of. Then there was the Philadelphia sex educator who wrote an article about breaking up with her dermatologist.2 Her letter revealed that sometimes it’s not a person but technology that gets in the way. No matter who or what we’re breaking up with, we learn there are many other people who have broken up before us.
What Does Breaking Up Mean?
Before we get into the intricacies around breaking up, let’s define the actual term. When you think of breaking up, what comes to mind? Is it having to split up various “assets,” including friends and family? Or deleting a phone number from your cell? Does it involve blocking someone on your favorite social media site, or pretending the person never existed? What about voodoo dolls and magic potions—are those a part of breaking up for you?
TERMS FOR BREAKING UP
Kissing off
Letting go
Disconnecting
The end
New beginnings
Unsticking
Separating
Splitting up
Cutting off
Coming undone
Pulling apart
Going our separate ways
A rupture in the force
Disbanding
Parting company
The definition of breaking up varies, just as the acts around breaking up do. It gets particularly cloudy when the relationship involves breaking up with more than one person or thing, or when it’s one person breaking up with their own gender or orientation. In the simplest terms, breaking up is the ending of a relationship.
A positive way of looking at a break up is as an ending that allows you to begin again. Whether it’s ending a once-valued relationship that no longer holds the same value or a relationship that’s causing you pain, it is the process of letting go. It’s a shift in how we think about the boundaries of our relationship, and it’s the permission we need to change a relationship that isn’t working for us anymore.
Breaking up isn’t only the definition of splitting up, it’s also a plan put into action. It involves making choices and changes so you can take care of yourself and move forward in your life. It involves learning to build your own invisible fence so that you can protect yourself and set clear boundaries. This figurative “fence” ultimately gives you more freedom and space to move around as you wish.
Breaking up is about taking matters into your own hands and doing what you need to do to feel the best you can feel in a given situation. Ending a relationship forces you to learn to let go, and it teaches you to trust your gut. Once the relationship is dissolved, you can applaud yourself for having the courage to ask for what you want and the confidence to believe you deserve to get it.
Still, breaking up is not a walk in the park. It can take the same emotional toll as deciding to put your pet to sleep. While it’s generally a tough decision, there’s often a good reason to do it. Often, breaking up can feel scary, and not just because you’re removing the bad to make room for more good. It can be scary because change is unpredictable. But change is one of the only constants in life (the others are death and taxes). Like those constants, especially when it comes to breaking up with someone who’s breaking us down, we can evade it for a while, but we can’t actually avoid it.
Non-Romantic Break Ups Feel Taboo
The first relationships we think of when we hear that someone has just gone through a break up are usually romantic, and generally include going through a divorce, separation, and division of assets and custody. We assume it’s about a lover, spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, a once-beloved snugglepuss, cuddle bunny, babe, or honey. This connotation makes breaking up with anyone else—a friend, family member, therapist, or business partner—feel like a dirty little secret, like it’s not supposed to happen and if it does then you’ve done something wrong. But what if you’ve actually done something right?
When you think about how often breaking up is referred to in research and in media, you’ll find that it almost always involves a “failed” romance. And because break ups have only been talked about in terms of romantic relationships for so long, it can feel like any other type of relationship can’t or shouldn’t be “broken.” It also feels like these non-romantic types of relationships aren’t supposed to get to a place where we need to make the ending “official.”
Most non-romantic relationships are supposed to come easily, even naturally, or we get out of them easily and naturally. If we have to break up with someone who we aren’t swapping spit with, we may beat ourselves up for not making it work. We may think we’re being selfish because a “true” friend is supposed to be selfless. And because they aren’t penetrating our orifices, we sometimes fear how the situation will look to those looking in.
FROM FREEDOM TO FAILURE
I asked my “friends” on Facebook to share their thoughts throughout the book. Here they share their own definitions of breaking up. Here’s what breaking up means to them:
“‘Breaking up’ usually means ‘goodbye.’”
“Divestment.”
“Anything from rejection to feeling insecure, denial, and fearful. Depending on the specifics of the relationship.”
“An ending to something foundational, clearly. A monumental change that cannot be denied.”
“Freedom.”
“Usually one person feels absolutely sick while the other feels hideous guilt. Rarely is it mutual . . . and even when it is it’s still usually horribly painful.”
“Strike three.”
“It’s a mixed bag of feelings, including relief, unrealness and disassociation. It’s also a sense of self-care, self-preservation, and self-determination.”
“Giving up.”
“Break ups should be a mutual decision to end a relationship because it is no longer mutually acceptable. They don’t need to be angry, sad, or upsetting. We are adults. Getting dumped or dumping someone is not the same, it is not mutual and there are often really hard feelings there. Break ups are okay, dumping/being dumped sucks . . . both are necessary.”
“Growth.”
“Dissolving a partnership. Can apply to a romantic relationship or marriage. Can also apply to business relationship. Not always sad! Can be very positive. People grow and move in different directions. Life is change.”
“Failure.”
“That fine line between freedom and pain.”
“It is the realization of our ultimate fear, that of being alone (or unlovable). There is a hopeless and helpless feeling that goes along with the realization.”
“It depends on how I feel about the person. It can either mean heartbroken or sweet, sweet freedom.”
“It’s the loss of all the dreams and ‘plans’ you had when you were with that person. Not always the loss of the person, but the loss of the ‘idea’ of who you were in relation to that person.”
“Neil Sedaka.”
That’s because when we begin these relationships, we don’t think that they will end. When we first start dating someone, we wonder if it will last, or if that person is the one. We check in with ou
rselves and gauge our level of interest as things progress. We don’t usually begin these “other” relationships by Google stalking or getting drawn into the lives of our non-romantic buddies. We don’t obsessively text, call, and refresh for new updates from them on Facebook. So, when these non-romantic relationships are working, we don’t think about a possible expiration date. But when they don’t work, things can get uncomfortable. And because we don’t wonder if we’re always on their mind—it feels a little awkward when we have to intentionally get them off our minds too.
It’s different when a relationship is romantic. Then, we meet someone and (hopefully) slowly introduce them into our world. They, in turn, bring us into their world. Meeting their friends and family is a big deal because they are their friends and family—not ours.
During the time we date them, our worlds begin to collide and, if the relationship lasts long enough, some of their friends become our friends too, and vice versa. When it’s over, the people we weren’t friends with aren’t around anymore, and those we did become friends with can (hopefully) easily separate us from our ex. After all, we came from different worlds in the beginning, and we go back to different places in the end. So, we can feel free to share our break up with our social circle—the social circle we had before our ex-boyfriend or girlfriend ever came into the picture.
However, you may share a social circle with the person you’re breaking up with in a non-romantic relationship. That makes both ending the relationship and talking about how you feel about it being over a really challenging experience. When your best friend becomes your business partner and then the two of you break up, or you stop talking to your mother but remain close with your sister, the whole removal process gets messy.
Because non-romantic break ups are way less talked about, you may not know where to turn to talk about what’s happening, especially when it’s not just “someone.” It may be your family member, a business partner, or a best friend. But a break up with a community, career, or a religion can feel really isolating too. So can a break up with your former self.
