by Jamye Waxman
After the break up, give it a month, or three, before you even think about contacting them again. If you choose to reconvene, maybe approach the first meeting with a short list of what you need to move forward. A list of what you need to see happen in order to be able to stay in the relationship will help you focus on fixing things. If a trial separation or a clear list of needs don’t work, and you still can’t say goodbye, then you can always limit the amount of time you spend together.
Even spending limited time together may not be a perfect solution. No change or break up is super simple. But you’ll have more clarity after the break up. Find support and surround yourself with positivity in order to let go of the negative force(s) holding you back in your life. You can expect a fight until the end, so be prepared to fight with love and kindness if you can.
Ultimately, only you—and the recipient of your break up—know why your relationship is ending. You don’t have to tell everyone that it’s toxic. But if you’re feeling like a servant to the relationship, it’s time to become the master of your world.
Be your own Toxic Avenger.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE BROKEN UP
1.It takes two (or more) people to have an unhealthy relationship, so although you play an important role in the unraveling, the other person knows they need to own their role too.
2.Try to really listen to what is not working so you can work on ways to enjoy your other relationships more.
3.Don’t fight the break up. It may be the best way to change the relationship as it stands.
4.Ruminate on what it is that makes you act the way you act. Is your role comforting to you in some way?
5.Appreciate the opportunity to learn from the relationship and say thank you for the other person’s bravery and respect.
6.You will be okay too.
FOUR
Breaking Up Verses Taking a Break (Do You Need One?)
“Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave it broken than hurt yourself trying to put it back together.”
—UNKNOWN
Simply uttering the words “break up” can instill a lot of anxiety in a person. The routine of a relationship is comforting and familiar. It can feel better knowing you have this security blanket in your life than it might to get rid of a tattered rag. Plus, it’s stressful, complicated, and mind-boggling to end a relationship that you had once taken comfort in or were excited by.
It’s a lot to wrap your brain around, this idea that you are ending something that you may never have again or that you don’t ever want to have again. But by the time you get to breaking up, or taking a break, you should have already aired your frustrations, provided a simple list of deal breakers, and assessed what you can live with and what you’re willing to lose. You may have even given yourself a timeline for turnaround (with or without the other person’s knowledge), but things might not seem to be getting any better. Or you may have decided that you’re not done, but you need some time away in order to come back to a place of understanding and compassion with this person.
Sometimes we think a break will allow us to see things more clearly and make it easier to figure out the boundaries of the relationship, without going to the extremes of a break up. For those people who need it, a break can improve a broken relationship.
Is This a Break Up or Just a Break?
The clear difference between breaking up and taking a break is the timeframe. When you decide to break up, time is an infinite number. You’re not planning on speaking again in two weeks or even two years. There is no expectation of “getting back together” sooner or later, even if you really, really hope that you can reconcile. You start to figure out a life without the other person. If you’re leaving a business, you think about your next endeavor. If you’re leaving a community, you may think about going solo for a while or finding a group of people you feel more aligned with. If you’re breaking up with a best friend, you may delete pictures on social media and box up mementos from your time together. With a break up, you don’t set up a period of time that you will remain apart. It’s not even a possibility, because considering the possibility of time apart taints the break up. With a break up, you mourn the end of a relationship so that you can move on.
On the other hand, taking an intentional break involves setting a timeline for change. There is a spoken agreement that there is a chance, in the not-too-distant future, that this too shall pass. You don’t necessarily make plans to move on in the same way you would after a break up. With a break, there is a set amount of initial time apart, and then a designated date to discuss the state of the relationship as it was and as it will be.
Breaks happen for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps you can’t deal with the person or situation right now because too much is going on in your life. You want to be able to have a relationship with them, but you need to devote time to other things right now. When their neediness gets in the way of your needs, a break can be in order.
Sometimes initiating a break may be all you need to rejuvenate the relationship. It can be a reminder of how much you actually like a person and make you realize you forgot to appreciate them for a while. For example, you enjoy a particular gym class, but it’s just getting boring because it’s the same routine every week. So you take a break from that instructor, until the routine feels fresh again.
Or you take a break because you really don’t want to break up, but you can’t get out of a relationship rut. Perhaps you and your best friend have been arguing over her boyfriend for the past two years. Or maybe you and your mother know that you love each other a lot, but you need some space to get away from the same old song and dance. You take a break so you can distance yourself from the relationship long enough to return to it with a stronger sense of self.
Sometimes break ups become breaks, and breaks become break ups. Whether you opt for a break up or a break, you really can’t predict how it’s going to end or begin again—no matter how hard you try.
Not All Break Ups Are Forever
Even if you had every intention of staying broken up, break ups may become breaks due to forces beyond your control. Some relationships are brought back together through death, marriage, or other life changing events. I wanted to find a way to reconvene with my best friend after our break up about a boy. It was her cat’s congestive heart failure that finally brought us back together.
I’ve broken up with a few friends, and two “best” friends, over the course of my decades. In almost all instances, we spoke again at some point. In fact, in the case of my two best friends, I’m super tight with one of them (and now the terms of our relationship are more clearly defined), and I am intermittently in touch with the other. In the second instance, we reconnected almost a decade after we broke up at our ten-year high school reunion. The former felt like a break, but the latter was definitely a break up.
THE THREE R’S OF A BREAK UP
Before you decide you’re going to try to get back together, make sure you’ve revisited the Three R’s of a Break Up.
Reassess: Consider the relationship again. Is this something you want to revisit?
Reevaluate: Weigh the pros and cons of the relationship. What worked? What didn’t? Is it worth trying to work out the kinks?
Realign: Can you come together to find a middle ground?
Break or break up, I didn’t go into either of them knowing the outcome. In fact, they both felt like break ups at the time. Still, the one that turned into a break went down like this:
Elle was my former roommate and closest girl friend. She ended our relationship over a misunderstanding about a boy who would become my future ex-boyfriend. Only after I made out with him all night long (which was a mess in and of itself) did I find out that she actually liked him. (At the time, she was in another place making out with another boy.) Still, it quickly escalated into a bad situation.
Before I knew what was happening, Elle had literally written me off. She sent me an email that ended our friendship and
made me sound, and feel, like an awful human being. I couldn’t talk to her, not because I didn’t try, but because she wanted nothing to do with me. I withdrew into my own crazy world and lived life in a place of constant chaos for the better part of the next nine months.
When it ended, I didn’t know how to handle never being friends again. We had a lot of mutual friends, so seeing each other was unavoidable. On top of that, we had a vacation booked in the midst of all of this turmoil. Because it involved another friend, and we are both stubborn, we decided to take the vacation anyway. The three of us talked enough to get through the planning of the trip, and, eventually the trip itself. It was quite possibly the most non-relaxing tropical island vacation, after which we stopped speaking again. Elle also stopped showing up at mutual friends events if she knew I would be there.
I hoped that Elle and I would find a time and a place to get back together. When I asked my friends what they thought I could do, they would tell me to give her space. So I gave her space. And then, one day, her five-year-old cat died unexpectedly of congestive heart failure. I wanted to call to offer my condolences, but our mutual friends advised me against it. I wanted to listen to them and respect her space, but I also wanted to check in on Elle. I texted her to ask if it was okay to call, and she said yes. She was, after all those months, actually really glad to hear from me. It took a few calls to start talking about what had happened to end our relationship. But once we did, we could move on in a better place and with a newfound respect for our friendship.
The break also gave us a chance to talk about our issues. Because we were both heavily invested in having a relationship again, we listened to one another with a deeper level of empathy. We talked about how she was cruel to me and about things she felt I did to her. We agreed to keep each other in check if these behaviors began to creep back into our relationship. The break provided us our own system of checks and balances. It still helps us today when we hit relationship obstacles. We can use our words and be honest with one another, and we can call each other out when we need to. And because we know what it’s like to not be around for each other, we consciously choose to stay connected.
DO YOU BREAK UP OR TAKE A BREAK?
“My break ups are always break ups. I’m a scorched earth, burned bridge kind of guy.”
“I have never taken a break. It has always been clear when it was time to change the relationship into something else. Breaking up doesn’t always mean an end to any part of the relationship. It evolves. That being said, some were clear good-byes. And just once—I saw someone wrestle with the idea of a relationship. And I created space for both of us, stretching time, gaining full freedom, and within that we came together.”
“If you had to break up once, you might as well leave it broken.”
“It depends on how much clarity you have about boundaries. I think the reason a lot of us need to take a break is to see what it’s like to not have that person nearby, so we can then opt into the boundaries that feel right for the new relationship—if there is going to be a new relationship. I think the break is a step in setting the new set of boundaries.”
Why Breaks Work
A break is a good option when you really don’t want things to end but you need a chance to begin again. If you are certain this is a person you want in your life (at least in some capacity), a break most definitely works. If you’re unsure, a break may be all you need to be certain.
Breaks don’t work in every relationship, but they do work in some cases. And because you’ve hit bottom, you can take your time to see if there’s a chance to make the relationship tops again.
However, if you’re sure that it’s a break up you’re aiming for, then you’re probably better off not thinking about ways to reconcile. But even if the break up eventually does turn into a break, both breaks and break ups are chances to reevaluate the ways and means of a relationship and to determine if and how your relationship will take shape in the future.
In fact, in an unscientific survey of my close friends, most of them agreed that when the break up was in a romantic relationship, it was over for good. But when the break up was in a non-romantic relationship, they sometimes found all they really needed was a break. Perhaps it’s because there is no actual rubbing of penises and vaginas together, but there seems to be a lot more room for forgiveness when a relationship isn’t sexual.
Breaks work because they are a chance to reassess the relationship. They give us time to reevaluate what we’re getting out of the relationship versus what we need to get from the relationship. They allow us to realign our values so we can decide if we can indeed search for middle ground.
A break up that morphs into a break means that you have both decided it’s better to find a way to make the relationship work than to be without the relationship. That means you’re making the conscious decision to give this relationship a second chance. And because you both want this, you’ll be more interested in investing time in the relationship. It means your heads and hearts are going to be in the right place.
A break may also help set up clear boundaries for the relationship moving forward. This can help make the relationship easier to navigate in the future. And if you decide to re-up a relationship and convert it from break up to break, you will gain clarity and insight into the relationship.
Think of it like spring break. Young adults use spring break as a chance to unwind and “go crazy” before they go back to school, work, or other responsibilities. Taking a “spring break” from your relationship can give you the time you need clean it up. The time apart can be a way to come back together and feel revitalized about the connection you share.
On a Positive Note
A positive note is a term used to describe an upbeat ending after delivering some pretty bad news. According to Illinois State University researchers Sandra Metts, William R. Cupach, and Richard A. Bejlovec, relationships have a better chance of reconciliation if they end on a positive note.1 After a break up, an example of a positive note would be wishing them luck and telling them you will always hold a space for them in your heart. Or it maybe telling them you hope they find true happiness and inner peace.
In their research, “I love you too much to ever start liking you,” Metts et al looked at a variety of ways people end romantic relationships. The team found that by ending a relationship on a positive note, you have a better chance of getting along again later on.
They studied a number of techniques people use (including withdrawal, ending things on a positive note, manipulation, and through direct communication) and found the kinder the person was during the break up, the better the break up went. And, if they were friends prior to the end of the romantic relationship, a positive tone had a direct impact on their future relationship, and meant they could likely be friends again.
The team also examined how the conversation went down. Was there a face-to-face interaction or an avoidance of one (known as distance cueing)? What they found was that both the technique used and the type of conversation held played a role in determining how ex-couples engaged later on.
The results? While relationship talk was the most difficult for the person doing the breaking up, it was also best for the person being broken up with. Sure, the person doing the disengaging face-to-face had to endure the feelings of anger and guilt that could arise from the receiver, which in turn could slow down the process, but it also indicated a higher level of respect for the party being broken up with. Distance cueing was seen as selfish, prioritizing only one person’s needs to be free, and, in effect, devaluing the other person.
Ultimately, meeting face-to-face was not only seen as a positive tone strategy, but it also allowed for the best types of resolutions. Besides giving the recipient of the break up a chance to be heard, it showed genuine care.
What it comes down to: How you choose to end the relationship can determine the chances of its success in the future. So, if you’re certainly uncertain about whether this is a break or a break up
, talk about the end of the relationship face-to-face and end the converstaion on a positive note. This way, you have the most opportunity for success down the road.
Weighing the Pros and Cons
A break up is like a car crash. At first you’re not quite sure what just happened. Before you can completely clear your head from the fog and the wreckage, you need to remove yourself from the situation. Only once you’ve recovered, can you get a chance to see what the damage was and if it’s worth repair.
And while you wait to find out how much damage was done, you think of reasons for everything (whose fault it was, how it could have been avoided, how you could have been safer). There are going to be reasons to get back together, and there will likely be valid reasons to stay apart. A break up is a good time for self-evaluation. Even if you didn’t initiate the break up, taking time to understand why it happened can put both the relationship and your way of relating into perspective. And it gives you a chance to look at the role you played in the ending of the relationship. You may not like how you acted, or reacted, and you may see some ugly in yourself that needs fixing.
When you’re considering a return to any relationship, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of breaking up versus taking a break.
Take a look:
PRO: You have new insight.
CON: But it may be too late to fix the past.
PRO: A break is a good chance to regain your individuality.
CON: Individuality is a great thing, but treading into territory where you don’t need anybody or anything can be harmful to your personal growth and development. It’s important to make sure you don’t isolate yourself entirely while you’re isolating yourself from the end of a relationship.
