DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I know you mostly help people get into relationships, but how do you get out of one? I (M, 28) have been with my girlfriend (F, 27) for three years now and I think it’s time to end it.
If I’m being real, it’s been time to end it for a while. We’ve been drifting apart for a while now. We barely have sex, when we do it’s not that great, and most of the time we live like roommates who share a bed. And it’s not like things are bad or anything, just not there. It’s not even like the spark is gone, it’s like everything that made the relationship work is gone.
I feel like I have to say that we’ve been trying. We’ve tried counseling, together and separately, we’ve been talking and talking and putting in work to make things better, but everything is staying the same and I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe if I could, it’d be easier, but my girlfriend doesn’t see it that way. She just says that relationships take work and we need to keep at it and it’ll get better. I don’t know if she’s right, but I know at this point I’m not sure I care if she is. I just feel tired, you know?
I think part of what makes this hard is I’ve never actually broken up with someone before. Both of my previous relationships ended with me being dumped, and the girls I would date casually would just either ghost me or be the ones to call it off.
But the other reason I’m writing is because I don’t know WHEN to do this. We’re going to stay with her parents for Christmas and New Year’s and I don’t know if I can be the guy who dumps his girlfriend before Christmas. So what do I do? Do I wait until after the holidays? How do I tell her I just can’t do this any more?
One Out of Three Is Bad
DEAR ONE OUT OF THREE IS BAD: Let’s address the initial problem first, OOTB: you can break up with someone for any reason at any time. Part of why you’re having a hard time with this is that, like a lot of folks, you seem to feel like you need a reason to break up with someone. ��Well, you have that reason: you don’t want to be in a relationship with her any more. I realize that this seems obvious, but a lot of people tend to feel as though that they “can’t” break up or end a relationship without some sort of causus belli. It’s easy to look at a relationship where one partner’s cheated or treats you badly or did something demonstrably wrong and say “ok, this needs to end”. It’s a lot harder when the relationship is generally just shambling along like a zombie. It’s going through the motions of life, but the animating spark just isn’t there any more.�And I get it. It feels like admitting failure, or saying that you didn’t try hard enough or that it was a functionally ok relationship so do you really want to let go? But if we get right down to it, all that is is a sort of sunk-cost fallacy. You’re staying in it because leaving would mean that all that effort and time was for nothing. And that’s really not the right way to look at it. You didn’t waste time in this relationship – certainly not if it was mostly good, and if you and your partner have a level of affection and respect for each other, even if the spark may be gone. It’s just that not every relationship is meant to last until death do you part. Relationships have lifespans; some are long, some are short, and yours just came to the end of its life. Not every love story is meant to be an epic poem. Some are short stories, and that’s fine.
So let me give you the first stage of permission that you’re asking for: yes, break up with your girlfriend. You don’t want to be in a relationship with her any more. This relationship no longer meets your needs. You have my permission to end it, unilaterally.
Now, the next part is the part you may not want to hear. As a general rule of thumb, the worst time to break up with someone is “tomorrow”. There’s never a good time to end a relationship, even if that ending is totally amicable. It will always be the wrong time and there will always be a reason why ending it will be bad. If it’s not the holidays, it’s close to their birthday. Or some important milestone. Or something awful that happened and how can you be the person who ends their relationship when that awful thing just happened?
But here’s the other side of that equation: how much worse do you think it’s going to feel when you break up with someone after the holiday, or their birthday or whatever and they realize how long you’ve been waiting for this chance to break up with them? Yes, breaking up with your girlfriend before Christmas may be what makes someone the asshole in a Netflix Christmas special. But imagine how much it’s going to taint those memories for her when she realizes that the entire time you were celebrating with her family, you were quietly counting down the days until you could pull the trigger? That’s going to leave a much bigger stain on things than if you were to end things now, when she could use this trip as a chance to recover with the loving support of her family and friends and the hunky small-town bookshop owner/Christmas tree farmer who she has a weirdly antagonistic relationship with?
Yes, it sucks to have to be the one to end things, and it’s to your credit that you don’t want to make things worse than they have to be. But pain is inevitable; it’s suffering that’s optional. And prolonging this is only going to make things worse. Do yourself (and your girlfriend) a favor and break it off now. Make it quick and clean – acknowledge that you can’t keep doing this, that this relationship no longer works for you, that you care for her and respect her, but you’re breaking up with her. Don’t explain, don’t argue, don’t rationalize; that’s just going to prolong things and it won’t help her gain closure. It’ll just make everything more painful. The short, sharp pain fades the quickest, and a clean break heals the fastest. She can mourn the loss of her relationship with the loving support of her family. If you feel like you need to do some sort of penance for breaking up at Christmas, then hey, the guilt you’re feeling works.
But as much as it sucks for everybody, this really is the kindest thing you could do.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com