114 The Teen Survival Guide to Dating and Relating
isn’t headed in a direction you’re both comfortable with. When this happens, it
may be time to move on, even if you still care about each other.
Breaking up is never easy, because no one wants to be the “bad guy.” Some
people stay in relationships longer than they really want to, just to avoid hav-
ing that awful “good-bye” conversation. I once had a friend who wanted to
break up with her boyfriend. When she started to tell him how she felt, he got
so upset that he began to cry. His tears broke her heart, and she let herself be
talked out of her decision. This couple ended up getting married but, unfortu-
nately, there wasn’t a happy ending. The marriage lasted for only a few years,
and by then, they had a baby daughter. They really didn’t belong together in the
first place, and my friend knew it. They should have broken up, but instead they
got married. The eventual breakup (a divorce) was much more painful than the
original split would have been.
The truth is, all breakups are painful, and hurt feelings are bound to occur.
If one person doesn’t want the relationship to end, he/she is going to feel upset.
Rejection hurts, but the feelings don’t last forever. One way to make a breakup
a little easier is to be honest and sensitive. If you’re the one ending the rela-
tionship, don’t:- lie about why you’re doing it
- let someone else break the news
- stop talking to your boyfriend/girlfriend, instead of breaking up
- do something to trigger a breakup, like cheating or being abusive
- exaggerate the problems in the relationship to the point where you’ve
convinced yourself that your boyfriend/girlfriend is so awful that you
can’t figure out why the two of you ever got together in the first place
None of these methods is a healthy or fair way to end a relationship. Just
because you’ve had a change of heart doesn’t mean it’s okay to be unkind. And
lying won’t actually “spare” anyone’s feelings (it usually just makes the situa-
tion worse). Your boyfriend/girlfriend deserves to hear the truth. After all, if
someone was breaking up with you,you’d want honesty. If the person were to
simply stop talking to you or to lie, you might always wonder what went wrong.
This can make it much harder to get over a broken heart.