The Ethics Of Breaking Up

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. - Potter Stewart

As much as we don’t like to admit it to ourselves, most relationships will ultimately end at some point in time. It’s a tough pill to swallow, all the more for the hopeless romantics in the room, but it is the reality and there’s no escaping it.

Breakups happen all the time. We’ve all been on the receiving end of one or the one who initiated it. I like to think that there’s no pain that can match the one of getting your heart broken. It feels like literal torture. And while there is nothing in that moment that can take away that excruciating suffering, I believe that there’s a respectful way to go about breaking up per se. Even though there are no official guidelines so to speak when it comes to breaking up with someone, I think we should be cognizant of how we proceed to go about it.

NO TEXTING RULE

I am ashamed to admit that I have been guilty of breaking up by text and if I could go back in time I would take that away as I believe it is not a respectful way to break up with someone at all. Nobody deserves to receive the worst news ever by text message. It’s not an acceptable way to end a partnership with someone that you’ve shared so much of your life with, all the more the longer you’ve been together. It can make the person on the receiving end feel that they aren’t worthy enough to receive the breakup news in real time, as texting obviously implies that there’s a chance of a delay between the time someone sends a text, and the other person receives it.

DO NOT WAIT RULE

I remember many years ago I had a friend that had shared with me that she wanted to break up with her boyfriend of a few years but that she preferred waiting for the semester to be over as the finals were coming up and she didn’t want to possibly get in the way of his finals by telling him that she didn’t want to be with him anymore. I was not on board with her line of thinking but obviously it’s her choice. I feel like proceeding the way my friend at the time did is not ethical. I also believe it is very much of a slippery slope for a few reasons. It may seem at first glance that this way of proceeding is actually good because the person is actually considering the feelings of the hurt party in the equation (ex my friend not wanting her bf to fail his final exams). But if you look at the situation from a different angle, the initiator of the breakup is actually prioritizing her own feelings over the ones of the person she is going to break up with.

Furthermore, it is a very deceptive way to go about things as it means that for the x number of days weeks before you do actually announce the breakup, you will be disingenuous towards your partner for that whole period of time as in the back of your mind you know what’s to come, but they don’t. Also, this can actually backfire as you can unconsciously adopt self sabotaging behaviors during that time frame as a way to project your guilt onto your partner in the attempt of making them break up with you first. Not ok.

DO NOT LIE RULE

A few years ago, I dated for a very short period of time a man who had divorced his wife of 20+ years. However, he lied about the real reason as to why he was breaking up with her. While their relationship had been going downhill ever since they had their child, there was a very important detail he left out when choosing to break up with her. He had someone new on his radar. (I know ultimate red flag, believe me I’ve learned my lesson!) He had expressed to me that he didn’t want to tell her that the ultimate thing that made him break up in the end was because he had been talking to someone and had the intention of dating this person and had been meaning to for YEARS! In other words, he had been emotionally cheating on his wife for quite some time and never told her about it when he eventually broke up with her.

His reasoning behind not telling her that was the typical I don’t want to hurt her any more than I did and also that he didn’t want this to cause problems with coparenting his older child of 20+ years. Again, this screams selfishness and convenience which is not ok. It’s not ok to preserve your peace of mind at the expense of lying to the mother of your child + 20+ years partner. I am a big believer that the truth will always prevail. But more than that, I am a big believer that your partner is worthy of knowing the truth, and nothing but the absolute truth. Lying by omission is a lie! Again, this is not an ethical way to go about breaking up. Hiding behind the I don’t want to hurt them more than I just did excuse is very telling on how we want to deflect from our own feelings of guilt and shame.

DO NOT GHOST RULE

This might seem like a no brainer but it is sadly more common than we think it is. I have been on the receiving end of this twice in my life and I can’t tell you how badly it hurt me. We may like to believe that once we make the choice of terminating a romantic relationship, we don’t owe anything to our partner no more. But let me clarify what I mean by this. Sure, you don’t technically owe anything to your ex now that he or she has become that, but what you do owe them is a minimum of respect. By that I mean that it’s downright unethical to ghost or block your ex moments after having announced them that you no longer want to be with them BY TEXT.

When you enter the territory of relationships, you also enter the territory of the high potentiality of a breakup. Even though being the one who does the breakup can be very hard and stressful, you have the responsibility to do it in a way that isn’t cruel. Because yes, I’ve once received a totally unexpected breakup text followed by some ghosting. Add this to my anxious attachment style and you have a recipe for pure disaster. I had so many unanswered questions I had to sit with because the person didn’t have the respect or should I say the emotional maturity to handle the reaction of the person on the receiving end of a breakup aka in this case myself. I’m sorry to say it but if you can’t break up in a civil way, you shouldn’t enter a romantic relationship to begin with!

I’m afraid this might have been one of my longest posts on here! You take the inspiration when it hits ya, right?

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