Breaking Up

[Steveny]

Hi everyone, I'm Steve and I'm about to tell my girlfriend it's over. We've been together for three years and living together for almost two, but I'm just not happy.

I don't want to hurt her, I do really care for her but I can't go on living my life with her because I don't believe we want the same things and we have compatibility issues in my opinion.

Christmas it just around the corner, our three year anniversary in a week, there's never a right time to leave, but I can't carry on my life like this. I'm stressing about my future, I'll be alone for Christmas and I mean totally alone but I guess I can handle that.

I'm stressing about moving out as we have to give notice and I may end up paying two rents for three months, I don't know if we can split the time and her stay with family, I have no family here so I'm stuck.

I'm stressing about the adjustment to being by myself, but I have a lot of things in my life that I want to change, but still to go from being together to being alone is stressing me.

I've been running this through my head for months and am finally making the right decision, but as I say I really don't want to hurt her and she's going through a tough time at work and also the friendship of a dear friend so she's having a bad time at the moment and I'm about to add to her misery.

She's away at the moment and back on Sunday, I've decided to tell her on Monday after work, I'm going for some counseling tomorrow to try and talk my situation through to hopefully clear my mind a little.

I don't know what the best way is to tell her, I don't know! And I'm stressed about moving on, being single, finding somewhere to live and the changes that are about to happen in my life.

Any advice?

Steve

[vashti]

I think you should have your new living arrangements made before you do it. It is bad form to say "I'm dumping you, so when are you getting out?"

[Primo]

Monday's are a bad breakup day because it affects the work week...just food for thought.

[kms]

There's never a good time to break up. There will always be something going, really... I left my significant other on our 1 year anniversary. I just couldn't take it anymore... why celebrate something that's dead?

And yeah, doing it on Monday might not be great timing since she'll probably be a wreck and won't be able to function (at least I wouldn't). Could you hold it off til later in the week perhaps?

[snogginwithyou]

honestly im doing the same, its finals in school right now, last week was thanks giving, before that was his family reunion, before that moving into a new apartment, before that halloween, and before that was midterms etc.
the timing only gets worse and you only feel more guilty. I feel guilty because my bf is a drunk. He drinks when he is stressed which is alot recently. He says i love you which weakens my resolve, but it is unfair that i don't love him. Today or tomorrow is the best day. It hurts because i care for him too, but I can't keep doing this, neither should you
I hope that helps

[lahnnabell]

Good luck with all of this. Everyone is right, there is no "best" time to do the breaking up. There will always be a reason to postpone the inevitable. Sounds like you're still getting this handled before anger and resentment get involved. Good for you. Many couples let things go until their screaming at one another and casting blame back and forth.

I'm sorry it's not easier. I broke up with my ex in March this year after we'd moved across the country together. The hardest part was I think he thought it was just an argument and that it would pass because they next day he asked me why I was packing. But at that point things had already progressed so much that I couldn't back track.

I spent that weekend (we split on a Friday night) packing in between bouts of crying. I dunno how I got myself through it, but thanks to some friends I'd made and frequent calls to mom, I got my self set up in a new room by the end of the next week.

On that note, I spent several months afterward venting and working through what went wrong with the relationship. If you feel the need to do that here, go ahead. It helped me to get feedback from people here.

[Cbrider]

You're dumping the pain and agony in one block. Dragging it out because there isn't a good time, someone is having a bad week, etc, etc, just brings the whole level of happiness down.

In the end, dropping it all in one shot is exponentially less stressful for all parties than dragging it out.

When you tie a shoe you knot it once. Its a lot easier to undo one knot, than knotting it five more times before you decide to untie it. Relationships share a strange parallel.