|
|
|
Dr. Nancy Daley is a licensed psychologist who has taught human sexuality in the
Department of Educational Psychology since 1996. She hadn't heard of sex prior to that. |
|
 Q:
Is it better to break up with my boyfriend by phone, or e-mail? I really don't want to deal with anything messy in person.
A:
Since a number of our readers are now confronting the end of The College Relationship (or, for the incoming freshmen, the end of The High School Relationship), we might spend a little time on the art of moving on. It is just now dawning on some of you that your Sweet Babboo has no intention of sailing off into the post-graduation sunset with you. (While you are scouring Bride magazine for the perfect dress, he is, unbeknownst to you, scouring catalogues for the perfect grad school in New Zealand.) You are arguing a whole lot over a whole lot of nothing. Others of you are doing your best to get your little love angel to do the breaking up: You have run through your entire bag of terrible behavior tricks, but no go. Oh, dear — it looks like someone is actually going to have to do the deed.
I always say, break up with someone as you would want it to be done to you. But what do I know? So I asked my students last week. They recommended the following:
1 Treat the breakup conversation as something important. Set aside a time, a quiet place, and shut your phone off.
2 Be honest. (Caveat: but not brutal. None of us wants to hear that you have found the perfect replacement for us in your tawdry affections.) Take responsibility for the fact that your affections have changed, your plans for the future have changed, the relationship has changed in unpleasant ways and you have no desire to invest in fixing it, you aren't ready for a long-term commitment, you simply don't feel the same — whatever.
3 Allow your sweetheart room to be unhappy and to express his or her unhappiness. You don't need to be a human punching-bag, but it's only fair that your live up to your obligations to this person you have loved/cared about/strung along for all this time. One of your colleagues recommends keeping this last conversation to about 20 minutes. That might be a little on the brief side, but the point is not to let it go on and on and on and on...
4 This is not the time to talk about being friends.
5 Make it a nice, clean break. Don't hold out hope for possible future reconciliation, don't ask your sweetheart to give you a little time to go "find yourself" (your self is not what you're looking for), don't call in a few weeks to see about getting back together. Hope is the plutonium of relationships. Ugh.
If you are the dumpee, our broken hearts go out to you. We've all been there or will be. Try not to get hysterical, and try not to get violent. You don't need to be a saint, but you will have to look back on how you acted.
It's natural to line up your sympathizers — it's also natural to fantasize about getting revenge. Set yourself some limits on how long you're going to need to rant to all your friends. Try to avoid contact with your ex. Write in a journal, work out, go to church, or volunteer — find something to keep yourself busy. Call telephone counseling (471-CALL) or go over to the health center and discuss your feelings with someone. Don't destroy anything you'll regret losing, including gifts, photographs, mementoes or your dignity.
Mourn, but don't become a monument to grief. The injury is not permanent, no matter how much it feels that way. Give yourself a month or six weeks, by which time you should be singing with the car stereo again — and not just with the country songs.
While we were having this conversation in class, a few breakups from hell were discussed. One woman was broken up with over the phone by her boyfriend's new girlfriend. Another woman had been broken up with in a very roundabout way: by her boyfriend while they were having sex. "Did he finish?" piped up one of his co-males.
Breaking up is never easy, but it can be responsible and respectful.
Special thanks to Leigh-Anne Brown for her gracious help with last issue's GLBT stuff. |
|
| « Back to the April/May 2005 issue |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
