Should You Break Up Before the Holidays?

Breaking up during the holiday season can give a whole new meaning to “Last Christmas” by Wham. To some, ending a relationship right before Christmas can feel cringeworthy. It may leave you questioning if you should hold off on ending the relationship until after New Year’s. Should you break up before the holidays?

Should You Break Up Before or After Christmas?

If you’re certain about ending the relationship, breaking up before Christmas is the right thing to do. It’s not healthy to drag out a relationship that you no longer want to be in.

Here are six benefits of breaking up before the holidays:

1. Honesty is always the best policy. There’s no sense in faking a relationship that you already know is over. Although it may hurt your significant other to be broken up with during the holiday season, it may leave them feeling even more jaded to know that you celebrated the holidays with them when you weren’t really all in.

2. You can focus on moving on — and that starts with celebrating your holidays separately. If you’ve been together for a long time, the first holiday without each other can be difficult. The sooner you cross this bridge, the sooner you’ll get past being single again for the holidays. You can start making new holiday traditions this year instead of postponing it until next year. This leads us to our next point…

3. You can start out the new year single. It might seem lonely to not have someone to kiss when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve, marking the new year. But it will feel even better to know that your relationship has been left in the past.

You can start fresh this year by focusing on self-care, personal goals, and whenever you feel like you’re ready again, finding new love. If you must break up, you might as well leave it in the last calendar year.

4. You won’t have to deal with an awkward family gathering. If you’re close to your partner’s family, it might be difficult to not see them for the holiday season. But imagine how much more awkward things will be if you fake the relationship being okay when it’s really not. And if things are already awkward with your significant other’s family, they’ll be even more awkward knowing that the relationship is approaching its end.

The other benefit of not having to deal with family gatherings? You and your significant other both won’t have to explain to your families why the relationship didn’t work out. It might leave your families feeling confused to hear about a breakup after they see you together — especially if you fake being happy around them.

5. You won’t get caught up in the magic of the holiday season. The twinkle of the lights, the music, and the perfect Christmas gift from your partner could make you change your mind about breaking up. Or you might end up making bad decisions once you’ve had a little too much eggnog. Either way, it could end up prolonging the inevitable, possibly for months to come. You can avoid falling back into old patterns by breaking up ahead of time.

6. You can save money. Okay, so it’s not about the money (for most of us). But it’s still an added bonus to know that by breaking up before Christmas, you have the opportunity to save money on gifts. Your now ex can also save money on gifts, too. If you’ve already purchased gifts, you may be able to refund them or gift them to someone else.

When Should You End the Relationship?

If you’ve made the decision to break up before the holidays, it’s best to end it as soon as possible. This will give your soon to be ex-significant other ample time to heal from the breakup.

As someone who has been broken up with twice on Christmas Eve, I would recommend not ending the relationship on an actual holiday. Stay away from a Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Day breakup. (The same would apply to Hanukkah or any other holidays your significant other celebrates). From firsthand experience, being broken up with on an actual holiday can leave you feeling like a Grinch for years to come.

Breaking up is never easy, but it’s even more difficult when it happens during what’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Ending the relationship before the holidays are in full swing is the best thing you can do to help both you and your partner move on as swiftly as possible.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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