The Most Amicable Breakup

“It has reached the expiry date.” — Friend, Mara.

My friend gave this beautiful comment about the end of her lock-down relationship with Gloria.

It’s hard to see at that point in time, but some people exist intensely in our world for a short period of time precisely for a specific reason. Sometimes to support us, to inspire us, to hurt us, to teach us.

Not all relationships are supposed to be long-term, lifetime, soulmate-like. Or even if they appear to be very compatible at first, we people are constantly changing, nothing can be forever.

There’s also no point comparing to couples that have got married at the age of 19 in the 50s and still supporting each other through their old age today. They don’t always share the same value system as us, they didn’t even travel as much as we do nowadays.

Transcience. As my other friend once highlighted, is often the catchphrase of modern-day relationships.

So how do we break up amicably? For all people who are going to make this awkward conversation, I recommend reading this for some mindful tips.

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Stick to your guns

If you have thought hard and well and decided it’s time to break up, don’t be swayed. People who constantly swing back and forth is the worst, it screws people’s mind up.

It’s like those people who said they are feeling ill at work and wanted to take it off, but then constantly reply to emails. Please, either go to bed or work, don’t confuse the rest of us.

By breaking up with someone, we have already put the other person in a vulnerable state. We can talk through what happened, listened to the other person (more on this below), but unless there was a huge misunderstanding, you should demonstrate your maturity and kindness by standing firm to your decision.

I have witnessed relationships that are constantly in break-up-and-make-up mode. It’s not because of fate, but immaturity. Just immaturity.

Let the other person speak

When we break up with another person, we state a number of facts and opinions from our perspective. We are entitled to, but the other person should have a say as well.

This includes the situation where someone has cheated on us. There are a lot of reasons for infidelity, and sometimes, it has as much to do with the original relationship.

The other person, even if they have done wrong, deserves a chance to speak about their feelings, emotions and pain.

If no one’s done any wrong, then it’s even more important to talk it out for closure. This links with the point above.

Don’t leave a relationship hanging with blame, bitterness and incompleteness. It stops people from moving on.

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Gratitude, not memories

Even if the final bits of a relationship becomes very rotten and ugly, there should be at least one or two pieces of memories that are positive. If there’s none, then that’s quite toxic, learn to spot these red flags next time!

Having gratitude for something that has ended is the most beautiful thing ever. Many people walk with past wounds because they only remember the bad bits but feeling gutted about the good bits.
For example, recently someone said to me: “We were so good together, why did we break up?”

Our memories are primarily a cognitive function for survival, writers and moviemakers made memory sexier than what it really is. Our emotional memories are often biased, depend on whether we are pessimistic or optimistic by nature. So don’t rely on it.

Have gratitude that the relationship has gone through good and bad times, and we have emerged a stronger person than before. That’s survival.

Under no circumstances do we spend our precious aura, chakra and energy on hating someone.

That’s the biggest damage we can do to ourselves.

Be clean

If you have lived alone before, you might remember how it feels when you get sick. You take the last piece of yourself to the shop, grab food, meds and plenty of fluid. Then you drop dead into the bed until health returns.

Same with a breakup. Summon the last piece of ourselves to handle the logistics, pack up, move out, find a new apartment, that sort of thing. It’s gracious if we have friends and family to support us, if we don’t, that’s life.

You can do it.

Cut it clean, so that the next time, if there’s a next time, we meet again, we meet in an equal state, a clean state.

This is kindness and honesty.

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Break up is hard.

However, the pain can be elevated by half if we accept that not all relationships are supposed to be long-term, life-long, forever, or till-death-do-us-part.

If both of you can do it with kindness and honesty, this makes the process easier.

Don’t prolong the pain by changing your minds, listen sincerely to both sides’ perspectives, walk away clean, and with gratitude.

We are just two people in the universe that happen to cross paths, we emerge and then diverge again. This is all part of the lessons for humanity.

I don’t write a lot of articles about relationships, if you like it, please let me know in the comment session below. If you want more articles about self-development, sexual empowerment and productivity encouragement, check out my page Midori by the Sea
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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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