Relationship termination is always interesting, how do we let our partner go painlessly with no hard feelings? Whether you have heard them on television, in movies, or in real life – break up lines can be just as corny and cliché as pick-up lines: “It’s not you, it’s me.” “Let’s just be friends.” “I think we should see other people.” “We need a break.” Do these sound familiar to you? If you have ever experienced any of these first-hand, you will know that the person initiating the break up is not as slick as he/she thinks. Even we can ‘still be friends,’ that is never the case. Now I’m going to tell you a little something about break-ups.
Regardless of demographics, most relationships tend to break up in similar ways. Often the reason we give for a break up is not the actual reason we are breaking up with that person. This may be because we are trying to preserve their positive face. 66% of heterosexual relationships are ended by the female, and these break ups are more likely to be based on situational factors rather than personal factors. Break ups do not only happen in romantic relationships, but in friendships too. Atrophy (diminished use of friendship) is the most common cause of relational termination in friendships. I remember leaving elementary school to go to high school. I met so many new people and so did my best friends. I am still friends with my friends from elementary school, but I do not talk to them anywhere near as much as I talk to my high school friends, and conversational content is most often superficial. SO many people come into college in a relationship, and about half of these peoples’ partners’ do not go to the same school. Sadly, 46% of these relationships are terminated in the first year. In gay and lesbian relationships, absence is the leading cause in break ups.
The primary cause of relationship termination is poor communication. This can mean several things: excessive communication, infrequent communication, negative communication, low quality communication, and inequitable communication. Excessive obviously translates into constant communication. Some people, myself included, do not want to be texting, giving constant updates of where I am, why I’m there, what I’m doing, who I’m with, and how I got there. Why do you think I don’t have a Twitter account?.. Yet… Infrequent communication is obviously a lack of communication – “We never talk, so why bother with this relationship?” Negative communication is extremely energy draining. We have all experienced that person who hates absolutely everything. It’s boring inside, but they don’t want to go outside because it’s too hot. They hate cooking, but eating out is too expensive. There are no good movies showing, but they’re over all the DVD’s we own – please tell me you hate me too because WE’RE DONE! Low quality communication is when it takes effort just to continue with small talk even though you are past that point in your relationship. Inequitable communication is when one person is getting more power in conversations, saying more, disregarding what you say, and forcing you to listen at what may be an inopportune time for you – you can do this if you want, but I probably won’t be listening and you’ll terminate the relationship on account of that, saving me the trouble.
Although we seem to enjoy making up reasons for break ups, here are the legitimate top 5 reasons: we may be dissatisfied with our partner, disillusioned with the relationship, we may have difficulties with the other individuals characteristics, we may have problems with others in the relationship network (in-laws, friends), and we may not have the ability to deal with the strains imposed by external circumstances (losing jobs, injuries, moving house). When we make up excuses for break ups rather than just stating one of the above, we have made a decision to use an indirect strategy rather than a direct strategy. Indirect would be saying something like, “I really like you and maybe if we had met in a few more years this could have worked, but I have a lot on my plate right now.” Now that may be a complete lie, but the real reason might be so brutal that we had to soften it up (to save face) instead of taking the direct approach, “I hate your family, we’re done.” Direct vs. indirect is not the only tactic in breaking up. Break-ups can be unilateral (one person) or bilateral (mutual). Most break ups are unilateral and direct, but our friends like to tell us that “it was mutual,” while tears are still running down their cheeks and their words are fooling no one but themselves. This unilateral and indirect approach, however, is not as effective as desired, with only 22% of people knowing that they have been broken up with after an indirect break up. This classic video says it all.
Brilliant.
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