How To Break Up With Someone Without Hurting Them?

If you want to know how to break up with someone without hurting them, know that it’s impossible. As long as a person has feelings for you, he or she will feel rejected and hurt. The breakup will trigger his or her separation anxiety, (childhood) fears, self-esteem problems, and other unresolved and undiscovered issues. 

Nothing you say and do will prevent you from hurting the person you plan on leaving because the action alone (the rejection) will break your partner’s heart and cause immense suffering. It will cause so much pain your ex will need months to rebuild his or her self-esteem and get over you. 

That’s why you need to think long and hard and make sure that the relationship is unsalvageable and that if you do decide to leave, you stay away from your ex and let your ex heal. You don’t want to torment your ex by making your ex think you’re getting back together when you are in fact not.

You may feel awful for leaving someone who cares about you romantically, but that doesn’t mean you should stick around as a friend.

If you hang out with your ex as if nothing happened and give your ex vague answers, your ex will think there may still be a chance to get back together and that he or she needs to earn your trust and love. Consequently, your ex will focus on you rather than himself/herself and stay in denial/obsessed with you.

Some dumpers take their ex back because they see their ex in pain and feel guilty. Others, give their ex another shot days or weeks after the breakup due to nostalgia, fear, and uncertainty. Such dumpers tend to leave again when they realize nothing’s changed and that they returned for the wrong reasons.

That destroys their ex’s new-found hope and sends them into a downward spiral.

If you don’t want your ex to get hurt and think you played him or her for a fool, leave your ex only once. Be decisive and avoid saying things your ex will take literally and hold on to for dear life.

Don’t say things like:

• We’ll see how we feel in the future
• I don’t know what the future holds
• It’s just a break
• If it happens it happens
• I’ll always love you
• You’re the best thing that ever happened to me
• I don’t want to let you go
• The timing is wrong
• It’s not you, it’s me
• I just want to be alone for a while

I’ve heard hundreds of such excuses—and I can tell you that all of them are deceptive. They come from a place of guilt and intend to give the dumpee false hope. False hope temporarily lowers the dumpee’s anxiety but also makes the dumpee cling to hope for months.

Even if the dumper explains thoroughly why they’re breaking up, the dumpee will usually still laser focus on the part where the dumper hints that the breakup may not be permanent.

So if you want to know how to break up with someone without hurting them, make sure to avoid making breakup excuses that deceive dumpers, numb their pain in the moment, and make their healing process much more difficult in the long run.

You may not like causing pain, but that doesn’t mean you should tell your partner (or ex-partner) lies and let him or her realize much later (the hard way) that you had no intention of coming back.

It’s better to just be direct and honest from the start.

This doesn’t mean you should point out all your ex’s flaws and put all the blame on your ex as that won’t help you avoid hurting your ex. But you should have a closure conversation (explain what went wrong) and express your mistakes and realizations.

If you take accountability for your errors and the breakup itself, your ex will see that the breakup isn’t entirely his or her fault and that you don’t detest him or her. 

How you express yourself is the most important part of breaking up with a person who loves you. Your behavior and attitude are everything because if you’re cold, angry, or visibly irritated, you’ll show you don’t want to be there and that you don’t care about your ex’s feelings and problems.

This will make your ex’s anxiety skyrocket and hinder your ex’s self-love and healing.

So be mindful of your ex’s feelings by watching your tone and attitude. Consider your ex the most sensitive person on the planet and think before you speak. Your ex may not thank you for it, but he or she will appreciate your patience, kindness, and your awareness of the severity of the situation.

You can hug your ex if the situation allows it, but don’t kiss or sleep with your ex. Post-breakup intimacy can trigger profound cravings for love and commitment and make your ex more attached and convinced that you feel the same way.

If you get close post-breakup, your ex could think you still have feelings and try to get intimate with you again. So avoid saying and doing things that are meant for couples and let your ex detach from you.

In this post, we discuss how to break up with someone without hurting them.

How to break up with someone without hurting them?  

Unless you’re breaking up with someone who lost romantic feelings and expectations, the breakup will affect him or her severely. It will create immense feelings of rejection and bring out issues he or she didn’t know existed.

You won’t be able to stop your ex from feeling rejected and hurt, but with breakup knowledge and emotional intelligence, you will be able to minimize pain by following the tips in this chapter.

First and foremost, avoid dumping your partner when emotions run high and make sure your partner is mentally prepared for the breakup. Don’t leave if your partner is depressed, stressed about exams, overwhelmed with work, caring about a family member nearing the end of life, and on the verge of breaking down.

Leaving your partner when your partner is at his or her lowest, feeling worthless and/or helpless is extremely inconsiderate. It’s something those with a poor moral conscience and self-control do. They find their partner too difficult to support and enjoy their life with, so they abandon the relationship (often impulsively) and show no sympathy and care.

Such people don’t care how their ex feels. All they care about is distancing themselves from the source of stress and being happy. Oftentimes, they leave their ex to suffer and immediately go out with friends and new romantic prospects.

If you don’t want to hurt your partner, avoid leaving your partner while he or she is experiencing overwhelming stress and anxiety. Know that the shock from the breakup will significantly increase your partner’s pain and add additional problems to his or her existing problems.

You can avoid causing unnecessary pain by waiting for your partner to overcome his or her problems before dropping the bomb on him/her.

How long you should wait I can’t say, but if you’ve been with your partner for years and your partner’s problem is serious (let’s say your partner’s dealing with depression or a painful loss of a family member), give it at least a couple of weeks. 

Wait til he or she feels better and can handle a breakup.

If you don’t show restraint, your ex could feel uncared for and find it hard to forgive you and cope with the breakup.

Another thing you should avoid is breaking up over text. Yes, it’s easier to text your ex that the relationship is over, but it will only be easier for you. This is because you’ll choose an impersonal approach that minimizes the chance of getting stuck in a situation that forces you to communicate with your ex.

Unlike you, your ex will suffer immensely because your ex won’t be able to express himself or herself openly. You’ll take the ability to converse with you away from your ex.

So even though breaking up with a person you no longer love is tough, be brave and put yourself in your ex’s shoes. Ask yourself how you’d want to be broken up with. Chances are you’d want to talk about it face-to-face or at least on call.

Over-the-text breakups leave dumpees with a lot of questions and concerns. That’s because dumpees can’t read their ex’s sympathy and tend to feel unimportant and unneeded. Always remember that getting dumped by text after years of commitment is cowardly and weird.

The least your loyal partner deserves is an in-person closure conversation.

If you’re long-distance (hours away from each other) that’s a different story. In that case, you can end the relationship by calling your ex. If you decide to end the relationship that way, make sure to show interest in conversing and answering all your ex’s questions no matter how many times your ex asks them.

Dumpees are anxious, so they often talk about the same subject over and over again. They sometimes even get angry and incredibly sad. As long as the breakup is healthy and respectful, be patient and avoid arguing with your ex.

Listen to your ex and let him or her express difficult emotions.

When your ex gets the answers he or she needs, your ex will probably feel better and appreciate you for taking the time to explain things and handle the breakup maturely. 

So whatever you do, don’t get angry with your ex. Anger will make your ex think he or she was entirely responsible for the breakup and that the breakup is his or her punishment (karma). That will be an extremely unhealthy way of understanding the breakup and coping with it.

Also, don’t think about pulling away and making your partner detach to the point where he or she becomes okay with the breakup. If you stop loving your partner and intentionally refuse to make time for him or her, your partner will probably become more anxious and dependent on you for love.

He or she will likely seek more attention from you and try to get you to work on deepening the bond. 

Likewise, you shouldn’t attempt to make your partner leave you by intentionally mistreating or neglecting your partner. People who are afraid of a strong reaction from their ex-partner act this way occasionally.

Such people sometimes get dumped (not always) and remain dumpers as their ex leaves them out of self-respect.

Moreover, choose the right place and time to deliver the bad news. Make sure you’re alone and that you have enough time to talk about what went wrong and what you need to work on.

Avoid criticism as the closure conversation needs to be constructive. You must both take responsibility, learn from your mistakes, and improve yourselves.

If you point the finger at your ex, your ex will get hurt and likely try to reason with you and defend himself/herself. Your ex will especially feel tempted to do that if you accuse him or her of mistreatment with an angry tone of voice. 

Accusations, anger, and poor communication in general won’t help your ex feel respected. Conversely, they’ll tell your ex you have a victim mentality and that you’re not going to resolve things peacefully.

The best way to break up with someone without hurting them (too much) is to be empathetic throughout the whole breakup process. You can’t slip up because the moment you do, your ex will think you don’t care and get anxious.

And when your ex gets anxious, chances are he or she will do something you don’t like. Something like getting angry or begging and pleading.

So if you want what’s best for your ex and you as well, be understanding toward your ex’s suffering.

Say sorry even if you haven’t made any major mistakes. Be sorry simply for hurting your ex and breaking a verbal commitment. Your empathy will mean more to your ex than any excuse you come up with.

So don’t be cheap with empathy. Let your ex know you’re not on cloud 9 and that you care about his or her well-being more than he or she may think.

Make sure to also ask your ex how he or she feels and if you can do anything to help. Obviously, you can’t get back together and do any romantic or sexual favors, but you can talk to your ex, answer questions, and check up on your ex if that’s what your ex wants.

Your ex might not want that (might want to stop communicating), but that’s fine. At least your ex will know you won’t cut him or her off and act like he or she doesn’t exist.

It’s better to talk about what to expect than to keep bothering your ex and destroying his or her healing.

With that said, here’s a summary of how to break up with someone without hurting them.

You can’t avoid hurting your ex but you can reduce the pain

You might genuinely care about your ex as a person and feel bad for hurting your ex but don’t try to befriend your ex. If you offer your ex friendship, your ex might think that friendship is better than nothing and agree to it out of desperation.

Friendship could help you assuage guilt, but it won’t help your ex recover. It will probably just give your ex hope and confuse your ex.

Many dumpees mistake their ex’s care for romantic care and think their ex might get back with them if they show their improvements and affection. Little do they know that their ex is keeping them around for non-romantic purposes such as friendship and help with guilt.

If you don’t want to string your ex along, I encourage you to avoid telling your ex that you can stay friends. Exes can’t be friends (not right away at least).

They both need to focus on themselves and address their issues for breaking up. If they ignore the need to grow and fail to maintain their boundaries, they could hurt each other and fail to do the necessary self-work.

Remember that no matter how well you handle the breakup, your ex will still suffer for months. If you were together for years or if your relationship was intense or codependent, it could even take your ex years to recover.

It’s impossible to predict how rejected and hurt your ex will feel because it depends on many things.

Things such as his or her:

• upbringing
• defense mechanisms
• breakup experience
• self-esteem
• reliance on you
• and perception of you and your behavior

If you can’t help your ex feel better, then at least don’t hurt your ex. Let your ex heal by distancing himself or herself from you and learning to rely on himself or herself. Your ex will heal faster if you aren’t around to say or do hurtful things.

To conclude, keep in mind that breaking up is seldom an easy process and that it’s nearly impossible to completely spare someone’s feelings from being hurt.

Nevertheless, by approaching the situation with honesty, empathy, and respect, you can reduce your ex’s pain and assist your ex in healing and moving forward.

Did you learn how to break up with someone without hurting them? What do you think is the best way not to hurt your ex? Share your views on this topic in the comments below.

And if you’re seeking breakup advice, don’t hesitate to visit our coaching page and subscribe to our coaching services. We have the expertise to help you navigate through this challenging time and move forward with confidence.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.