Breakups as a last resort

Obvious caveat is that this only applies for non-abusive relationships. This is not to say that you should be putting up with poor behavior either, but that you should try to see if you can improve the relationship instead of terminating it. Improvement can only happen if the other person wants to and is also slow, but it must be kept in mind that love is built and maintained rather than found. If you do breakup, then you should have a conversation, which could serve as a good barrier to breaking up. If you don’t think that you could have a good dialogue about breaking up, then it could be because you haven’t thought enough about it or tried other avenues.

• Breakups don’t solve relationship problems
  • They remove the space of the problem, but the problem could be there in future relationships
  • They can give you space to work on yourself which can be a part of problems, but relationship problems are usually triggered by another person, so it makes more sense to work on them with the other person
• Psychologically putting breakups out of your mind as an option will make you try other options first
  • Trying other things before breaking up helps both people get more closure
  • Breakups can be used by avoidant people as a security blanket which means that you won’t actually grow
• Breaking up shatters the sense of security built up in the relationship
  • Breaking up and then getting back together once raises the chances of it happening again in the future (in my opinion)
    • If something is going poorly, then a breakup is considered to be within the toolbox of problem solving
  • Getting back together after a breakup takes activation energy which is not needed in maintaining a relationship
• “We’ll get back together in the future if it works out”
  • This is weird causality bias, it will happen out of sheer luck or if you make it happen
    • You build your life, so in breaking up you are most likely reducing your chances of ending up with this person