Breaking Up Is Hard To Do ....

My brother told me that his classmate just got dumped by a girl online and now he (the classmate) is in a messed-up state. I told my brother to tell him to forget everything and focus on his studies.

I know it is easier said than done since I have been through that stage, and I was probably so much more messed-up, but this year happens to be their crucial year and if he does not focus, his bright future will be ruined. I do not wish for anyone to make the same mistake I did.

But judging from my friends’ and my own experiences of breaking up, different people chose to do it differently. Some break up through mobile messages, some through a third party, some online, some through the phone, and worse, some just totally disappeared without a word and left the poor dumpee feeling so bewildered and heart-broken, before he / she resurfaced with someone new.

I have broken up through the phone twice (“You are just a burden to me and my family, you are a good-for-nothing who can never make it in life. I want someone who can respect me enough to submit to me, and not someone who cannot even be honourable to stay home and look after the family” and “This is the way I am. You do not like then get lost!”), and through a third party once plus the disappearance without a trace (“He asked me to tell you he is no longer interested in the relationship. He wants out.”).

Hardly have I known people who broke up face to face, over coffee or a meal, and left on amicable terms. Perhaps people are all cowards in nature, thus chose the easier way out by just dropping the bombshell without needing to face the other party and incurring all kinds of emotional trauma.

But how can breaking up not be traumatic? How can breaking up not hurt? No matter how many times you break up, it still hurts. It really hurts. It really really hurts like hell. It hurts so much that you are so tempted to just prank call him / her then stop yourself on time. It hurts so much that you end up crying yourself to sleep and want to kill yourself at a certain stage. And it hurts so much that years down the road, you see him / her and think of how you were unjustly dumped, and wished for hell and fire to engulf the one who dumped you in the first place.

Couples find themselves asking this question : Is breaking up really necessary? Can things still be worked out? How do you determine when to move on and when to still stay together? And how do you know the person is really right for you even if you choose to stay together?

I guess it is time to move on when both cannot even talk to each other amicably without raising their voices, when every word was misunderstood by the other party, when it became more tiring and miserable in a relationship than out, and when one finally does not wish to do so much for the other party anymore. A real stable relationship will have no misery, no tiredness, and no signs of slowing down on affection and self-sacrifice.

I used to think I will never break up so the one I ended up with would be the one for life. Unfortunately this is not always the case in real life. You cannot control others and how they function. Even if you want to hold on, the other party may not want to.

Sometimes one wonders why is it that you fell for someone whom you deem as “right”, yet in the end things do not work out at all? But someone told me once that actually it is not a matter of finding the “right” one, but rather on how to make the relationships and ultimately the marriage right. Makes a lot of sense to me.

There are lucky ones who are each others’ first loves and stay together for life. There are those who go through a series of breakups before finally finding the right one. One thing I have learnt is that each breakup makes one stronger, and one is more prepared in the next relationship on what to do and what not to do after the lesson learnt.

So breaking up is not necessarily a bad thing, although it is hard to do. But at times it is better to let go than continue holding on and being more miserable. Every one deserves to be in a perfect relationship where both parties are happy and blessed, rather than continue being in a relationship that is going nowhere.