Is There A Right Time To Break Up?

Matthew Hussie here with Love Life. We have a question that has been sent in today. The question is, when is it too late to break off your relationship before the holidays? And how do you do it? This is an interesting question, actually, because it, we've all been in that situation before where you're trying to figure out when is the right time to say something that is Gonna be a car crash, essentially. Should you do it before the holidays? You then have the guilt of wrecking the holidays for somebody. Should you wait till afterwards, in which case you're gonna feel like a phony the whole way through the holidays while you're thinking about it, but not telling them the honest truth? I think that we have to, we're always trying to think of, well, if we're this type of person, we're always trying to think of what's best for the other person. in the situation. When is this going to do the least damage? Well, firstly, we have to understand that, of course, it will do damage. There's no getting around that. But we have to look practically at this situation. Now, interestingly, about the holidays, the holidays is actually a time when they're likely to be able to spend time with people they love. Friends, family, colleagues, they're going to be spending time with people that care about them. And in that sense, we may actually see this as a good time to break up with someone. That if we break up with them before the holidays begin, and they go into all of that love and distraction, they may actually be thankful for that, though they won't show it on a deeper level. They might be thankful for the fact that they're walking straight into all of this love and protection from the people that they care about. Now, the people they care about might not appreciate it because they're now going to have some sullen mopey person around for the holidays. But that's not your concern. You can't worry about everybody. The fact is, when she or he goes back to their family, they have time to distract themselves. If you did it after the holidays, when they're going back to their normal routine, that might be even harder for them to suddenly go back into their normal routine with the depression that can can can come along after a breakup. Not only that, but do you really want to spend the holidays getting closer to someone, buying them romantic gifts, meeting and getting closer to their family, spending time, having all of this stuff that actually encourages intimacy and closeness only to then break up afterwards? Is that something you want to pick? put you and the other person through is creating a couple of weeks of brand new sentimental memories that are gonna be trashed immediately afterwards. Because we might say that there's a legitimate argument for saying that if someone has an exam coming up, for example, or an important job interview, that breaking up with them directly before that job interview or exam is a mean thing to do. Because now they might go into that thing that's important to their life, with a terrible attitude and depression and not know how to actually put their best foot forward. It might be the case that waiting until after that big event in their life is more is more fair to that person is the thing to do that would serve them best. But in the case of the holidays, I'm not so sure that's true. If you're breaking up with someone, doing the hard thing is always going to be something that plagues you. But don't use excuses like the holidays to put it off because I'm telling you now, once the holidays are over, there will be some other excuse why you can't do it. And that thing, those excuses can carry on and delay a relationship and the breakup for months or even years on end. Do not continue to use excuses to get in the way of it unless you truly think that it's best for the other person that you don't do it right now. Too often we confuse what's good for the other person with what we really think is selfless. selfishly good for us. Don't be one of those people. All right, my friends, I will see you soon. Thank you for joining in on love life. Go to facebook.com slash coach Matthew Hussey to see the rest of my articles and videos and everything we're doing, and I'll be with you in the next episode.