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When You're the Heartbreaker

No matter how you look at it, breaking up is never easy. If you happen to be the heartbreaker, you can make it easier on your soon-to-be-ex by adhering to a few simple rules.

Every broken heart has a heartbreaker. You may not want to admit it, but it’s true. It’s also true that some heartbreakers are more graceful than others. But how do you spurn someone gracefully? There’s no easy answer, but we want to offer a word of advice that seems to have helped many who want to sever the ties to a romance without shattering the other person’s heart. The advice? Make it a clean break.

“He just doesn’t get it,” we hear heartbreakers say. “What do I have to do, spell it out for him?” Yes! You do. You may think the humane thing is to hem and haw about the issue, or that maybe a gradual series of disappointments will do the trick. You think that if you make the other person miserable he or she will break up with you. That’s emotional terrorism. It whittles down the other person’s self-esteem to zero.

The best approach is to be honest and direct. That doesn’t mean you say your piece and disappear like the Lone Ranger. But it does mean you send a clear message: This romantic relationship is over. The key is to communicate this message in the context of compassion. How do you do this? First of all, communicate it in person. That may sound obvious, but you might be surprised how many people say “good-bye” on the phone, sometimes even through an answering machine. We know of one relationship where the heartbreaker actually had his sister tell his girlfriend the relationship had ended. If you have any decency, you can’t break up by absentee ballot. So to make a clean break, be honest and be present.

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