pt.1) Dear Asy. I want to break up with my girlfriend. This is kinda a big deal obviously- she's an honestly lovely and wonderful person I've just started to realise more and more that my love for her is platonic and she deserves far more than that. Plus I'm dealing with depression and her huggy positive approach to mental illness really doesnt help me like it would for others, it just overwhelms me. My issue is that we're both in the same friendship group and I am a very quiet shy person
pt.2) I’m worried that if we break up everyone will be forced to pick sides and as she’s the mum friend and im the quiet awkward tag alone girl I’ll be instantly sided against- which I guess is understandable but would just really suck, for all of us I think. I just really want us to still be friends. I love spending time with her but I cant do couple things! and when I’m having a down day and dont want to be touched she just doesnt get it, she’ll keep grabbing at me and hugging me and I’ll
pt.3) feel horrible and fragile by the end of it. Idk, what I’m asking is if you think theres a way to break up without it becoming the worst decision I’ve made in my life, destroying friendships and making her hate me. I’m so scared to do it because I have hardcore anxiety about just about everything and I’m worried I’ll make her feel like I’ve been faking it this whole time or that I’ve been using her idk!!! But I feel like I have to tell her because its wrong not to!? Idk I need some advice!x
Ah, yes: breaking up when you have the same friends.
Honestly, all of this is something you can discuss with her. I’m not sure how mature she is - hopefully, mature enough to understand that roping other people into you break-up isn’t the best decision for anyone involved.
If she’s not listening to you about “don’t touch me when I’m not feeling great”, I’m a little worried she won’t listen to you about other things as well,
Before you break up with her - really consider if now is the best time to make this decision. When you are depressed, sometimes you can’t trust yourself to make decisions in your best interest. Furthermore, it’s some times hard to feel ‘love’ as an emotion and a feeling when you’re depression so you lack of love for her might actually be related to your mental health rather than your capacity to feel love for her at other times. This is especially noteworthy if you’re in the 3-6 month time-period of a relationship, because (to drastically simplify it) the ‘lust/love’ hormone starts to decline during this time and is usually replaced by a hormone that promotes bonding. However, the bonding hormone is a much gentler feeling than lust-love and may not be recognisable if you haven’t felt long term love before, or if you’re not feeling well in general. Most young people (and some older people!) confuse the decline of obsessive, passionate lust as a sign they don’t love the person, without recognising it’s a normal part of starting a new relationship.
Anyway, TL;DR: when you’re depressed and if you don’t have much experience in relationships, you may not really be able to tell if you’re still in love with someone or not. Sometimes - but definitely not all the time! - it can be best to wait it out, give it 1-3 months, give it until you’ve been to therapy/tried new antidepressants, etc - to make the decision so you can be sure it’s just not Sad Brain talking.
If you have decided that breaking up is the best option, and you want to do it and keep your friendship group, there are a few things you’re going to need to lump.
You will see her a lot. She may cry, she may be angry with you (whether or not she shows it, you will know it). You will need to manage your reaction to seeing this (ie, your pain/guilt) in yourself.
You will need to find a friend separate to your joint group of friends to confide in. It’s not fair to be giving your friends all this information about you and how you feel because it will affect their friendship with her. Your ex will need to agree to do the same.
Your friends will ask you questions about the break up privately and you will, for the sake of both your friendships with them, need to politely explain that it’s between you and your ex. Your ex will need to agree to do the same.
It is very, very hard to be around someone you’ve broken up with so you’re going to need to put on a very brave face and not let your friends see this. If they do, they will try and ease your (or her) pain and their own discomfort by not inviting you both to be in the same place. This leads to someone being ostracized.
If things break down between you and your ex, people will probably take sides. You may lose out (especially as you’re the person choosing to end the relationship). Accept that now, so if/when it happens, it’s not a shock.
Start reinforcing new friendships with different people in the event that your current friendship group breaksdown or moves on without you. Even if they don’t - it’s great having more friends!
If a friend comes to you with something like “I agree with you”/”I’m on your side”, you need to stop them, and say, “there’s no side to be on. we’re both sad this relationship didn’t work but have agreed to stay friends”.
In terms of how to do this:
Make a time with your partner to break up with her face-to-face. Flag that it’s going to be a very tough discussion so she has some idea what’s going to happen.
Tell her everything you told me: you care about her, you love her but you’re not in love with her, and that it’s not going to work. Say that you’d like to ease the difficult with your joint friends by agreeing to both keep them. Promise you won’t make things difficult for her by confiding in your joint friends.
If she agrees to do this, negotiate together how this will work, what you both will do if friends try to take sides even though you don’t want them to (note: you may need to organise the logistics of this this a couple of days later than breaking up with her because she may not be able to manage this straight away!), and how you will both prevent either person from being ejected from the group.
The message you need to get across to her is that you love her but can’t be in a relationship with her, you want to be friends with her, and you want the friendship group to be protected from your break-up.
She may not agree to anything and it may all fall to shit. There’s nothing much you can do about this except reassure yourself you tried, cry a lot, and then start to reinforce and spend energy on your friendships with other people.
If she does agree, the next thing you need to do is sit down with all your friends, and, together, explain that you’re breaking up but that you will go back to being friends. This should also include saying things like, “please don’t take sides”, “please understand we don’t want to spill dirt on each other”, and “please let’s just do things like we use to - if it’s awkward at first, we will manage it and it will get easier”.
Good luck. This is a really tough time for you: I hope I’ve given you some things to think about <3
