The Break-Up Letter Strategy

When you break up with a boyfriend, it can feel like your whole world is crashing down around you as you try to make sense of what’s happened, while trying to keep yourself together as you go through this adjustment. You are grieving, and like a death, you will likely go through the various stages of grief (shock/denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, per the famous Kubler-Ross model). In an ideal world, both partners would sit down and discuss their relationship, “life review” style, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses and processing their feelings about what went wrong. They would be able to forgive each other for any hurts and mistakes made and find a way to say goodbye to each other that would officially close the book on that chapter of their lives before parting ways. A nice and clean ending like this isn’t always possible though.