Relationship Forum: Dumping Someone Hurts

The Relationship Blog is associated with relationship help forum elsewhere. We take a real relationship problem experienced by a real woman. We change all identifiable details and publish both the problem and the possible solution here. Why do we do this? Real problems like the ones we come across affect women like us all over the world. There's no need to make up a relationship scenario, when there are so many genuine ones we could learn from. All our previously published real stories and real solutions can be found here: Relationship Help Forum.

Esther's (not her real name) story is different. Of all our women featured, *Esther has already worked out what she needs to do to fix her relationship issues. In a twist of the normal features we deal with, *Esther dumped her boyfriend instead of the other way around. 

Relationship help forum; dumping someone hurts

Had a great relationship

Dear Anne, I’m doing all the things about ‘How To Get Over A Break UP’ you suggested and I can feel their effect on me day after day. Here’s my story. I broke up with my boyfriend of 3 years a few weeks ago. We truly loved each other, and he treated me like a queen all thorough the relationship. We rarely had any trouble. He’s such a great person and never did anything to hurt me. But I think we exhausted the relationship too quickly. We became too much like an old married couple even though we’re still 20.

He was dumped anyway

My feelings changed over time, and I had to end it after many, many times of trying to stay with him and improve it, and pretend it was all still good. 

Anyway, people always side with the “dumpee” instead the “dumper”. I hate these terms because it’s not as if you’re “dumping” a barrel of trash.

It still does hurt when I think about him and about what could have been. And it’s taking me a lot of hard work to get over it and accept that I’m never going be in love with him again in the same way I used to be.

I know the healthy thing to do is to move on, especially since it was a conscious decision of mine to break up and stop trying to fake it.  I am moving on and I’m feeling peaceful at times with the whole thing. I just can’t help wonder what would happen if we get involved again 5 years from now and things do work out.

My answer: dumping someone hurts

Thanks for leaving your comment here Lily. You’re right, not many people think that the person who does the breaking-up suffers, but they do.

You did the right thing by not holding on and becoming more and more miserable as things grew progressively worse. Many young women do this and it’s such a waste. Misery from bad and unhappy relationships is transferred onto the next relationship, so it’s best to keep misery levels as low as possible. Ending it sooner rather than later is therefore, recommended.

Not all relationships run the full mile

Like I said in a previous post, (and as your story has demonstrated this) not all relationships are built to last. Some run their courses naturally and when that has happened, we must take the cue and walk away. There's a great book I recommend which talks in detail about this: Moving On: Dump Your Relationship Baggage and Make Room for the Love of Your Life
The thing to remember is that there were reasons why you broke up in the first place. It may take you 5 years to forget those reasons, but that does not mean they’ve disappeared, or that you would suddenly become compatible with him. An ex is an ex for a reason - a reason that does not go away with time. It’s not a good idea to re-visit and consume your stale vomit.

Stick to your decision, and keep moving forward.
Best wishes


Have you also had this problem to overcome? How did you do it and what gave you the strength to stick to your decision to dump the relationship? Please share this post on your favourite social networking sites to help encourage another woman facing this difficult decision today. Thank you.