Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Letting Go and Breaking Up

Just had a suggestion in a comment on my last post asking if I would write about letting girls go, and how professionals (me specifically) deal with letting girls go whom we've had an emotional connection with in the past.  To cover all bases here, I wanna talk about not only dealing with post-breakup feelings, but also the pre-breakup and how i'll make the decision to actually breakup.  Here we go...
I believe there's an emotional side to letting go of a girl and also a logical side that both need to be considered.  The emotional side for me can sometimes be very easy.  If i'm not very emotionally invested in a girl then I don't feel a lot of emotion when I break up with her.  Usually when this is the case I'll just talk with a girl or even text her an honest observation about our relationship and how it's not working and that'll be that.  The general format i've been using is something like "Hey, I've been thinking about this thing we've got going, and I think it's best for now that we end it.  I really have had fun with you, just don't think it's quite right.  Pretty please don't hate me :) "  Usually a girl will respond to this with empathy and agreement, by mildly asking for an explanation, or by chasing you and trying to arrange something else like just being friends or friends with benefits.  Sometimes it's a combination of these options.

When i'm very emotionally invested in a girl it can be very difficult for me to give her up.  Often in these cases it takes a strong abundance mentality and a thorough logical examination of the relationship to have the confidence to take action by breaking up and keep broken up afterwards.  Remember in these cases that your decision is about having happiness, not about avoiding consequences or about inaction from some fear that you have.

As you become more solid about your dating goals it will become easier and easier for you to examine whether or not the girl you're dating fits into your life and your plans for the future.  Logically, this means examining the value that the girl offers you.  This logical examination is often very easy for me (and men in general) because we operate well in the logical realm.  The first thing I ask myself is if the girl i'm with is sexual, social, and fun.  Simple enough, right?

If she meets all of those requirements, I take a look at our day-to-day hangouts and I ask myself at the end of hanging out each day if our experience was a positive experience or a negative experience for me.   I then add up all the positive experiences and negative experiences and take a look at the ratio.  A good rule of thumb here is that if you're having a negative experience with a girl more than like 1 out of 10 times you hangout with her, it's probably time to move on.  However, remember that this will vary as your skill level increases.  For instance, a beginner might be willing to tolerate 1 out of 5 experiences being not the best, while 1 out of 50 might be too many for someone whose life is already fantastic.

What's is a negative experience?  Well maybe you hangout and the girl is bitchy for whatever reason.  Negative experience.  Maybe you hangout and everything goes well but the girl seems to want you to buy everything and you don't get the right vibe from it.  Negative experience.   Maybe the girl generally is a state-drag for you once a week for whatever reason and you feel you'd have had a better day at home playing video games and jerking off.  Negative experience.  Maybe everything goes well but the girl won't go any further than kissing for the third date in a row.  Negative experience.  Maybe the girl pressures you for an exclusive relationship or pressures you into going somewhere you'd rather not go.  Negative experience.  I think you get the idea here.  Basically anything that a girl would do that could take away from the happiness of your day instead of adding to it should be carefully considered.  A girl should add happiness to your life and quality to your lifestyle, as you should her.  If she's not adding she should be nexted, so take a look at the lifestyle value, sexual value, and social value a girl offers and make your decision from there.

When i've made the decision to break up with a girl, it's time to stick to my guns about my decision.  This means no seeing or talking to the girl at all.  Done means done.  This also means even if i'm not getting laid for whatever reason after the breakup, I must revisit the logical reasons that I broke up with her instead of succumbing to the option of calling her up for some post-breakup sex. When I stand firm to my decision and back it up by reminding myself about logic I went through, I solidify my view that i'm worth better, I solidify my abundance mentality, and I commit to finding something better.  This is the strong way through a breakup.

Now i'm not saying that feelings won't play a part in this.  Breakups are definitely hard, and almost everytime you're emotionally invested with a girl and you lose her it will feel almost like you're grieving the loss of a loved one.  Often that feeling of loss will seem to increase the feelings of attraction with the ex-girlfriend, and if you compound those feelings with the fear that you can't get someone better, this dangerous cocktail will produce some nasty results.  Before you know it you could be right back in the thick of things, and you'll be soon reminded why you broke up in the first place.

My advice to anyone who has broken up and is feeling strong urges to get back together is to get back out to the dating scene as soon as you can and show yourself some abundance before feelings get too great to overcome.  One mistake guys often make after breaking up is that they get back out there but hit on girls who aren't at or above the caliber of their ex-girlfriend.  When this happens they're FAR more likely to get back into a bad relationship because they fear they can't do any better.  Ouch, talk about doing yourself wrong!  This type of decision is sure to beat down your confidence and self-worth, so don't do it.  Again, stand your ground with your decision and take repeated action to go out and continue to meet women and you'll feel much better when you find the woman who is right for you... at least until the next breakup ;)

5 comments:

  1. One thing that I think is important is not to be too superficial about positive and negative feelings. Often, the deeper meaning of a relationship comes from how we challenge each other to grow through not only our strengths but our wounds and weaknesses. So, for example, a person who isn't emotional enough may meet someone who is very emotional. They may experience that overemotional person as frustrating and have a "negative" experience at first. However, it may not be ideal for them to just leave because of that. That "negative" experience may be a way of pushing them to grow and open up new parts of themselves.

    The ultimately deepest relationships sometimes go through very rough periods as we work through challenges that at the time aren't very pleasant. So it may be less important whether there are challenges and more important how the two of you are able to work through those tests.

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  2. Very wise advice, and well worth including in this. The ability of both partners to communicate openly about challenges is of utmost importance, along with how the couple decides to act upon that communication.

    I feel like a female must've written this comment, because it would take a seasoned guy to write like something like this. Whoever you are you're spot on. Thanks for commenting.

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  3. If you break up through a text message aren't you denying your partner closure? It seems rather cruel for someone whom you were once intimate with.

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  4. I don't think if you breakup through text message you're denying your partner closure. The very act of communicating with them that you're breaking up/not seeing each other anymore gives them that closure. If you didn't say anything at all, even then you would still be giving them closure because eventually they would understand that you've moved on.

    I don't agree that breaking up through text message is always cruel. It's more a matter of the energy and investment between two people that would determine if the method for breakup is cruel.

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