So, the time has finally arrived when the uneasiness is unbearable for you. And you just have to get out of the relationship and do the needful – breakup. Considering that it’s a difficult thing to do for almost everyone, it becomes even more challenging for soft-spoken people, people like you! So how can you break up with someone without engaging with them in any way?
To break up with someone without telling them, you can gradually distance yourself from them, stop confiding in them, stop initiating contact with them, ghost them on social media, stop being physical with them, and even insult them publicly to trigger the break up from their side.
Let’s look at the methods in detail.
How To Break Up With Someone Without Telling Them?
1. Gradually Distance Yourself From Them
Time is the currency of relationships. The more you spend time with each other, the more the relationship deepens. But consequently, the less time you spend, the less the connection between two people gets.
Building on this, we will advise you to gradually distance yourself from your partner to drive home the fact that your relationship is no more.
Decrease the amount of time you are spending with them. Make up excuses to cancel plans with them. Make excuses to avoid talking to them altogether and exude a general disinterest towards them.
This will send a signal to them that you two have grown distant from each other and may lead to an unsaid breakup.
2. Stop Initiating Contact
A relationship is a two-way street. Hence, when only one person initiates any contact, the road becomes a one-way one, and thus, the relationship itself becomes a one-way one.
Therefore, we will advise you to stop initiating any sort of contact/communication from your side.
Be it plans, hangouts, meetups, or even simple phone calls/texts – you have to stop initiating any of that, and when your partner does initiate them, then respond minimally as if you are just doing a formality.
This will make them feel disrespected as their efforts are not being reciprocated, which will make them distant from you, maybe even angry at you and also make them anxious about the relationship.
Doing this repeatedly can make them understand that you are no longer interested in keeping the relationship going, and this will put the final nail in the coffin.
3. Stop Confiding In Them
A vital part of a relationship is to share things with each other. To make the connection weak and start the breakup process, you can stop sharing your feelings, thoughts, and problems with them.
Basically, stop confiding in them emotionally in any way.
This will seed a feeling of “not-knowing-the-other-person” in your partner, as if you two have suddenly become strangers, and the breakup process starts unofficially from here on out.
Additionally, you can confide in someone else, preferably of your partner’s gender and let your partner know about it through someone else (or even by you).
Finally, jealousy will add to the feeling of strangeness and increase the negativity between you two, hopefully leading to a breakup.
4. Stop Being Physically Affectionate
Physical affection and intimacy are essential parts of a relationship. One of the first indicators of a failing relationship is when this stops.
This signals that the couple is growing apart, and one or both of them don’t feel enough connection to allow for physical intimacy to exist between the duo.
So stop those cuddles, kisses, holding hands, and hugs. Stop anything sexual, too; in fact, detest such intimacy if your partner brings it up.
Refusing to engage in physically affectionate activities sends a pretty strong signal about the downward trail of the relationship, so use it as such.
An effective trick here that we will recommend is to stop any sort of eye contact with them.
Whether it’s a conversation, discussion, or even a usual talk – the lack of eye contact will make them uncomfortable and, combined with the other lack of physical intimacy, will make them understand the whole situation.
5. Ghost Them
Useful particularly in long-distance relationships, a surefire to break up without engaging in any conversation with your partner is to ghost them.
Unfollow/Block them on social media, avoid replying to their texts, cease any phone calls/video calls, and just outright refuse any sort of communication between you two.
Long-distance means there’s no way they would be able to get in contact with you physically, and since you have already ousted them from any other form of a communication channel, the breakup is effective almost immediately.
6. Insult Them Publicly
Respect is a core tenet of a relationship. Consequently, disrespect for your partner erodes the relationship in a fatal manner.
And public insults are some of the worst forms of disrespect that one can inflict on another person. Do this repeatedly.
Whenever in a public setting, try to act as disrespectfully as possible with your partner and get the attention of the surrounding people towards the drama.
This will ensure that your partner feels humiliated and may even break up on the spot themselves, without you even uttering the word “breakup”.
Situations When It’s Okay To Break Up With Someone Without Telling Them
So now you know the methods. But where to apply them? There are certain situations where an unsaid breakup is called for.
Some of such situations are listed below to help you figure out your own state of affairs.
1. The Relationship is Toxic/Abusive
This goes without saying, but if your partner is physically, emotionally, or even verbally abusing you in the relationship, then you need to escape the situation as soon as possible and preferably seek professional help (even the police if the need arises).
And if that means that you have to leave the person without telling them anything, so be it. NOTHING, absolutely nothing, is worth it if you have to suffer abuse at the hands of someone.
So stop caring about telling your abusive and toxic partner anything and escape the hell ASAP. Your safety is paramount and takes priority above everything.
2. The Relationship Is New
If the relationship is new (less than a month) and still in its early stages, and you feel that you need to break up, then you can proceed to do so without telling your partner.
Since the relationship is still budding, there are no hard attachments to worry over. In fact, this is the best time to break up if you want to, as you two haven’t got addicted to each other.
The early stage also enables you to break up without giving much explanation, if at all.
3. The Relationship Is Casual
A short-term, casual relationship often ends without either party creating much fuss about it. One of the founding principles of such a relationship is the casual-ness about the whole thing.
No promises, no hard-and-fast rules, no attachments. Both parties already agree on the nature of the relationship. Hence, a casual breakup without communication is not unheard of.
In fact, it is one of the popular ones in this kind of relationship.
4. Long-Distance Relationship
Here, the phrase long-distance has two meanings. One is the actual physical distance, and the other one is the emotional distance.
Millions of long-distance relationships thrive worldwide, but the ones that fail aren’t because of the physical distance but rather the emotional.
Communication gets lower, texts/calls become infrequent, the couple stops sharing things, and thus, the distance transfers over from the physical realm to the emotional one.
If you are stuck in such a situation, you can end it without telling your partner.
In fact, there are high chances that your partner themselves have broken up without telling you, or they just don’t care anymore.
Growing distant from each other is a valid and quite infamous reason for breakups all around the world.
5. You Have Tried Talking About A Break-Up
This is quite a complex scenario, as you have already tried communicating about breaking up the relationship, but your partner is stubborn and adamant about continuing and wanting to work things out.
In such a situation, the partner is being abusive by forcing you to stay in the relationship without your wish.
The abuse is subtle, and not many people can catch onto it and think that their partner is trying to salvage the relationship when in reality, they are just trying to hold on to your presence because of the underlying, unhealthy attachment they have with you.
In such a situation, breaking up without telling them is often the only way to escape the relationship.
The key thing is to do so while maintaining physical distance between you two and refusing to communicate over any channel.
Situations When It’s NOT Okay To Break Up With Someone Without Telling Them
Not all situations call for such an extreme measure of breaking up. So let’s give you some more clarity to help you out more.
Here are some situations where it’s absolutely not okay to break up without telling your partner.
1. Serious, Long-Term Relationship
Being in a long-term relationship is a big thing. You have spent years with this person, and ending things without effective communication isn’t good, especially for your partner’s mental health.
Honest communication is the key to any relationship at any stage, even the last stage, where things need to end.
So have honest and open communication about why you want to break up with your partner instead of leaving them without telling them anything.
Breaking up without telling them will not only make them confused but also will be borderline abusive to them, considering you two are in a serious and long-term relationship.
2. If You Have Children Together
Children make getting apart tricky in any situation. Any misstep can cause them life-long trauma and even hatred with either or both of the parents.
Hence, you must proceed cautiously with your breakup if you have children with your partner. Breaking up without telling your partner will cause trouble not just for them but for your children too.
Also, doing so will make you a bad parent and land you in legal trouble since children are involved.
Try to have an open conversation regarding the break up with your partner instead of escaping away, and figure out a way for both of you to break the news to your children and decide on the future plans regarding custody and other responsibilities.
Remember: It’s not just the lives of the two of you this decision will impact, but your children too, who pretty much have no say in it and don’t have any fault of themselves.
3. If Your Partner Is Going Through A Bad Time
Being empathetic goes a long way. If your partner is going through troublesome times, like a financial crisis, loss of a loved one, career-related problems, etc., it will be better if you don’t add on to the issues and break up with them without telling them.
Now, we are not telling you not to break up at all. Your own life should be more important to you, yes. But there are better ways to break up than just escaping away, unsaid.
Try to have the conversation with your partner with an open mind, and try to sympathize with their problems while simultaneously explaining why you need to break up.
All things considered, always prioritize yourself. But move with grace.
4. If You Fell Out Of Love
Falling out of love is a common phenomenon, and you don’t need to feel sorry if you just cannot love your partner the same anymore and want to end things.
But if there was no fault of your partner in any of this, and it’s only you who wants to end things and move on, then it’s better to talk things out and properly break up with them.
Nobody deserves to be left without explanation, especially if they haven’t done anything wrong. Again, being empathetic goes a long way, and being a good human should be something we strive towards.
5. If You Have Shared Financial Obligations
This is quite similar to the children scenario, only now the obligations have gone from parental to financial.
The couple often takes on shared financial endeavors, like a home loan, especially in long-term and live-in relationships.
Here, if you break up without telling them and escape, not only does the entire responsibility fall onto your partner, but doing so will cause lots of legal and financial troubles for you.
Hence, it’s crucial to have an open discussion about the breakup to formally divide any shared assets/financial responsibilities between the two of you.
Conclusion
Breaking up with someone is never an easy task, especially when you want to do so without engaging with them in any sort of communication.
Hope this article gives you enough reference points to figure out the best course of action if you want to proceed with such a breakup. We wish you the best of luck ahead!