While all breakups hurt, some hurt more than others. Not all heartbreaks are equal. When parting ways, always look to end things positively instead of making the separation even worse. Thus, knowing which breakup to have becomes mandatory.
Ending a relationship mutually is the best. It hurts a lot less than if it was long drawn with lots of arguments. On the other hand, being cheated on would be the worst way to break up. It often leads to trust issues and paranoia about your partners in subsequent relationships.
Different breakups require a different approach to healing. It would be important for you to recognize your breakup type and take the next steps accordingly.
Types Of Breakup Ranked From Best To Worst
While some breakups can be downright traumatic, others can feel like a burden off your shoulders. These are from the best to the worst ways to break up.
1. The Mutual Ones
A mutual breakup would be the ideal scenario of all the possible ways to break up.
This happens when you realize that your relationship is not working, and it is better to end things and go your own ways.
Couples who break up mutually have no hard feelings for each other, just a realization that things are not meant to be.
Often, there are multiple reasons why people break up mutually. Sometimes couples just realize that they are better off as friends.
Sometimes there’s just no excitement or intimacy left in the relationship. While mutual relationships hurt the least, that does not mean no pain is involved.
There is a significant sense of loss when things end with someone who used to be a constant part of your life.
The mutual way of breaking up also allows you to stay friends with your ex once you’ve moved on.
2. The End of a Situationship
Ending a situationship is one of the least painful breakups because you know from the very beginning that it comes with an expiry date.
A situationship is when you are casually dating with minimal commitment and often a lack of exclusivity.
It rarely lasts long term simply because it stops serving either one or both partners.
This could be because one of you might change your mind about your expectations from a relationship or merely because the fling has run its course.
If you were both always on the same page, you might avoid a lot of pain when it’s over.
But if either of you had started hoping for more, there might be a lot of disappointment and resentment.
If it’s the former and you still like having the other person in your life, you could try to turn your situationship into a friendship.
If it’s the latter, it might be best to go your separate ways and seek what you want from other people.
3. The Dealbreaker Trigger
When some of our most important boundaries are crossed in a relationship, that usually signifies the end of the relationship.
Sometimes, your partner might do or say something that does not sit right with you and continues to take up more and more space in your mind till you realize what happened – they crossed a boundary you did not want them to.
While a boundary being disrespected does not instantly signify the end of a relationship, dealbreakers are much more than just normal boundaries.
Even if you do not break up instantly in such a scenario, it will leave you with permanent doubts about the future of your relationship with your partner.
While there would definitely be grief, you’ll realize the relationship was doomed to fail if such differences existed between you two.
You would make peace with that in time and find someone more compatible with you in the future.
4. The Escape from A Bad Relationship
Unhealthy and abusive relationships are the hardest to break free from either because you just can’t, you are stuck in a vicious cycle, or even because it feels unsafe to leave.
As bad as such a relationship is, you might feel relief more than anything else when you finally decide to end it.
When you finally decide to pull the trigger on it, you will see just how bad things were. This does not mean that there won’t be pain.
But most of it will stem from the traumatic experiences you have been subjected to rather than the breakup itself.
When you get out of such a relationship, it’s best to cut off all contact with your toxic or abusive partner and try to get help from a mental health professional to deal with the grief and trauma inflicted on you.
5. The Impossible Ultimatum
In a loving relationship, partners do things for each other, and often sacrifices are made.
However, sometimes your partner may go too far with what they ask for. An ultimatum is a condition whose rejection would signify the end of a relationship.
While not all ultimatums are unhealthy, some might just be unacceptable to you.
Ultimatums might also become a slippery slope and an unhealthy aspect of a romantic relationship.
Examples of this could be being asked to change your religion, end a long-term friendship over jealousy, or get rid of something you love.
In such a situation, the best thing would be to stick your ground and leave them the choice to end the relationship.
Similar to the dealbreaker trigger, this provides you with the possibility of finding someone more compatible in the future.
However, this hurts more as you feel like you had a more passive role in the breakup and might consider them irrational for breaking up over an unreasonable request.
6. The Long-Drawn-Out Breakup
Some relationships die a slow death. And they turn quite ugly towards the end. It starts with a few disagreements that quickly morph into serious fights.
You and your partner no longer understand each other, the spark is slowly dying, and you try and make things work but to no avail.
The relationship is falling off a cliff, and there’s nothing you can do to save it.
In the worst scenarios, such a relationship turns intensely ugly, with constant arguments culminating in yelling or even abuse towards each other.
People in such a relationship are mentally done with the relationship much before they actually break up. It is death by a thousand paper cuts like Taylor Swift says.
Eventually, you realize breaking up would be more freeing and provide you with better opportunities to pursue a healthier life.
Such breakups may also foster active resentment and negative feelings beyond the relationship. Look no further than Johnny Depp and Amber Heard to see this in action.
7. The Break Turned into A Breakup
There are times in a relationship when it hits a lot of bumps and gets rocky.
You decide a little space would be a good idea to sort things out – then you never get back together. A lot of people will relate to this story. I know I do as well.
The key to such a breakup is one partner not realizing that they wanted to break up.
Once they had the space a break provided, they did not want to go back anymore. Taking a break is one of the biggest gambles in a relationship.
You must contend with the real possibility that your partner or you will not want to get back together again.
Ultimately, breaking up will leave you hurt because you believed your partner would come back to you.
You might even feel blindsided or betrayed by their not coming back. If you decide not to go back, the same holds true for your partner.
As Ross and Rachel would have you know, taking a break is not easy and might not be the best way to resolve problems in your relationship.
Unless you want to risk losing your partner for good, taking a break should be the last resort.
8. The Hands of Fate
Breaking up because of circumstances not in your control is one of the most common yet trickiest breakups to deal with.
Everything seems perfect with your partner, and you plan to live happily ever after with them. But then, life takes a cruel, unforeseeable turn.
One of you must move cities or falls seriously, maybe even terminally ill, and the relationship cannot proceed anymore.
Or maybe you just met each other at the wrong place and the wrong time. You are still in love, but the situation makes it difficult to continue being together.
If you were in a very happy relationship, then moving on would be incredibly difficult as there would be nothing but luck to blame.
You wouldn’t even be able to paint your partner in a bad light to try and soften the blow. It’s just going to suck.
If you are a fan of Schitt’s Creek, this is how Ted and Alexis broke up. And we know how gut-wrenching it was because they were perfect for each other.
9. The First Heartbreak
Ah, the first love! Full of excitement, sunshine, and roses. And when that love ends, it feels like the end of the world.
The first breakup always hurts a lot because it is a situation you have not encountered before.
It becomes the lowest point of people’s lives as suddenly they are robbed of a future full of possibilities and adventure.
You often end up feeling like you will never be okay again. Growing out of this is a painful journey and needs you to participate in your healing process actively.
If you choose to wallow in your misery, the pain from this breakup can extend for months and months.
In due time, you will realize that separation was inevitable, and you will find it in yourself to tackle the dating world to find love again.
10. The One-Sided Breakup
When a relationship ends, despite you wanting to fix things and make it work, you are put through one of the most painful breakups, the one that you never wanted.
Such a breakup might happen for a plethora of reasons.
Your partner could have fallen out of love with you, decided they wanted different things, or just stopped feeling like it was worth their time and effort to fix a relationship that didn’t work for them anymore.
When a breakup happens to you, rather than you playing an active part in ending the relationship, it is quite natural to feel like you can’t deal with the pain.
You try to grovel and beg your partner to stay and give you another chance.
But after one point, you must acknowledge that there is nothing you can do to stop the breakup when the other person is adamant about leaving.
Sit with your pain but love yourself enough to let go of someone who no longer wants to be with you.
11. The One You Never Saw Coming
Being blindsided and abandoned is certainly down at the bottom of the bad breakups list. It is traumatic and scarring.
It is horrible and can ruin your ability to trust people. You might consider your relationship to be good, having no idea what was going on in your partner’s head.
And one day, they vanish without any explanation. This leaves a person with a lot of self-doubt and questions in their mind.
You might start questioning how good your relationship was and how good a partner you were.
In the worst cases, you might also start doubting how good of a person you are.
It is easy to blame yourself in such a situation because you have been given no other reasons. Such a breakup cannot be navigated alone.
You must turn to your friends, your family to care for you, and a mental health professional to guide you through your feelings.
Eventually, you will get better and learn to live with what happened even if you are never given a proper explanation.
12. The Worst Betrayal(s)
Being betrayed by someone you wholeheartedly trust is one of the worst experiences in this world. There are no two ways about it.
It is also the worst way to break up with someone. Cheating is the most common and ultimate form of betrayal in relationships.
But there are tons of other ways, too, that your partner might have broken your trust.
Actions such as repeatedly lying, being violent, disrespectful, or using your partner’s past against them also constitute betrayals, as these are unsaid rules not to be broken in any relationship.
Such actions damage your self-esteem and play a huge role in your subsequent relationships.
They fill you with doubts and often leave you with constant anticipation and fear about the next thing that could go wrong in your relationship.
It could result in you developing crippling anxiety and abandonment issues.
In such instances, get away from the other person as quickly as possible to protect yourself. Reach out to other people for help and support.
It might take a lifetime, but you will heal and gradually begin to trust someone new.
Conclusion
Understanding how you broke up is key in helping you figure out how to recover.
While different circumstances would call for different approaches, having a conversation with your partner and breaking up mutually would do wonders for you.
Under very rare circumstances, you’ll have to blindside your partner or betray their trust.
It would scar them for life and leave a pang of immense guilt for you to carry.