If you’ve been in a relationship of any length you know that there comes a point where one or both of you have to make a choice: should we break up or stay together? In some cases an event might spark a breakup, the main examples being cheating, lying, or stealing but sometimes it is not that cut and dry, especially if you’ve invested time and love. No matter what the factors, at the end of the day whether you choose to break up or stay together the fact is that it is a choice. We reflected on relationships when we chose to break it off even though an event didn’t spark the decision. We chose to end the relationships for the betterment of ourselves and our then partners. While discussing this post we found that while the context was different, the names, the places, the factors, etc, the reasons were very similar and we’ll share below our experiences…

Sass: The relationship that comes to mind is one that involves (*spoiler alert*) my first proposal. I was in college dating a guy who was a out of college and in the military. Very soon into our relationship he was stationed to another city which put a lot of pressure on us early on. We made trips to see each other when possible and I had the most emotional experiences each time I had to leave him. At the end of one weekend together in the airport parking lot, I was sobbing until he hits me with, “Baby, I love you. Will you marry me?” The crying stopped, better yet, it came to a screeching halt. “I love you very much but I can’t answer that right now,” I finally said. His face dropped and my heart broke.

From then on we were never the same, as you can imagine. He lashed out at me repeatedly over the next few weeks and we fought a lot. Looking back I believe he was just too hurt to know what to do so instead of talking it out, we fought it out. I can clearly remember the moment when I made the decision to breakup. By about the tenth or eleventh listen of Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy”, I made the decision to strip my room clean of anything that reminded me of him and made the call.

I learned a lot from this relationship but the biggest take away for me was if you want to ask a grown up question then be grown up enough to handle any answer. I could have chosen to stick it out, fight through it, and make it work but I chose not to. I chose to recognize that ultimately this person was not right for me and that to continue to endure the negativity would be harmful to both of us. So in breaking if off with him, I broke both of our hearts but I can say that I knew even then it was the right decision.

Sweetness: Choosing to break up or stay together seems pretty black and white but I’m sure everyone can agree that it’s definitely a gray area, an area of uncertainty. I have been in a relationship where I was head over heels in love and the guy I was with … well idk if he entirely felt the same but his dreams were different than mine. Baseball was his dream and he joined the minor leagues after he graduated college and continued to chase that dream. I was still in school and though I should have been enjoying my final year, all I wanted was to be with him! The distance, time zone differences, and always being in a different place was always working against us. We could rarely figure out a time to see one another and if we did, one of us was traveling a far distance just to try and make it work.

Being so young, it was just not sustainable or realistic. We both needed to choose if we were going to make this work or not and being that we are no longer together, I think you can guess what we chose. It doesn’t mean it was easy and that there weren’t any tears or hurt feelings. It was just simply the situation that ultimately lead us to realize this was not something we could both continue pursuing.

So, as you can see our stories are different but share underlying themes and the biggest one being choice. We made choices in these relationships based on the circumstances, age, time and place, and future goals. In reading our stories we are a bit envious of our younger, more fearless selves. As hard as those choices were to make in the moment, looking back it seems so easy and clear. We are going to take our younger, more fearless selves into our next tough choice and know that in 10 more years from now we’ll see the choice as easy and clear!

Xo Sass and Sweetness