by Marcia Middleton

Created on: July 25, 2007

A long distance relationship breakup is no different than any other breakup except for the fact that you may not be able to talk to your (soon to be ex) significant other face to face. You should get in contact with them through some sort of quick response medium, such as the phone or IM and be as honest as possible. They may not take it very well and might hang up or fail to respond, but this is the same as a person getting mad and walking away from you anyway. At that point it would be your decision whether to pursue the conversation further, but since you're breaking up you probably won't have much else to say to each other from that point forward. Only suggest that you should stay friends if that is something you can truly live with and have thought about seriously. All too often the "lets just be friends" line is used as a way to let the relationship go gently, which is both wrong and misleading. There are a list of tips you should follow but the best way to end a long distance relationship is entirely up to you.

1. Don't do it in an email or voice-mail. Remember that this is their breakup too and they deserve to understand where it all went wrong.
2. Be as honest as possible, even if the truth hurts. Distance leaves a lot of space for life to change in a very small amount of time.
3. Admit your own failings. You have been away from each other and its easy to blame everything on the other person. Don't.
4. Be kind. Just because you are angry or hurt doesn't give you the right to scream over the telephone line into the ear of someone who is probably just as down about the breakup as you.
5. Offer to mail back any personal items of theirs you may have acquired over the relationship. He or she has had just been dumped and shouldn't have to pay postage on top of that.

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