11 Awful Ways To Break Up with a Girlfriend That No Decent Person Should Ever Do

Yes, it is difficult leaving relationships when those relationships also represent your living situation. But if they’re paying the rent or living with family and you’ve been broken up for a few weeks, unless your ex has explicitly invited you to stay, you REALLY need to be looking for somewhere else to live. 

Telling somebody it’s over via Facebook is a pretty low blow, let’s face it. But you get extra bonus jerkwad points if a) you’re married, b) you’re already dating someone else and c) the last your now-ex heard you were going to work it out and get counseling.

Whatever dastardly crimes your ex-partner many have committed, any variation on hitting/abusing/unwillingly confining/threatening is utterly unacceptable. Unless they've been abusing you and you need to for your own safety, locking them out of a shared living space also counts. Sure, it’s important you find your own space pretty soon, but if they weren’t expecting the breakup, rendering them homeless is dangerous and irresponsible. At least give them time to find a friend and pack some essentials. 

This is a doozy. If you're living with your girlfriend and you meet someone else - perhaps, particularly if that someone else is male - the decent thing to do is talk to your partner about it, and leave if you’re monogamous and would really prefer the chance of this new thing to what you already have. The undecent, generally terrible thing to do is have sex with the person anyway, plan a future with them and only tell your unsuspecting girlfriend when you’re already pregnant with their baby. Remarkably, evidence suggests it is apparently possible to confuse these two things. 

Self-evident. Either (preferably) do it before the weekend and give your ex the chance to take someone else/get their money back/etc, or wait until afterwards and apologise. In a hotel room you are booked to share for two more days, with only one car and only dubious access to public transport, is really not the best time to express your irritation at their very existence and/or your disappointment at the lack of sexual chemistry.

11. At their parents' house. Or your parents' house.

Everyone is a little on edge in their parents' houses. Even if the folks in question are perfectly nice, it puts you awkwardly back in that liminal area between adolescence and adulthood. It's arguably even worse if the folks aren't yours, and you are somehow launched into the middle of an ecosystem you have no idea how to navigate. It is therefore a terrible, terrible idea to use times when you're staying with somebody's folks to end a relationship. Especially if it's their folks', and you break up with them and then sneak out before anybody's up and leave them to explain. 

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