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Due to emotional and interpersonal concerns, it can be difficult to end a relationship and break up.

Those concerns can cause people to suffer in silence, or ghost their partner, rather than talking it out.

Strategies to discuss the breakup indirectly, however, can ease tension and make the conversation easier.

I’m concluding this series on navigating difficult conversations in dating and relationships with one of the most challenging discussions—breaking up with someone. It is hard enough to face rejection and ask someone out in the first place. It is even more difficult to talk about intensifying a relationship and asking for greater commitment. But ending a relationship or marriage, especially after all that investment and commitment, is difficult and anxiety-provoking for sure.

Fortunately, however, many of the indirect “face-saving strategies” used in those other conversations are helpful when breaking up or divorcing someone, too. Kunkel, Wilson, Olufowote, and Robson (2003) identified specific strategies that individuals use to disengage from romantic relationships while reducing awkwardness, embarrassment, and hurt feelings. If you don’t like the usual choices of staying or ghosting, then read on—and learn some better options.

Concerns Before Breaking Up

To better understand those options, however, we first need to learn what makes ending a relationship so awkward. What basic concerns are we wrestling with in that conversation? Aiding us in that understanding, Kunkel and associates (2003) note six main concerns that individuals consider before ending a relationship:

Why do I want to break up with my partner........

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