I've been in that situation and I know it's hard. If you get to the point where you just have to sit down and write out a "see ya later" letter (not email or text), then do that. Face to face discussions sometimes go off on tangents and you don't get to put your point across.

Letters are for losers unless you're writing the letter AND having the face to face discussion.

If the other person doesn't let you say what you want to say, and is borderline emotionally abusive, sometimes it's the only way to do it.

No, you're not too lazy, you don't want to be the "bad guy" so you make sure she decides the relationship has been over for a while.

Borderline? What's that.

The biggest lessons in life come from being assertive and learning how to start and STOP something head on. Ponies don't piss rainbows regardless of whether we're talking about Greekdom or other aspects of life.

Ideal =/= reality.

Life isn't as complicated as people insist on making it.

Not always, but we do a lot of things for our safety and writing a letter is active rather than the passive "make her dump me" bullshit.

You have to realize I'm talking about this from the perspective of a 19 year old with her first serious boyfriend. Anytime I mentioned even staying together but also seeing other people, he made me feel guilty and like he might harm himself. I tried the "make him dump me" tactic and way overestimated the amount of male pride he had. Suffice it to say that I almost got to a point where I didn't think there was a way out of it.

Nowadays, of course, I'm a much bigger bitch and would say "if you off yourself, that's really not my problem."

I'm glad you developed your inner bitch. :)

I still don't understand how writing a break up letter is anything beyond passive aggressive, patronizing, and insulting. You feel no way out and that he may hurt himself if you break up face to face but he can't stalk you or kill himself if you write a letter?

No, you get to the point where you're sick of what you had to say to him not being heard. (And you've also gotten to the point where you realize that he's not going to kill himself.) He was engaged to someone else 6 months later, so obviously all my fears were for naught.

I still think that sitting down and writing someone a letter is better than treating them like crap and hoping they dump you because of it. Obviously being able to sit down and discuss things rationally with the person is preferable to both of those, but depending on your own issues in life as well as theirs that's not always an option. The thing is I HAD tried the "rational" route and thought it had worked, and found out quickly (I'm talking hours) that it hadn't.

Reminds me of the time this chick had her friend call me talking about how she was thinking of commiting suicide because I had stopped speaking to her. I didn't want her to but at that point it wasn't my problem. I even told her so but somethings just don't get through to people at some points.

FYI...she didn't off herself.

I think I've asked you this before, but are you SURE we weren't dating the same guy? :confused:

I've not often done this in the SO realm but I've ended friendships through letter/email before. I would say it was a combo move. It'd gotten to the point where talking to said persons was like talking to a brick wall. If I'd said "So long" in person, they wouldn't have heard a word or twisted everything around anyway. Writing a letter made sure I wasn't interrupted and no words were minced. That's only if I felt the need to say anything to them at all.

There was also an element of "laziness" to it because shooting a straight message to a brick wall takes a huge amount of effort. If I'm done with them and walking away, then exerting any amount of effort over the minimum would make me the fool b/c I'd know it'd be a waste IMO. A lazy goodbye may be patronizing, insulting and whatever else, but if he acted in a way that said he "deserved more," we probably wouldn't be parting ways.

Did he look like this?

http://files.posterous.com/joaoander...GLXkSd0%2FA%3D

Scientific Evidence that being the dumpee is like breaking an addiction. Interesting stuff.

http://www.livescience.com/culture/r...in-100706.html