breaking up?

[SAEalumnus]

This is still a little painful to talk about, by my girlfriend of almost three years (who I was planning on marrying) just broke up with me this week (eight months to the day after I gave her a promise ring as it turned out). The rationale behind her decision was perfectly logical, which I can appreciate, however there are two aspects to how she actually executed the break-up that were unnecessarily cruel, even if unintentionally so. First, after being incommunicato for a week, she asked me to come over to her house for dinner, only to break up with me instead, which of course meant that after "the talk" I had to get on the road and drive back to my house with my attention anywhere but on driving. The other is that she never once told me how she was feeling or what she was considering doing; she simply informed me of her decision without giving me the opportunity to discuss alternative possibilities or anything else. It was very much a unilateral decision. I'm certainly not about to say anything negative about her - I still love her after all - but she caused me quite a bit of unnecessary pain in the particular way she chose to break the news to me. So my advice, then, is if you care about how your boyfriend will feel afterwards (obviously he'll be hurt), please carefully consider how he'll react to the particular circumstances of how you break the news.