Breaking up with someone is already hard, even in a healthy, safe relationship that’s ready to end. But when a partner prevents you from going through with the break-up by denying it, begging you or threatening you, it becomes even more difficult to end things for good.
If you’re struggling to figure out what to do if you want to break-up with your partner but are worried specifically about their mental health – check out this article.
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But if you’re approaching breaking-up with someone who is abusive or causing you harm, whether it’s related to their own mental struggles or not, you’re in the right place.
Here’s what the experts have to say about how to safely do it.
UNDERSTANDING THE HARM
One of the most important things to understand when navigating a break-up with an partner is recognising the difference between an abusive dynamic that puts you in danger and an unhealthy one, which can still really impact you, but shouldn’t threaten your safety.
Relationship Specialist Eleanor Butterworth explains how these sometimes-similar-feeling situations can differ.
“Our relationship can be unhealthy without it being abusive, and often that will be why we are seeking to end a relationship,” she said.
“The line between unhealthy and abusive can be really blurry, but, for instance, someone who’s not very honest with their feelings or is a poor communicator – that is unhealthy in a relationship. Whereas someone who lies and manipulates and gaslights you, which is at the other end of that same continuum, that’s someone who’s using abusive behaviour.
While an unhealthy relationship can make you feel despair and frustration, in an abusive relationship this usually comes with fear or a sense of powerlessness. It isn’t always fear for their physical safety, it might be fear for their reputation, damage to their career, or fear for pets, friends or family.”
Butterworth says that unhealthy might look like poor communication, or selfishness, and can still really impact a relationship.
“But abuse usually reflects a very particular power imbalance and set of tactics that have become the pattern in the relationship,” she says. “Our laws in New Zealand recognise lots of types of abuse; physical, psychological, sexual and financial, but the overarching theme of these are the use of behaviour that allows one person to control the other.”
Butterworth says that when your relationship has been good, and you’re not afraid of the person, but they try to resist when you break-up, she still sees that as within the realm of a regular break-up.
“However, it is worth nothing that – if they keep resisting the break-up or refuse to accept it over time – that is different and may be becoming abusive.”
“A relationship that hasn’t been safe – for example, where your partner has used threats before to hurt themselves, you or people close to you, and tried to control your decisions… ending a relationship in this situation needs much more safety planning”.
In either situation something you have to remember that you are not accountable for the other person’s choices, or how they respond.
ENDING A ‘SAFE’ RELATIONSHIP
If you fall into the first category of a “regular” relationship – one where your relationship has been equal, and you’re not afraid of the other person, then thankfully you can put safety concerns aside.
But, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy.
Ultimately, there’s no real way to break-up with someone who doesn’t want to be broken up with without them having some level of distress. But your job isn’t to find a way to break-up with them that has no impact whatsoever, because that’s not how people work.
There are some informal steps you can take to make it run as smoothly as possible – keeping in mind that the issues of your soon-to-be ex-partner are not your responsibility to solve or fix, and you’re not the one responsible for how they react.
BE CLEAR
Be really clear about the fact that you’re ending the relationship rather than hoping that they take a hint, or that you can phase them out. Once you know that it’s over, the first step is actually having that conversation.
Giving reasons is one of the best ways you can get your point across. Being truthful and kind is the healthiest approach for both sides.
“You don’t have to give excuses, you don’t have to give tons of detail, but it’s okay to be honest in a way that’s not assassinating their self esteem or self worth”, says Butterworth.
REPEAT YOUR STATEMENT
Psychologist Heath Hutton tells VICE that preparing a sentence that accurately reflects how you feel, and leaning on that, is a great tactic. Hutton suggests you “keep repeating that in your communications.”
“For instance, if you still care about your partner, which you may or may not do, you could say something like, I still care about you and as we’ve discussed I’m not going to communicate with you anymore. This is a number that you could call if you need immediate help.”
Repeating the message when the ex-partner attempts contact and not engaging with them outside of that clear statement makes your outlook totally clear.
SET BOUNDARIES
If you know the person you’re ending this with is not a risk to you, then it’s okay to take a break or put some boundaries around any of your shared spaces.
That might be online, as well as in person – which is especially hard if you’ve got a lot of shared friends, and is also fairly dependent on how those final conversations have gone.
Being really clear and honest is the best way to uphold everyone’s mana. Saying something along the lines of “we actually need some space, we can’t just move straight into being friends. And we’re negotiating the space at the moment” is a good place to start.
DON’T CONTINUE THE CONVO
Once you’ve managed to say your bit and hopefully bring things to a close, don’t go backwards. A drunk text or deciding to see them again because you miss them, or sleeping with them because you’re lonely, can quickly reverse all the good work you’ve done.
And if the person keeps hitting you up for “closure”, know it’s not something you need to do for them. Often people demand closure because they’re hoping to hear something different or for you to back down, which is why being upfront when you first break-up can be really important.
As Butterworth says, “sometimes we have a little bit of a myth of closure, this idea that once we’ve ended the relationship that we owe them 20 other conversations, explaining it all over again. But once you’ve given your reasons clearly the first time, it’s okay to draw a line under that. You don’t have to get sucked into having that conversation again and again for weeks afterwards.”
THREATS OF SELF HARM
If a partner is threatening self harm – whether it’s an “intentional” threat or not — it’s easy to feel a lot of pressure and fear, but it’s also crucial to understand that it’s not a reason to stay in a relationship you don’t want to be in.
Hutton said it’s “really important for you to know that this behaviour is their behaviour, and it’s their decision to be acting this way. And nothing that you can do can change that decision. That’s sometimes quite hard for people to accept and to understand. But that responsibility just doesn’t belong with you.”
IF THEY TOTALLY DENY IT
If all else has failed and the soon-to-be-ex-partner just avoids or denies your break-up attempts when you’ve been clear about your desire to split up, it might just be time to walk away.
“If a partner is shutting down the conversation totally,” says Hutton, “and they’re not willing to discuss it at all, then that partner is trying to control that situation. And really there’s no point in continuing that discussion, so there’s no more responsibility that you have.”
Ultimately, if you’re not being allowed to end things by the other person, then you don’t owe them a proper ending. Your decision to break-up is enough.
Tell the people around you that you’re ending things and if you can, let someone who’s able to support your ex partner know that it has ended too.
ENDING AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP
This is the other type of harmful relationship, the one that isn’t safe.
These are generally relationships where:
- There’s been a power imbalance.
- You haven’t had the right to negotiate what you want from the relationship.
- You’ve become isolated from friends and family.
- There’s been physical abuse.
- There’s been sexual abuse.
- There’s been psychological abuse – continuous put downs, gas lighting.
- Your partner has made threats to hurt themselves/you/pets/ loved ones.
Whatever it might look like, ending an abusive relationship needs very particular solutions and planning.
We tend to lean on the idea that when people leave, then they’re safe. But the reality is that, often, when you leave is the most dangerous time in a violent or abusive relationship – which may be controlling without physical violence. And that risk of harm can often stay high for a long time afterwards.
And this means that honest or face-to-face conversations aren’t always the best choice for the person leaving.
Hutton says that people in relationships often feel like they have to justify their decisions.
“I want to make it really clear that in an abusive relationship like this, no one has any responsibility to communicate any of it,” they said.
“They don’t have to justify their decision to leave, they don’t have to tell the other person why or what was going wrong.”
SPECIFIC TIPS:
If you’re in an abusive relationship and trying to leave, making a plan is really important.
Hutton recommends always starting “from that position of safety, because safety influences so much of this.”
A huge resource we have in Aotearoa is the availability of family violence services. Contact a family violence service and they can help you make a plan, specific to your situation. If you’ve got children, if you live together, if you work together, if you’re financially dependent – all these elements require specific action. However if for some reason you’re not able to access one of these services we’ve put together some steps below.
GET YOUR STUFF
Make sure that you’ve got the things that are precious to you, or important to you, back from the person first. This might be documents, passports or bank cards – things that can get destroyed. It’s also crucial to prepare things like getting your car keys (even getting a new set of keys cut), having money put aside, and having the phone numbers of your family and friends.
Some people will even buy a cheap phone and store important contacts on it so if their phone is destroyed by their partner they have a back up option.
SEEK EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
Although opening up to people about abuse can be daunting and vulnerable, seeking emotional safety through trusted mentors, friends, counsellors, therapists is incredibly important.
Insight from those around you can often help distinguish between unhealthy and abusive, and combat some of the gaslighting behaviour that goes on. It’s also important to have support like this as your resolve to leave may waver.
It often takes abused people many attempts to leave, so lean on people who care for your safety and wellbeing and will be with you through that journey.
WHEN AND WHERE YOU DO IT
If it’s safe for you to speak with the person, figure out when is the best time to have the conversation. It’s important that your loved ones know where you are and when you’re doing it. This might mean having the conversation in a public place if it’s less likely the abuser will kick off, doing it with a friend or family member supporting you in person, or doing it over the phone.
Ultimately, you don’t need to do that face to face, and you don’t need to do it on your own.
SAFE HOUSE
A pre-emptive step you can put in place is organising a safe place to stay immediately after you’ve ended things. This might be with family, or friends, or even staying in a rented space with someone you trust.
Particularly for women in violent relationships, though of course these dynamics appear across all genders, you may need to go into a safe house for a period of time – this is something that can be arranged through a family violence service.
A safe house, while it can sound scary, is actually just a regular house on a regular street so your partner can’t find you if they pose a risk to your safety.
People living in safehouses for a night or several weeks still continue going to work and school if they feel safe to do so, so while the address is confidential from everyone it isn’t like going into lock down.
TALK TO YOUR WORKPLACE AND FRIENDS
If you’re working somewhere and your partner is stalking or harassing you, either during the relationship or after you’ve ended the relationship, having a talk to your workplace is an extra safety step you can put in place.
That might be arranging a car park within the building, adjusting your hours of work, or it might be a change in direct dial line. Workplaces can also trespass the ex-partner so that they can’t come onto the property.
We also have legislation in Aotearoa that gives victims of family violence 10 days of leave from work to go and get the support they need.
Similarly, sharing with your friends and family can help you set up systems to keep you safe, such as having friends walk you home, pick up your phone calls for you, or not post photos of you online.
COURT ORDERS
If informing the ex-partner of the break-up directly isn’t a safe option, or your partner continues to pose a threat to you after a break up, one route to go down is issuing a protection order.
Butterworth also said there are formal tools you can access through the courts.
“If your relationship has had violence – and that includes non physical forms of violence and abuse – you can either go through a lawyer, or you can go through the Community Law Centre and access the forms yourself and apply Protection Order”.
“These orders have a range of conditions but broadly they mean your partner cant contact you without your permission, or have others contact you and they cant use violence against you. The court can grant and serve a temporary ‘without notice’ order if they believe it is justified.This means the first time your partner sees it it’s in action, and that means that they’re not able to contact you and they’re not able to use violence against you.”
There are similar options for property or parenting orders that give you the right to remain at home or have the care of children until division of property or custody can be sorted out safely.
Once an order like these are in place, breaching them, for example continuing to harass you over the phone, becomes an arrestable offence.
POLICE
Remember that you can use the police.
Police have a range of tools they can use like police safety orders, which work a bit like a mini protection order, removing someone from your property for up to 10 days in which time you can arrange additional supports from services, lawyers and friends and family.
A protection order can be incredibly useful if someone follows and respects that, but if they don’t, then many of the same risks are still there. With this in mind, know that you have a right to legal protection and help to keep you as safe as possible, so lean on that.
HEALING
Going through any break-up, but particularly an abusive one, can mean we are impacted long after we are no longer in danger. Healing looks really different for everyone, but thinking about what this might mean for you will be important.
Family Violence services offer programmes for people after crisis, there are informal and online groups to get support from and there are even workbooks to help you reflect and understand what you have been through. Buy generally connection and support, whatever that looks like for you, will be important as you heal.
RESOURCES
To make things as easy as possible, here are some of the services that you can contact in order to form a plan and put safety measures in place:
Family violence information line: 0800 456 450
Own the Feels is brought to you by #LoveBetter, a campaign funded by the Ministry for Social Development.
LoveBetter Youthline support channels:
Email: lovebetter@youthline.co.nz
Or rangatahi can text lovebetter to 234
https://check.areyouok.org.nz/
Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa.
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