The Do’s and Don’ts of Breaking Up With Your Christian Boyfriend

If it comes to a point where you feel like you are ready to stop dating your guy, then tell him exactly that (because that’s what I would want). Too often when a girl ends a relationships with a guy, she says too much, and those words wind up haunting the guy for years.

The don’ts:

The first thing you never want to say is that you are ending it because you think it is God’s will, because the truth of the matter is that anything we choose to do is God’s will as long as we are doing it in pursuit of a righteous life. (For example, if I say I want to become an astronaut because I feel like it is God’s will, while I know that becoming an astronaut will not glorify God anymore than being a lawyer, then I have shifted my focus from following the Bible to following my feelings, which is a dangerous way to live.) If you choose to use God’s will as an excuse for ending it, you will effectively forever associate God’s will with pain in his mind, and that is not something you want to do.

The second thing you never want to say is that the two of you have to be friends immediately, because it is not always a good idea, and it is not always something he is ready for. Depending on how much tension there was in the relationship, he might take even the best-executed break-up as an insult, so be prepared for him to feel jilted temporarily.

The third thing has two major parts: The first part is to never say how much you still care about him, how you will always cherish him, etc. Becoming reminiscent while telling a guy that you are ready to end the relationship is like telling a waiter that you don’t want any dessert and then having him stand there while you describe how much you enjoy everything on the dessert menu. It makes your decision sound arbitrary and un-solidified, which is not the clear way in which you want to present it. The second part is to never drop the “I know you will find someone else” bomb. The reason why this is a horrible idea is because at least one of you is not going to be ready to think about other people, and he is going to have an especially hard time thinking about you replacing him. It needs to be clear that you simply think the relationship has run its course and that your individual futures are not an issue. The main point in the third thing is that you never want to try to console him, because either he is going to think you are implying he is weak, or he is going to accept your sympathy and spend the next month looking to you for more of that sympathy. He needs to know from the very first moment of the conversation that his confidants need to be his family and his male friends, because they are the only groups who he can confide in without creating unnecessary emotional complications.

The do’s:

Finally… what you should say is that you think the relationship has run its course, that you are sorry (for the situation, not for “hurting him”), and that you know there are people who care about him that will be willing to talk to him about it. If he asks you for any specifics about things that were not right in the relationship or things you did not like about him, feel free to be honest. I mention this, not because I necessarily think you are obligated, but because few guys will accept what you are saying without any justification. The important thing is just to realize that whatever you say should be painting a picture for him of why the two of you are not compatible, not giving him a mental checklist of things he needs to change so that the two of you can start dating again. To some degree, you have to play it by ear, but as long as you avoid being intentionally hurtful, and you don’t tell him more than he wants to know, you will have done your best.

So, I say all of this because, if someone was going to tell me that they were ready to stop dating me, this is how I would want them to tell me. Plus, I am just trying to do my part in protecting guys’ hearts. If I had to guess, I’d say that is what we are both trying to do.