Breaking up happens in stages, and it can be a long and painful process if you don’t understand the stages and how to deal with them when they come along. But with some knowledge about the process of breaking up and why it occurs you can either save the relationship or speed up the breakup to avoid more pain. It’s the first stage of the breakup that is the hardest though.

The first stage of breaking up is when you realize that your relationship is in trouble. You are no longer happy with your partner and you are not sure if you can fix the relationship at all. You most likely long for the days when the two of you were happy, and you are not sure which direction to take as you still feel those happy memories but are experiencing unhappy moments now.

This is the stage of the breakup that will most likely decide whether you will ever be together as a couple or if you will ever see each other again. So you want to go about this the right way if you still have feelings for your partner.

First you have to talk to them about it. So many people get up and walk out of a relationship without saying a word. This leaves the other person in despair and confusion for a long time to come, and it doesn’t need to be that way.

Have an open conversation about what is bothering you and learn what is bothering them. Be willing to accept your faults in the relationship and admit where you have also gone wrong.

Then come to an agreement about whether you feel you want to work on the relationship, or whether you should cut your losses now and move on with your separate lives. This is hard to do because there will be many feelings of ‘what if he or she changes?’ or ‘maybe I was just overreacting’. The reasons these thoughts pop up is because we don’t want to admit failure and lose someone who has been such a big part of our lives. But if the relationship is unhealthy now then something has to be done about it.

If you decide that you want to save your relationship than congratulations! You avoid going through the breakup and you can only go up from here!

The best thing to do at this point is to make a list of the issues that both of you have, and start working on those issues. Whether you go to therapy, use self-help books, or watch self-help videos, make sure you actively work on fixing those issues. If you sit around and do nothing about them then you will be in this same spot again at some point in your relationship. Problems don’t just go away! They need to be fixed.

If you decide to go your separate ways then do so on good terms. Don’t get upset with each other for your relationship not working out. That will not solve anything and it will only make you both feel worse about the situation.

Give each other some space and learn how to live without each other for a while. If you want to be friends after you have figured out how to live your live separately than that is fine! As long as you can avoid feelings of jealousy or insecurity.

And if you can’t leave on good terms, then just leave. Don’t contact each other to yell about how you feel. Don’t talk about the person to your mutual friends and family badly. Just get on with your life and be grateful for the happy future ahead!