She has got to go. You have reached your own individual moment of clarity where you know in your heart that your relationship with your midlife girlfriend needs to end – how do you do it? The focus here is not on WHY a midlife relationship ends, but rather HOW to effectuate the end. Your starting point is simply the recognition that she’s got to go, and that the termination process needs to start right now – otherwise you are being unfair to her, and unfair to yourself.
I suppose we each have had our own ways of doing this sort of thing in the past, but sometimes at midlife we think things through a little more carefully. Me – I am forty-three years old right now, and have been single for some time. I’ve had my share of good relationships, and bad ones, too. Some were longer-term – others were short-term. Some of those relationships were with women who I highly value, and am still friends with today. Other relationships were with women who turned out to be very challenging for me to remain friends with. If you are single for any significant amount of time during midlife, you likely will experience the entire spectrum of outcomes and situations. Just remember to learn from each one, and you will be wiser and stronger, and make better choices in the future.
I’m a very precise person, and to me there are really just three distinct ways to breakup with your midlife girlfriend:
- Go Friendship
- Go Missing
- Go Nuclear
Note that all of these methods begin with the word “go” – which is what she’s got to do. Also note that it is entirely possible that these can be used in combination with one another – which I’ll come back to after I explain each approach.
HOW IMPORTANT IS HER FRIENDSHIP?
The first thing you need to do is decide if you wish or need to have any sort of friendship or interaction with your girlfriend after you breakup with her. Often your decision to want to be friends with her might be influenced by things such as:
- how long you dated her
- how nice of a person you are
- what (if anything, in particular) she has done to make you want to breakup with her
- whether you are required to interact with her (like you work with her, or live near her)
- whether you would value her friendship
- what is going on in your own head
- if what she says about you to others can impact your life
It is hard to say which of the above factors are the more important because everything is highly situational. For example, if you dated her for three years and you are nice person – but she slept with your best friend … then that probably dictates a certain response from you. If she also happens to be the daughter of the CEO of the company you work for – then that adds in a different variable to the equation. Continued on next page >>>
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