I’ve had to let a couple of relationships go because I’ve felt like they don’t bring positivity to my life any more. At first I thought I was a bad person, and couldn’t do it because it’s mean etc etc. But then I realised I wasn’t a bad person, I had a right to be with people that give me as much as I give them and that helped justify it in my head.

The most recent ‘break up’ was with a girl I had known for a couple of years, we had gotten quite close but she was 14 years younger than me; had an old head on her shoulders for her years, but whenever I would struggle emotionally (especially with a recent 4 year relationship that was quite rocky) she wasn’t able to give me anything – as she hadn’t experienced it herself. I found her getting impatient with me, and becoming quite ‘just get over it’. So I decided to back away and one day told her a truth about something completely unrelated in her life, which created a bit of bad feeling, I felt terrible as I hadn’t really addressed the real problem, but then after a few days we had a long chat on the telephone and I told her I thought we should have a break, she was trying to handle some things in her life and I was in mine, so we both decided to do that. Since then, we keep in touch via email every few months and that really suits me at the moment. Perhaps in the future we will hook up again, but for now we’re both on the same page.

I think the succeedsocially article is good, choose which way you feel more comfortable with, I prefer directness I know I’d be hurt if that came at me but I’d appreciate it in the long run. I hope you can find a way of doing it for you x