Going On A Break Didn’t Fix Our Broken Relationship

Sometimes when a relationship isn’t going well, it’s easier to go on a break than it is to end things outright. This is what my and ex decided to do when things went south and we couldn’t bear the thought of not being together. We thought that spending some time apart might help fix what was broken. However, it soon became obvious that we were only prolonging the inevitable.

  1. We’d lost the sparkThe reason for the break was that we lost the spark in our relationship. We felt like that was a pretty common conundrum and that sometimes it is possible to get the it back when it disappears for a while. Therefore a little break might reignite the flames, no? That was the logic behind our decision anyway.
  2. We didn’t want to admit defeat. After being together for almost four years, wouldn’t want to accept failure. Who would? After all, we’d grown up together during college and been there for each other through a lot of family stuff including bereavements and separations. To us, breaking up would just be giving in too easily, and neither of us was prepared to do that.
  3. The break wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. We’d gone from living with each other and being in each other’s pockets all the time to having zero contact. It was challenging at first, but then it became pretty obvious that I was doing just fine without him and it made me question everything.
  4. The plan was always to get back together. We always talked about using the break as the perspective we needed to eventually gravitate back to each other. However, neither of us expected that it would ultimately pull us apart.
  5. The break kept getting extended. There was no set time frame in place when it came to the break. We initially said that we’d get back together properly when the timing felt right. However, it soon became apparent that there was never going to be a right time.
  6. My head was being turned. It got to the point where I felt like I was single. I’d be on a night out with my girlfriends, shaking my booty on the dancefloor, and I’d naturally be looking to see if there were any hot guys doing their thing next to me. As I took more steps towards my single life, I gravitated further away from my ex. 
  7. Things came to a natural end. We met up one last time to discuss our situation and it was obvious that we were both in a different place than where we had first started. He looked and sounded different to the boy I fell in love with and, to be quite honest, I just didn’t like him anymore in that way.
  8. The break helped us gain perspective. Even though it was supposed to help fix our issues, going on a break actually helped my ex and I break up. The time away from each other gave us perspective on our situation and actually made us realize just how wrong we were for each other. 
  9. It did us a favor. Even though things didn’t turn out how I originally wanted, going on a break did us both a huge favor. If we hadn’t done it, we wouldn’t have realized just how much we weren’t meant to be together. It served as a good test to help us learn how to be apart from each other. 
  10. A break will always lead to a breakup. Personally, I think that a break will always lead to a breakup, just like it did with my situation. Even if the break makes you miss each other loads and you decide to get back together for a while, the problems that you initially had will always return whether it’s in a month, a year, or two years later. It’s important not to gloss over your issues and face them head-on. Even if things don’t work out the way that you originally expected, they tend to always work out for the best.
Katie Davies is a British freelance writer who has built a career creating lifestyle content that caters to the modern woman. When she's not sipping tea, shopping, or exploring a new city, you'll probably find her blogging about her fashion and travel adventures at https://trendytourist.co.uk.