No matter how long you have been in a relationship, there may well come a point where you have reached the end of the road and you are better off no longer being together. Rather than going through the process of a messy breakup, it is much better to split amicably and remain on good terms. This is particularly the case if your lives are more intertwined together such as you having a house together – and even more vital if you have kids. While splitting up amicably often feels like you are walking a fine line, there are plenty of ways that you can do it, but it is a situation that needs to be treated with enough care and seriousness. So, here are a few of the best ways that you can achieve this goal.
Make sure you communicate your needs
Throughout this entire process, active communication is going to play a vital role. The moment you stop communicating, you will reach a situation where you can start to drift apart in different directions without realizing it. As well as telling your partner what you need, you also need to make sure that you are listening to their own needs within this whole process. Otherwise, this can lead to a situation where one person is resentful of the other one, and this can then grow in a less amicable breakup. As well as the emotional side of things, there will also be the practical points that you need to talk through. However, without having a good emotional connection at the heart of things, it will be more of a struggle to deal with these practical issues as they come up.
Look at the professional help you need
The longer you have been together and the more serious the relationship, the more likely it is that you will need to get some professional help involved. For example, if you are married, you may well need to look into getting divorce lawyers in the process. If you are struggling with the emotional side of things, you could need some counselors to help you through the process. If you are looking to sell your property, you may well need to involve realtors in your housing situation. Ideally, you will have people that you can trust who you have already worked with in the past. Alternatively, it may well be helpful to get some word of mouth recommendations from people that you can trust.Â
Start to look ahead to the future
Once all of the initial conversations have been had and some of the practical steps have been looked into, you can then begin to look ahead to the future. While it is a good idea to make a rough plan of what you think that the weeks and months ahead are going to look like, you are still going to have to take things a day at a time. If you look too far ahead, it can get to the stage that it is entirely overwhelming. The practical steps of where you will be living, how often you will see each other, what other areas of life admin need to be dealt with will all come up. However, if you try to sort each and every one of these issues, it can lead to a situation in which you are entirely overwhelmed and not able to deal with anything.
Focus on the positives
A major problem that often occurs when a breakup happens is that there is a major focus on the negatives. However, by simply reframing the narrative and placing more attention onto the positives, this can make all the difference in ensuring that you treat each other with a deserved level of kindness. There are bound to be times when it gets tough and more than likely, you are going to have arguments. However, when these happen, you are much better off ensuring that they are resolved rather than left to fester. Think about the language that you are using with one another and make sure that you are not using words or phrases that are likely to elevate the situation and make it worse. Instead, you should ensure that you are trying to be clear and kind in whatever it is that you are saying.
Start to set up boundaries
As the breakup goes on, your lives are likely to drift apart as you establish new ones of your own. In this period of ‘new normal’, you will need to set up some boundaries with your former partner. This means working out how you are going to communicate with each other – both the means and the methods. At the same time, once the possibility of a new relationship starts to rise up on the horizon, this is the time when you will need to make sure that both of you are fully and properly on the same page. It is an especially difficult time when one person finds someone and the other one is still looking. This is where it all comes back to the effective communication that has already been discussed. As the breakup continues, there is every chance that these boundaries are going to develop and shift.
Splitting up with a partner in an amicable manner is not an easy thing to do at all, but there are ways that you can make it that little bit easier. The heart of this article has been all about communication and ensuring that you are speaking to one another well. Once you have done this, you can start to look ahead to the future in a gradual manner. At the same time, you can also focus on the positive of the relationship that you had. You may well also need to get some kind of professional help involved at some point along the way. You should also make sure that you are setting up boundaries and these are clearly communicated along the way as they change over time and develop.
