Reasons to Break Up with Your Boyfriend
Edited by Kathy McGraw, Maria Quinney
Every girl who has been in a relationship with a guy has at one time or another wondered if she should break up with her boyfriend. If you are going through this right now, the odds are good that there is something about your current relationship that is leaving you unsatisfied and unhappy, which means, that yes, you should strongly consider breaking up with him. You can break up with him for many reasons, and regardless of what anyone else thinks, your reasons will always be valid for you.
Beware of the Sunk Costs Fallacy
The Sunk Costs Fallacy says that if you have been with someone for a long time, you should always prefer to stay with them rather than breaking up because you've already put in a lot of time and resources into the relationship. While it's true that all long-term relationships have a significant amount of time invested, it's not always true that breaking up isn't the better choice. In evaluating whether or not you should break up with your boyfriend, you should examine the relationship and determine whether there is anything there worth salvaging. If not, no amount of continued investment will produce better results.
47 Reasons to Break Up with Your Boyfriend
- 1You've grown apart. People change, and the changes can be quite dramatic when you go from your late teens to your late twenties and early thirties. If you have been with him since high school or your freshman year of college, there's a good chance that you've outgrown him.Advertisement
- 2He has cheated on you. While infidelity doesn't necessarily spell death for a relationship, it's a hard thing to come back from. If he has cheated on you more than once, then he's a serial cheater, and the odds are good that he will cheat again.Advertisement
- 3You cheated on him. If you cheated on him, you need to look at the reasons why you did it. Are you trying to sabotage your relationship? Do you perhaps want him to break up with you?
- 4You can't trust him. Trust is key to any healthy relationship. If you can't trust your boyfriend, that's a big red flag that your relationship is not working out.
- 5He's emotionally manipulative. He plays with your emotions to get what he wants or even just for the fun of it. He guilt-trips you, makes you feel bad, or acts the martyr when he does anything for you. These are the actions of an emotional manipulator, and you definitely want to walk away before he inflicts more psychological damage on you.
- 6He doesn't support you. If he doesn't support you, whether it's in achieving your life goals or training for a race, he is failing in the most basic requirement for a boyfriend. A man who loves you should back you up and be there to cheer you on when you succeed and encourage you when you're struggling.
- 7You're going to go to an out of state college or study abroad. If you are going to college, you're going to meet a whole new group of people with whom you will share experiences, and he won't be a part of that. It's kinder to the both of you to end it now, so you can each go on with your lives without guilt for neglecting the other or being unfaithful to each other.
- 8He doesn't like your friends. While a good boyfriend doesn't have to like your friends, if he actively tries to keep you from spending time with them, he is isolating you and attempting to control you. That's no Bueno.
- 9He makes excuses for not spending time with you. You want to spend time with your boyfriend, but he never has the time. There's always something going on in his life that takes precedence over spending time with you.
- 10He tries to control you. He tries to dictate what you wear and insists on knowing where you are and who you are with for most of the hours of the day that you're apart. No one should have control over you to the point where your autonomy and agency as a human being is infringed.
- 11He tries to gaslight you. He consistently makes you doubt yourself and your own perceptions. He makes you feel wrong for any criticism that you might make about his behavior and nurtures insecurities instead of backing you up.
- 12He's abusive. If he has ever hit you, even once, you need to run far away from him and never look back. There is no excuse for one partner to ever raise a hand to the other in a relationship.
- 13He doesn't respect you. Along with trust, respect is a building block of a loving relationship. If he doesn't respect you, then he doesn't love you and makes it harder for you to love him.
- 14You think about your ex. A lot. You find yourself daydreaming about your ex, and you wonder what it would have been like if you'd stayed with him instead of getting together with your current boyfriend. While you can have such thoughts occasionally without them implying anything bad about your relationship, if you have them often, then there is something missing, and you should consider ending it.
- 15You feel trapped. You feel like your relationship with your boyfriend is holding you back from reaching your goals. For instance, maybe you want to study fashion design in Paris, but you don't even look into it because it would require you moving away from your boyfriend and he wouldn't like that. This is just one example of a situation that might make you feel trapped in your relationship, but it could literally be anything that you feel like you can't do, or are choosing not to do because you know if would make your boyfriend unhappy.
- 16You don't feel valued. He doesn't ask for your input before making important decisions, or if he does, he ignores your opinions.
- 17You don't want the same things. You want to get married, but he doesn't. You want to save money to buy a house, but he would rather spend it on expensive toys.
- 18You're in different places in life. You are well on your way to achieving your career goals while he still hasn't figured out what he wants to do with his life. You are ready to settle down while he is still in party mode.
- 19You're not happy. You're just not happy with him anymore. You aren't glad to see him at the end of the day and interacting with him feels like a chore.
- 20You fight all the time. Nearly every conversation between you is an argument. If you say milk is white, he gets upset and insists it's black. All couples argue from time to time, but constant fights are a sign of serious friction in a relationship.
- 21You're not intimate with each other anymore. Intimacy here refers to sharing your thoughts and dreams with your partner, or your innermost thoughts. If you no longer feel comfortable confiding in your man, something is wrong.
- 22Your intuition is telling you to break up. You aren't sure why, but something inside you is telling you that something is "off" in your relationship and you find yourself wondering if maybe it's time to say goodbye to him.
- 23You feel like you've lost yourself. You look at yourself in the mirror and don't recognize the person you see reflected there. The things you used to dream about doing have taken a backseat to your boyfriend and your relationship with him. You have sacrificed too much of yourself in making him happy and have therefore lost touch with who you are.
- 24He isn't willing to compromise. Whether it's about who cooks dinner or the household finance, compromise is an essential element for getting along together. If your boyfriend takes the attitude of "it's my way or the highway," then it's time to hit the road.
- 25He doesn't accept responsibility for his mistakes. If he never accepts responsibility for his own mistakes, then he will never learn from them. Also, it's immature. You need a man, not a boy.
- 26Everything is your fault. This usually goes with never accepting responsibility. Instead of owning up to his errors, he blames you for everything.
- 27He won't get or keep a job. Yes, the economy sucks, but if he spends his days playing the latest Call of Duty with his loser basement-dwelling friends instead of looking for work, or he can't keep a job to save his life, you don't a man like him in your life. You aren't his mother and shouldn't be supporting him.
- 28He refuses to help around the house. No one likes doing housework, but it has to get done, and he needs to do his share. It's the 21st century; cleaning the house is no longer women's' work! If he insists that it is, tell him he can do his own laundry because you're outta there.
- 29You're only staying with him because you don't want to be alone. This is the worst reason you can choose for staying together. While leaving a long-term relationship will hurt for a while, it will free you to pursue your own goals and allow you the chance to find a man better suited to you.
- 30You're convinced you can't do better. If you believe this, then you need to work on your self-esteem. You deserve to be loved and respected, and if you aren't getting these things from your current boyfriend, then it's time to let him go and get yourself into therapy to examine why you think you can't find someone who will be better for you.
- 31Your cat likes him more. Your cat used to think you hung the moon until he moved in. Now she barely gives you the time of day while curling on his lap while he plays his video games or watches television.
- 32His cat hates you. His cat had it in for you the moment he laid eyes on you. He leaves you "presents" in your shoes and hisses at you every time you get near him.
- 33He snores. You can't remember the last time you got a good night's sleep since you moved in together. He snores so loud that even wearing earplugs doesn't kill the noise. It sounds like you're sleeping with a herd of elephants with a nasty head cold every night!
- 34He's a jerk. You thought he was a sweet guy once, but now that you've gotten to know him better, he is mean-spirited and petty. You don't like the way he treats you or other people and you want to be rid of him.
- 35He doesn't like your parents. He doesn't like them, and even worse, is always badmouthing them to you. They're your folks and you love them; you don't want to be with someone who could be that disrespectful to not take your feelings into account.
- 36Your parents don't like him. While it's not required that your parents like your choice in a mate, it's usually easier if they do. Also, if your friends also have a problem with him, there may be something about him that they see that you don't.
- 37His sister doesn't like you and is plotting against you. It's one thing for members of his family not to like you; it's quite another for one or more of them to actively try to sabotage your relationship. That's drama you may not want in your life.
- 38He has a female friend who has it in for you. He has known her for longer than he has known you, so you feel like you can't say anything, but this girl acts like she's jealous of you all the time. She has already caused fights between you and him and you've had enough.
- 39He keeps trying to convert you to his religion. While there are plenty of people of different faiths who can have wonderful relationships, that's only possible if both partners agree to leave the issue of religion alone. If he constantly brings it up, tells you that your beliefs are wrong, and tries to convert you, then he needs to go!
- 40The sex is bad, or there's not enough of it. Sex is a big part of any romantic relationship, like it or not. If sex with him is not satisfying, such as if he isn't concerned about your pleasure as much as his own, that's a major red flag that he's not the man for you. Likewise, if your libidos aren't aligned, and he's not willing to compromise, it means that he doesn't care enough about you to put in the effort.
- 41He consistently breaks his promises. He's just not reliable. You can't count on him to do what he says he will do, and you wonder if you even have a partner sometimes.
- 42He plays video games too much. He's always on his computer or gaming console. It doesn't matter what day it is, what time it is, or even if it's your birthday: he's playing video games no matter what. You hardly spend any time together because of his excessive video-gaming habit.
- 43He's out with his friends too often. He is always spending time with his friends. It's every weekend and sometimes two or three weekday nights, too. He never has time for you because he prioritizes his friends over you.
- 44He has poor hygiene. There's no nice way to put this: he smells. He sometimes goes a week without taking a shower and he hasn't ever heard of the word "deodorant." Gross!
- 45He always leaves the toilet seat up. Every time you have to use the bathroom after him, you nearly fall into the toilet. No matter how many times you have asked him to put the seat down, he never does it.
- 46He leaves his dirty socks on the floor for you to pick up. You can't count how many times you've asked him to pick up those dirty socks. It just never sinks in; you feel more like his mother rather than his girlfriend.
- 47He has bad breath. It may not be his fault, but kissing him is like kissing a dragon...blech!
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Article Info
Categories : Relationships
Recent edits by: Kathy McGraw
