Is he about to break up with you?
LET’S face it, break-ups are a tough but necessary evil. When you’re in an unhappy relationship, every moment with the other person can be like trying to find fat on Nicole Richie – real difficult. But in spite of this, break-ups occur for a lot of reasons, all ranging from the obvious to the illogical. And they are particularly difficult when one person in the relationship doesn’t see it coming. In those cases it can be like getting hit with a ton of bricks.
My favourite source of reliable information – television – tells me that women typically take break-ups harder than men, and so I’ve taken the liberty of compiling a list of things that you should look out for to determine whether your boyfriend is on the verge of breaking up with you.
1. He has no inclination to make future plans with you.
Clearly if he doesn’t intend to still be with you in the near future, then it is highly unlikely that he will want to commit himself to being around you. Practically speaking, if your boyfriend is really into you, then spending time with you and being seen with you will be among his top priorities. Doing these things send a clear message that you two are a couple, so if he all of a sudden decides to stave off making plans with you, then he has clearly lost romantic interest in you and in all fairness, is planning to dump you.
2. Not even ‘quality time’ gets him to come around.
Men like ‘quality time’ – this is a family paper after all – so if he repeatedly refuses the prospect of having ‘quality time’ with someone who he is supposed to care about, then it is practically a given that you are on the outs with him. And if you take it even further, based on the belief that men are capable of having meaningless ‘quality time’ quite easily, then if he hardly makes the time to have that with you, then you are already dumped. You just don’t know it yet.
3. He gives ultimatums instead of trying to work out problems.
Giving an ultimatum is a very aggressive way of handling a relationship problem if the person getting it isn’t clearly in the wrong. If the person isn’t in the wrong then it sends the message that you aren’t willing to compromise, and this is likely to get the other person annoyed and put them on the defensive, essentially prolonging the argument. And if your boyfriend is constantly issuing ultimatums during small arguments, then he may be subtly (or not so subtly) trying to tell you that he would rather argue than work things out with you, and doesn’t want to be with you. And this brings us to our next point.
4. He is not interested enough to argue with you.
In a good relationship, a good fight can go a long way. Fights help to ease the tension in relationships by allowing both of you to express yourselves in untamed, un-superficial tones. And that opening up process should help the two of you to bond, that is if you are both interested in the relationship. If he doesn’t want to argue with you then it could mean that he thinks it is a waste of time since you probably won’t be together in the future anyway. And with that in mind, why try to fix any ‘relationship’ problems.
5. He begins to suggest to you why the relationship won’t last.
If it is that during heated discussions or arguments or even arbitrary situations he is quick to mention just how different the both of you are, and how these differences make it very unlikely that you will stay together, this can easily be interpreted as his having little faith in a relationship. And practically speaking you can only lose faith in the relationship when you allow yourself to. When you actively stop trying to make it work, then the relationship will fail. And if he keeps reminding you that your relationship won’t work, then don’t be surprised if he doesn’t try hard to maintain it and dumps you in the long run.
-Javier
