What The Best Break-Up Excuse In The Book Really Means

I knock on the door of my then-boyfriend's house. Little does he know in about thirty minutes will be exes. Awkward.

It was that time for me. The days leading up to the big moment I spent wrestling over my feelings for him. Or depleting feelings as it was.

I knew it was what I had to do. But what on earth do I say to him?

After the half-hour passed and our conversation concluded, we had both reached the same conclusion. He had planned the same conversation with me, as it turns out. 

We came to that wonderful resolution and parted ways.

The wonderful resolution? "We're growing apart."

It's one of those romantic ways to describe the depletion of romance. It was the polite, socially acceptable way of saying how much we didn't want to be with each anymore. 

Instead of saying what we really felt, we came up with some lame excuse that sounded inoffensive and impersonal.

We were happy to live with our head in the sand if it meant parting amicably. But let's face it. We were lying.

Ten years have passed since my break-up and I no longer need to sugarcoat anything. Here's what "growing apart" really means in a break-up.

As friends/lovers/people, we couldn't stand each other

Welcome to the extreme of romance. 

You like them, you lust over them; you fall in love with them and, right before you break up, you start hating them.

We didn't like each other as people, nor could we even see ourselves as friends. The loathing grew so great we could no longer be in the same room as each other.

Mutually, we:

• Didn't like each other as friends anymore - If we met tomorrow, we wouldn't even want to chat about the weather with each other.
• Didn't like each other as friends in a partnership - We couldn't act as a unified front, even if we tried.
• Didn't like each other as lovers - We no longer saw each other in a romantic capacity.
• Didn't see what we once did about each other - What once turned us on now repulsed us. We couldn't recapture any erotic desires.
• Didn't see any redeeming features about each other - Nothing could override everything else we were feeling about each other.

This growing apart isn't altogether a lie. But it's the polite way of saying, "what I once found charming, endearing and likeable, I now find repulsive."

Is it growth or is it a change of opinion? Each to their own opinion on that one.

One or both parties had to be right i.e. We were fighting all the time

Good relationships learn and master the art of compromise.

Ending relationships face the unrelenting battle of wills. Who is right and who is wrong. The winners and losers.

Differing opinions used to be a good thing in your relationship. It was something you both embraced with gusto. It was your selling point as a couple.

When you're growing apart, you're really saying those opinions, those wonderful opposites about you, no longer serve your relationship. It's hurting it. We're not willing to entertain the idea of compromise, let alone do it.

The opposing opinions can literally be about anything. But for most demising couples, it tends to be about:

• Big life changes - Work, kids, housing, family
• Small life moments covering for larger ones - eg. You fight over what to have dinner, but really you're fighting over a lack of commitment
• The future - You both can't reach a conclusion about what your combined future looks like

Those differing opinions are turning into war. We fight because that's how we have our relationship.

In some ways, this is also growing apart. Your opinions have departed in different directions when they should have been growing together. But this is a very polite way of describing each other's stubbornness.

The whole "clicking" thing

At some point, we clicked in the bedroom. And at some point, we didn't anymore. The sex didn't just fizzle, it now sucked. Excuse the pun.

For me and my ex, 'clicking' would have been nice. It might have saved us from impending demise. Clicking in the bedroom might have allowed us to want to work through other issues. 

Great sex is worth holding onto.

When there is no great sex anymore, it makes you wonder if there ever was. Were we just kidding ourselves? Was our great sex make-believe?

We were now two people sharing bedding, and not amicably either.

Sometimes you grow in different directions with your values in the bedroom. One half might want to explore different avenues of pleasure, the other doesn't. But for most people, it's easy reasoning to describe bad sex. Or no sex at all.

You can't click if you don't actually do it, right?!

One party f*cks something up

There is no growing apart here. Let's be real; someone took an axe to the relationship and destroyed it beyond repair.

My ex used this phrase to describe his indiscretions. Through second-hand information, he told others we grew apart. While I didn't expect him to admit to having an affair, I thought he might not completely wimp out and lie.

It shows you the power of a convenient excuse and how desperate parties will cling to it to cover their tracks.

To be fair, he may have thought we had grown apart and blamed that idea for his cheating. It might not have been a cop-out for polite conversation.

Whilst it might be his reasoning, it's not an excuse, nor does it excuse the fact he cheated. I don't wash him of his sins because we were fighting, not having sex and "growing apart".

Are we lying to each other?

It's easy to dismiss this one line, this somewhat cowardly break-up excuse, as a cop-out. You aren't really saying how you feel. You're hiding behind a polite way of letting someone down.

In many ways, that's true. But the truth in this situation is brutal. Try telling someone you once cared about that you find them repulsive in bed. Or you can't stand their jokes anymore. Or that you've lost every ounce of decent feeling for them.

Talk about kicking someone when they're down. You might subscribe to honesty, something I'm a firm advocate for, but then there is cruelty. This is a line I won't cross.

I'm not that mean.

When you say it to someone else

You cheated. They cheated. You fight all the time. One of you turns out to have homosexual feelings. One half of the partnership hates the other one. 

The list of reasons to break up is endless.

But you don't always want to tell everyone the nitty-gritty details. And you don't always want to tell other people the truth about what happened.

So instead of telling the truth about your break-up, you say;

"We're on different paths, growing apart from each other." Or something along those lines.

We all understand this dishonesty, if you could call it that. We all know that this meaningless excuse is just that: an excuse. 

It's a reason we use to deflect the conversation about centring on why our relationship imploded. It's the way we shut down strangers or acquaintances from asking the question we don't want to answer.

It's not that you're a liar. Sometimes it's convenient. 

And sometimes it's acting polite in certain social situations. The other times it's because no one else needs or deserves to know what happened in your failed relationship. 

The details are for you and your ex only.

The break-up is yours at the end of the day. It's your publicity to manage, so to speak. Come up with a reasoning that makes sense to you and that commands you the most amount of happiness. 

You can't go wrong with that.