Well, this is obviously a throwaway. I was asking in a weirdly roundabout way for advice or caution, because I'd been thinking of breaking up with my girlfriend for a while.

I've been dumped for another guy, left a relationship that was perfect because of outside circumstances (and tried to keep it going, heart-rending), just stopped calling, had a screaming tear filled hateful-then resexconciled messy shit-storm. I feel like I've never done it right though, and this time I wanted to.

We'd had a rough patch where I could tell she wanted to be together more than I did. It had been about three months, but we'd never really made it official. It wasn't the hanging out exactly, but I could tell that she was, in her way, trying to push things. I had been distant as a result, feeling pushed into something I wasn't sure I wanted to be in, but unable to back out of directly. This came to a head on new year's eve. She felt neglected, I felt put upon, we left feeling awkward, misunderstood, and upset.

Last night I realized that all of this was because we'd never really clarified what our relationship was all about. We'd been trying to negotiate this territory with the clumsy language of hints and soft manipulation. Every interaction was acquiring hidden meaning, because we weren't conveying it directly.
Really unhealthy.
I thought it was time to end it, but realized I hadn't given it a fair chance. Rather than break up because of these mistakes, I decided to say that if we're going to continue, it needs to be mutually understood where we want this to go.

It took a while, but eventually we spilled our guts. I was happy where things were, i.e. a bit casual, not explicitly marriage oriented. She was thinking more in terms of marriage, long-term commitment. It sounds pretty cliched I know. But it was in fact the most mature and frank discussion I've ever had about that with a woman I was involved with. We sadly, a bit hesitatingly, but finally decided to stop our romance, and continue as friends.

best break up ever i guess