How to Tell Your S/O to Give you Space Without Breaking Up

A great relationship has few downsides — you get to explore life with your partner/partners in crime, share your love, and support one another –  but even relationships that are happy and healthy require some mahi.

And sometimes even a little space. 

No matter how good you’ve got it, relationships are ultimately still made up of individual people with different needs. And those needs can’t always be handled in partnership. Whether it’s exploring gender identity or sexuality, expanding traditional relationship structures, or just straight-up needing some time to yourself — there are a bevy of reasons you might need a “break” from your relationship. 

The term “break” haunts anyone who grew up in a household where Friends was compulsory viewing, thanks to TVNZ’s potent cycle of reruns. Hearing David Schwimmer scream “we were on a break” has been imprinted in my memory. I hear it in my nightmares. And never do I want to end up in a situation like Ross and poor Rachel.

If (and when) the time comes that you decide you need some space in your relationship, how you tell your S/O is gonna be key to avoiding shit hitting the fan.

But before going into this, make sure you’re not doing it because you actually just want to break-up. It might feel easier at the time to slowly make a French-exit from your own relationship, but you’re asking for trouble in the long run. If you already know you don’t see yourselves getting back together on the other side, end things up front. 

If you do decide a break is legitimately what you need, doing the following should stop things from going tits up. 

GET YOUR REASON READY

Now is not the time to trust your improvisation skills. You’re not gonna do a good job of explaining what you want if you haven’t taken the time to think about it on your own, first. Focus on why you actually want, or need, the time apart, so when the moment comes to tell your partner you won’t just say a bunch of shit you don’t mean.

Being transparent about your reasons is also hugely important — because you owe your S/O the autonomy to disagree with you. 

Maybe you want a break because you’ve been unhappy in the relationship and want to process that alone. Maybe you wanna sleep with or date other people, and are worried they won’t be okay with it. It’s gonna be shit to hear, but don’t downplay or camouflage the real reason with the hopes of not offending or upsetting them.

It’s not your place to decide whether or not they’d be cool with it. So have your reason ready and be honest. Your partner deserves the full picture so they can see if the ‘why’ sits right with them, too. 

MAKE YOUR END GOAL CLEAR 

If there’s wavering doubt with either of you that this is really a break (as opposed to a break-up), you could be unintentionally opening a different can of worms. 

If your S/O thinks that what you actually want is to permanently end the relationship, and you’re just too much of a coward to do it, they might end things themselves — so make it totally clear that you ultimately want to remain together. 

RULES ARE GOOD

Put simply — make rules and stick to them. There are some basics to cover here: Will you still have contact with each other, either in real life, or online? If so, how much will you talk? Do you tell other people? And the big one: when and how the break ends. 

A poll of the VICE office came out with a decent split between people who would want to leave a break open-ended, and people who’d rather have a set amount of time they break for. Interestingly, it was mostly men who preferred no time frame and women who preferred a set date. But like any situation, this will vary person to person, so chat through it. 

Another biggie is whether either of you will sleep with (or see) other people. This might be a tough conversation,  especially if your relationship is monogamous. But it’ll be worse if you don’t talk about it at all, only to find out later that your S/O slept with Jax from their economics class while you were bridled for 3 months of chastity. 

The gist is, if there’s anything that might cause confusion, sort it out now. And if you’ve agreed on rules that are gonna keep you both happy, stick with them. 

BE PREPARED FOR IT TO GO WRONG 

As much as we’d love to say breaks and break-ups should be mutual decisions, and no one needs to get hurt, it’s rare for two or more people to be feeling the exact same way about the situation. If you’re choosing to take time to yourself, the hope is that your S/O will be on board. But they might have other thoughts/feelings/plans. 

You may find that when you tell your partner you need some space that they just say no. You need to decide what that means for you. If there can’t be a break, are you willing to stay together? Or would you be better off breaking-up? If you’re unable to suss something that works for everyone involved, that might be the start of another conversation. 

Good luck.

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Rachel Barker is a writer / producer at VICE NZ in Aotearoa.