Q4All: At what point does it become morally questionable to break up with an SO?

yasee · 2018-05-10T21:25:32+00:00

the decision to breakup itself has no moral valence; behaviour during the breakup does (to me)

exit_sandman · 2018-05-10T21:24:30+00:00

As an intellectual exercise:

Where is the line between an ethical and unethical breakup?

I won't go so far to draw "lines", but rather identify clear black/white cases: a thoroughly mutual and amicable breakup is probably the most ethical version; leaving a partner after that person has made great sacrifices for you (and possibly having milked said partner for every possible advantage long after you had already decided you'd leave him or her) on the other hand is a clear example of an unethical breakup. Bonus points if you purposefully inflict additional undue harm on that person during the breakup.

Does it matter how long you've been with the person? Do their life circumstances affect the morality of your decision to break up with them? Is it different before and after "I love yous" are said or you move in together?

I would argue that this is the case. if you break up with someone after a few weeks and before any promises of eternal commitment, it's hardly worth mentioning under normal circumstances. As a logical consequence, this makes a breakup a more serious issue the longer you've been together. This doesn't necessarily make it unethical or questionable (after all, you can still part ways amicably after a 20 year relationship), but I would argue that it makes the potential fallout of a breakup more severe simply by virtue of more being on the line.

storffish · 2018-05-10T21:05:56+00:00

it's shitty to start seeing someone else behind your girl's back and it's shitty to leave once there are kids involved (for the sake of the kids) but people who do those things have their own reasons that aren't necessarily unfounded.

other than that it's never a moral issue. the only people claiming it is are people who are still pissed about getting dumped.

crackrocksteady7 · 2018-05-10T21:05:54+00:00

Never. Not after 15 years of marriage and 2 kids

wtknight · 2018-05-10T22:13:30+00:00

Any cheating is immoral in a relationship, in my opinion. Other than that, breaking up and deciding to be with somebody else is perfectly fine. I think that the person breaking up owes at least an explanation to the other person, though.

Firtox · 2018-05-11T02:42:07+00:00

When you break vows and promises. "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part"

damaskrose · 2018-05-10T21:22:25+00:00

If your spouse is still treating you with the same love and respect as when you first met, if they're still adhering to all their wedding vows (love honor cherish etc.) and you divorce them, that's immoral in my book. That almost never happens though.

ayeayefitlike · 2018-05-10T21:28:58+00:00

This is a tough one.

I have plenty of scenarios where I would feel it was immoral for me to break up with a partner - sudden sickness, disability, for someone else when there is nothing wrong with the relationship, etc.

However I don’t think those things are immoral in their own right, just I wouldn’t do them.

I do think long term committed relationships, particularly marriages and with kids involved, hold you to a higher standard - for example, it’s completely legitimate to break up with someone after six months because you just aren’t head over heels, whereas it’s expected that marriages will go through tough periods and you won’t be madly in love all of the time.

Generally speaking though, I think the main area where morality is clearer is the how rather than the why. For example, not just cheating on someone, or texting them, or moving out whilst they’re at work.

carefreevermillion · 2018-05-10T23:02:49+00:00

You are only bound to one another once you are married. So you are allowed to say "no, you do not fit my needs and wants" any time up until you say "I do" and you sign the paperwork. After that it should be for life (barring abuse and addiction), although too many people treat marriage like a relationship and divorce willy-nilly.

You shouldn't cheat on your partner, or set up your next partner while having your current partner take care of your emotional needs. You shouldn't abandon your children, even if they're out of wedlock.

If you leave someone because they got sick, or horrifically disfigured, or some other uncontrollable change that you couldn't handle, you were not the right person for them, because they should be with someone who is stronger mentally, and you did them a favor by leaving.

If you leave someone because they stopped caring for you or themselves, or something about them killed your attraction for the, you should have at least told them what your problems are and given them time to try and recoup (should the relationship have reached LTR status, so a minimum of 1 year duration, and probably give them like a month to prove they're making some changes). If they fail to improve, you did your part, and you are free to leave.

SmallFlyingPolarBear · 2018-05-10T21:53:01+00:00

I think the question is flawed in that a relationship is not something you are obligated to ever.

concacanca · 2018-05-10T21:56:00+00:00

Good post.

Personally I dont even think its particularly immoral to divorce someone for a variety of reasons (boredom and falling in love with someone else are the only ones which strike me as immoral). Im a pretty traditional guy as well.

Pre marriage I dont think its immoral at all if you are just unhappy. People need to be more selfish and look after their own wellbeing more. All this duty bound stuff is how people end up in a marriage you never wanted with a person you dont love just because its 'easy'.

Just dont cheat or become abusive at any point, treat them with as much respect as you'd like to be treated with and be fair with any distribution of assets - especially if there are any children who could be hurt if you decide to fuck around.

darudeboysandstorm · 2018-05-10T21:18:48+00:00

There are just a lot more reasons why it is immoral to stay with someone than to leave, oddly enough.

Mr_Smoogs · 2018-05-10T21:25:55+00:00

I think a big one is when you start overlapping relationships.

goatismycopilot · 2018-05-10T22:53:01+00:00

I do not differentiate between an ethical or unethical break up. You can have a painful break up or one that makes you sad or one where you have problems letting go or one where you dance for joy or a break up where you feel not much at all. I note you said you are talking about non marriage relationships, even marriage break up does not have much morality attached other than your opinion about it unless I guess you broke up your marriage by killing your spouse.

redpillrobert · 2018-05-11T00:07:56+00:00

Dating is an audition for lifelong commitment, and breaking up is what you do when you realize you don't want to be with that person for the rest of your life. Simple as that. Morality doesn't factor into it.

end of story

Tl;dr: I'm curious at what point a relationship becomes a serious commitment that's morally questionable if not outright immoral to break. Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about non-marriage relationships.

not even then. "commitment" is a manipulative terms used to guilt people into doing things, or to continue doing things against their own self-interest. when two people get married, i think of it as "i've vetted you as well as i can and still really like you and think bringing out lives together in a very official way would benefit us both and the children we anticipate having. should that change for either of us obviously all bets are off but for now, i'm comfortable making this relationship official."

anything beyond that is stupid

connaught45 · 2018-05-11T01:35:10+00:00

Before a proposal, it's never immoral. It's shitty, for sure, but in the end it's a favour because anyone who would break up a super committed relationship is likely the same kind of person who would divorce and view staying married as a "choice".

After marriage, it's always immoral unless there is real abuse/cheating AND you have given the person at least one chance to remediate this behaviour. I'm talking a clear cut conversation where you tell the person "you are not acting in accordance with your vows. If you do not begin acting in accordance with your vows by doing x, y, and z, you leave me no choice but to divorce". To divorce someone without a clear warning of exactly what it would take to prevent divorce is deeply immoral and disgusting in my view.

trail22 · 2018-05-11T02:02:35+00:00

Well.. Was it george lopez who cheated on his wife who gave him a kidney. That certainly didnt sound very moral.

MercedesBenzoAMG · 2018-05-11T08:27:56+00:00

I don't think it's ever really immoral to break up with someone. There's situations where it makes you a dick (e.g. if you do it because they have cancer) but I still wouldn't call it immoral. It's your right to break up with your SO for any reason at the end of the day.

Now if there's deception involved, e.g. you break up to be with someone else who you've actually been seeing on the side for the past month already, I'd call that immoral. But that's a different issue really - it's not about the act of breaking up itself, it's about cheating at that point.

BeyondTheLight · 2018-05-11T09:44:34+00:00

It really depends on people and their values. That brings something else up, namely that "morality" basically boils down to: "This is bad for my people and I, so I don't like you doing the things that you are doing!".

whitebunny87 · 2018-05-10T21:09:16+00:00

I know that technically there's nothing immoral about breaking up with someone you're just dating, but I've always felt sooo guilty every time it's happened. It's a horrible feeling.

VoyageOfTheBeagle · 2018-05-10T21:29:35+00:00

>Where is the line between an ethical and unethical breakup?

When you're unnecessarily cruel about it. Breaking up itself isn't immoral, but there are a lot of ways of breaking up that can be immoral. People who just pack up their things and ghost, leaving the other person trapped in their head agonizing over why, for months if not years, starting when they get home and find their ex missing. People who throw huge screaming fits and insult their partner. People who intentionally do bad things or mistreat their partner in the hopes that their partner will break up with them so they don't have to drop the hammer. People who pretended everything was completely fine and never gave their partner an opportunity to fix the problems until suddenly it was over without warning.

An ethical breakup is one that minimizes pain and treats the situation with respect and maturity. A face to face conversation, after at least one prior one about the problems in the relationship. A calm tone, and well wishes.

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Barely-moral · 2018-05-10T21:31:40+00:00

Objective morality does not exist. That being said, I can explain where I draw the line.

At the point someone made a promise not to break up. At the point someone says they will not break up. Marriage is not necesary. Marriage its just another way to give your word. A way that involves the state.

WhatIsTheMeaningHere · 2018-05-10T21:41:14+00:00

practicality

This is part of what makes your position morally questionable. When you just coldly calculate your partners value rather than let your emotions carry yourself away in infatuation it makes people wonder if you can even love someone at all or if you're just like: "Well my, this is a fine specimen that meets all my specifications. You may now mate with me my dear boy." in a weird logical way rather than emotional.

RMWristclutch · 2018-05-10T22:46:50+00:00

When you're doing it primarily for "you" but there's children involved.

Madness20 · 2018-05-10T23:55:49+00:00

I think it all boild down to the common morality of don't do to others what you wouldn't like to be done to you.

quicklogaccount · 2018-05-11T01:31:17+00:00

I propose that, for break ups, morality can be assessed by an utilitarian standpoint:

It is moral to break up whenever it raises the collective welfare of the world, in this case the assessment being often fairly restricted to immediate families, you, and partner. It is not moral if it lowers it, with the exceptions:

Staying is overwhelmingly sacrificial for you;
You can not assess the consequences even if you put honest effort into it and must, by virtue of that, focus on yourself.

Conundrums that spur from "is it fair to sacrifice an innocent" are to be addressed by the raising or lowering of the collective welfare.

chipette · 2018-05-11T01:49:02+00:00

When you have to second-guess everything about them: the really innocuous picky habits one’s SO might have, like humming whilst eating or something like that - to more serious concerns, such as poor financial or physical health, or the relationship becoming more and more casual as time passes( aka they are explicitly seeking or sneak sleeping with other people).

Source: viewing lots and lots of breakups and divorces...

trail22 · 2018-05-11T02:01:14+00:00

One situation I can think of that it may be immoral is after you are married, if one of them gets an illness like cancer which makes them sterile. And they breakup because they wanted kids.

Im not saying this is immoral but it kinda straddles the line for me.

blackedoutfast · 2018-05-11T03:38:01+00:00

that's the difference between a committed relationship and a non -committed one. whens a committed relationship, you are supposed to at least try to work through problems instead of just pulling the eject lever at the first sign of trouble. but even then it's not a suicide pact, if you've made an effort to fix it but you still just would rather be with someone else, it would be more immoral to stay in a relationship that you dont really to be a part of.

PhucCheet · 2018-05-11T12:24:44+00:00

Wait what? It's morally questionable to break up with someone you're not married to, ever? Why?

There's no lifelong commitment implied. If you wanted the commitment, get married. If you're not married, no lifelong loyalty was made, so how could breaking up be unethical?

SmeggingRight · 2018-05-11T04:18:09+00:00

I'm curious at what point a relationship becomes a serious commitment that's morally questionable if not outright immoral to break.

When you say you want to be with that person forever, that's when it becomes morally questionable that you turn on a dime and break it off. It's never immoral. Just a question of ethics.

Point is, it's never going to FEEL ethical to the person who didn't want to break up.

Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about non-marriage relationships.

Weird. Do you consider a Vegas marriage after a drunken 2-week whirlwind relationship to be a legitimate lifetime commitment'? But a non-married live-in relationship of a year or more to be somehow less committed?

AstuteBlackMan · 2018-05-11T04:27:40+00:00

Personally, I've never considered breaking up to be a question of morality but of practicality. Dating is an audition for lifelong commitment, and breaking up is what you do when you realize you don't want to be with that person for the rest of your life. Simple as that. Morality doesn't factor into it.

Cool. So when men break up with women for the hotter, younger woman its only practical. Definitely not immoral at all. She failed the audition. Someone hotter came along.

perplexedm · 2018-05-11T07:10:45+00:00

Dating is an audition for lifelong commitment

This beginning condition itself is wrong in current world.

Morality is contextual.

xKalisto · 2018-05-11T07:27:09+00:00

I think that if you were planning to break up but are prolonging it for some reason like pity or not wanting to be alone etc and you know that eventually you are not planning to stay. At that point you are just stringing them along and wasting the time they could be looking for a different partner.

Not sure I it's outright immoral tho.

I think it's different when you both decide you want to keep trying and make it work tho, wouldn't apply to that cause you both know.

Feanorfanclub · 2018-05-11T08:00:19+00:00

Generally when it breaks promises, or involves lying in my book. Like if you're not feeling it, fine. But if you dump her right as you convinced her to move, you're in the wrong as an obvious example.

InformalCriticism · 2018-05-11T10:23:22+00:00

Commitment, so I thought, was measured by your pledge of it through oaths of fidelity/marriage. For whatever reason, women don't see it that way as often as men. If either party breaches the agreement, then the social contract ends.

abaxeron · 2018-05-11T16:45:06+00:00

Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about non-marriage relationships.

When she's too pregnant for abortion.

midnightvulpine · 2018-05-11T16:53:03+00:00

As a general rule, I'd say you should give it thought if the partner starts to show they're taking the relationship more seriously than you and you're not willing to do the same.

As long as both people are on the same page, there shouldn't be an issue.

newName543456 · 2018-05-13T22:27:26+00:00

Anyone is/should be allowed to stop associating with anyone else at any point. But better not to be rude while doing it, unless other person earned it.

Electra_Cute · 2018-05-10T21:14:40+00:00

I do not personally believe that a line can be drawn with most binaries, but there is clearly a spectrum here. Initiating a break-up over someone being sick is not the same as initiating a break-up over someone cheating on you, one of those is clearly more acceptable than the other. If one promises to stay with another person no matter what, breaking that promise could also count as "immoral" or "unethical".

Let us take a look at another "moral" or "ethical" idea; killing. It seems it is acceptable to a lot people that killing Nazis that have initiated atrocities. In another case, say the death penalty people argue about that ad nauseum and are relatively split up about it or what should constitute as the death penalty, and where the exact line should be drawn. Then on the complete otherwise of the first example, most people think that it is unacceptable to murder someone out of cold blood(or a thirst for it).

Just ask yourself, can you see a situation where breaking up with someone would be frowned upon? Can you see a situation where it would be praised? Can you see a situation where it would divide a lot of people's opinions? If you are looking for an exact line, you will be hard pressed to find it. If you are looking for a normative standard you can find one. There are clearly observable tendencies in how people think about relationships, dating and by extension break-ups, and there is data that can be extrapolated from this observations that you could potentially compile to find a normative ethical standard for what is considered a "good" or "bad" reason to dump someone.

Title	Q4All: At what point does it become morally questionable to break up with an SO?
Author	GinSmokeLies
Upvotes	30
Comments	151
Date	May 10, 2018 9:00 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/8ii8ho/q4all_at_what_point_does_it_become_morally/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/q4all-at-what-point-does-it-become-morally.262502 https://theredarchive.com/post/262502

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