Why The No-Contact Rule Is The Hardest Part Of A Breakup

Don't contact your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend for exactly 89 days after you breakup.

If he or she texts you, ignore him or her. Don't give in to this weak kind of failure.

For God's sake, how do you expect this person to miss you when you're being a needy failure of a person?

You have to do this in order to get the one you loved and lost back. This is the way to do it.

This is basically what the “no contact” rule advocates:

It's actually kind of disgusting in a way. It's a cruel and unusual form of punishment designed to cause someone pain. That's how I've come to see it.

No contact is such a common “rule” for post-breakup etiquette that it's practically embedded in our culture.

I'm not exactly sure why, because playing a game when it comes to human emotions seems downright barbaric and destructive.

I know someone who was in a very dark place in his or her life.

This person was in a horribly co-dependent relationship with someone that was fueled by a mutually shared passion and common sense of self-destruction.

Their relationship was loving, though, even through their sad and chaotic, tumultuous times.

Then, a breakup happened.

One of them decided to intentionally ignore the other JUST for the sake of making this person feel pain.

This person was not over the other -- this person wanted to get back with the other but wanted to make this person work for it and feel a sense of longing and desperation.

What happened next was a tragedy.

What ended up happening was this relationship went up in flames, and the person tried to commit suicide because of the lack of contact between the two of them

I don't know how else to say it, but it happened.

This is an extreme example, but it illustrates the underlying cruelty behind systematically and intentionally ignoring someone to make him or her miss you.

Now I am NOT saying that no contact is cruel if you GENUINELY want a destructive force out of your life.

If you are sure of the fact that you are done with the relationship, then no contact can be a healthy means of moving on.

But if you are engaging in no contact as a sick form of punishment, I find it twisted. Punishing someone you love and making him or her miss you is manipulative and kind of means you don't know how to love.

Sorry if this sounds harsh; I just don't know how else to capture the sentiment behind why I hate no contact. I can't get myself to believe “no contact” as a rule in order to make someone miss you is OK.

It all comes down to intent.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to what we intend through our actions, and how we want our actions to affect other people.

If an action is done through malice, with malice as the intent -- it's harmful. It can wind up ruining lives and destroying people caught in the crosshairs.

But if an action is done through an honest desire for change, growth, and perspective -- then its outcome is positive.

I'm not saying that cutting off contact with someone is never right. In a lot of cases, it's 100 percent the right move.

If you're cutting off contact because you want to gain perspective or because you can't trust yourself to talk to the other person and stick to the breakup, or because you want to keep your distance from a bad situation -- that's good.

It's healthy.

But if you're cutting off contact to hurt the other person, or to try to make him or her come crawling back to you, or some other passive-aggressive way to see if your ex still has feelings for you -- it's twisted, and it's a problem.

Actions can have consequences far beyond what was intended at the time.

Please, consider whether the momentary satisfaction of “revenge” is worth playing with someone else's well-being and emotions.

And remember -- breakups are sometimes necessary, and sometimes really healthy. Dealing with them in a healthy way (and considering your ex's emotions, even if you're not together anymore) is the best way to get perspective, move on and find someone new.