How to give your partner bad news

Have you ever had to give bad news to someone you care for? The dread can overtake you. In the hours leading up to the big conversation, you might notice your thoughts rushing around in your head yet somehow stuck on a single thought — “What do I do?” This kind of a reaction means you really care about how the conversation goes. It means you love this person enough to want to keep them from ever experiencing pain.

So you make all these plans about how you’ll say it, when you’ll say it — in person as opposed to a text message. Or maybe you might give so much context to the bad news that there’s no way they can think negatively of you or want to separate from you. You control how the information is shared so that the only possible response is positive and protects your relationship.

But, you can’t control what another person does with the information you give them.

Your partner gets upset, maybe even mad when you tell them the bad news. They start to cry and tell you they want to be alone. You might think, “Oh no — this wasn’t supposed to go this way!” And slowly panic starts to creep in. Your mind starts racing, wondering what you did wrong and how you can fix it. You get really warm and sweaty. Maybe it even gets hard to breathe. But, didn’t you do all that preparation to avoid this?

Yeah, but, you can’t control what another person does with the information you give them. You can only control what their response means to you.

A negative reaction doesn’t have to mean you’re unsafe or that everything important to you is going to leave you. A negative response can just be a negative response. Maybe the information makes your partner sad, or hurts them in some way. Your partner is allowed to feel that pain, no matter how badly you don’t want them to. Pain is a natural part of life and just as organically, pain will subside.

And now comes the hard part. What will your loved one do with that pain?

You can never know how someone will respond to bad news. It is possible that the information you share may change how your loved one views your relationship. It may be that the pain is more than they can accept and they may choose to leave. You can’t control what another person does with the information you give them. There is no amount of care or thought you could have dedicated to how to share the bad news that ever could change what that bad news means to your loved one. If the information is a dealbreaker for them, you’re not going to convince them otherwise. No matter how much love you give them.

When your self-worth, security, and dreams are so tightly wound up in another person, it can feel like the most important thing is to protect that relationship. But it’s not. You’re the most important thing. Your self-worth, security, and dreams are the most important things. You can’t control how your loved one loves you, so you have to do it yourself.