The Pros and Cons of Breaking Up Before College

There’s a lot of preparation involved with leaving for college. You have to prepare for responsibility, independence and new beginnings. However, one type of preparation that seems to be particularly tough for many people is figuring out what to do in terms of their current romantic relationships.

I recently had to deal with a pre-college relationship myself and when the time came, I ultimately chose to break off my relationship while many others around me didn’t. As I have spent a couple of months in college, I have come to see the many pros and cons of breaking up in college. This is what I’ve found:

Pros:

Less Worry

Living in a mixed gender residence hall has exposed me to a lot of different types of relationships. In the first couple of days of meeting people with significant others at home, I heard over and over again how they planned to be faithful. Within a week, this fidelity quickly vanished. There’s a case that I know of where someone cheated with three girls within a week and then had his girlfriend stay with him in his room the weekend after. His excuse was that he “had to get it out of his system.” Yikes!

Freedom & Experimentation

This is the primary reason for why I broke off my most recent high school relationship. My ex-boyfriend and I decided that college was our time to get a look at all of the other fish in the sea and branch out. This point also goes back to cheating; without having this freedom and ability to experiment, there may be resentment between you and your significant other, which could lead to infidelity. Nobody wants to be cheated on.

No Obligations

Going to college with a boyfriend means that you’ll have to dedicate a lot of your time to trying to make your relationship work. Whether this means scheduling Skype dates when you both have time, constantly checking in through text messages, and painstakingly trying to plan times to see each other – it can take a lot of time and energy to survive an LDR. College is meant to be the time for you to explore who you are as a person, dedicating your time to meeting new people and experimenting with new things. Having a boyfriend may put a damper on that.

Cons:

Loneliness

Going from being in a relationship to suddenly not being in one can be a lonely experience. There are a lot of habits that people form with their significant others that shape their daily lives, and when you’re in college, all of those things sort of go away by default. It’s comforting to know that there’s somebody that loves you somewhere—even if they aren’t “Netflix and chilling” with you at that exact moment.

More Pressure

Being single in a college creates a lot of different pressures. You tend to think a lot about the way you dress, how you act, and so on. If you have a stable relationship (especially if your significant other is far away), you don’t have anyone to impress. It’s not like you’re trying to get somebody else to like you, right…?

You lose a best friend

Sure, this may not pertain to everyone, but for many people, breaking up means no longer having that person as part of your life. Of course, there are those who can break up with their high school boyfriend and still remain close friends. But for those who can’t, breaking up can be an incredibly devastating thing to go through. You really need to consider if you’re okay with not having this person in your life anymore.