“Anytime you want to break up with someone, keep it short and sweet.”
Don’t know how you can keep it sweet. 
@dr.google-
Maybe “If you love somebody, set them free” by Sting.
41, no it's not Sting. We are Sting fans so we recognize the voice. It's a younger voice.
I think that it can mean a lot of different things. Some use it simply to avoid telling the other person they simply aren’t it, or want to avoid them feeling badly about themselves. When you see “it’s about me”, you are taking the blame, saying they are perfect you are not, etc.
I have seen people use that who mean it, people who actually like the other person a lot, but feel they are so screwed up that it wouldn’t be fair to be in a relationship with them or have other things they feel self conscious about or otherwise think would destroy the relationship, and they really mean it.
Is it better to tell the truth? I don’t really think so, if this was a dating relationship, as opposed to something more deep (like, for example, living together, or god forbid, being married). I think saying "it is not about you, it is about me’ in a long term relationship is a cop out and will hurt the other person, if you have been with someone a while and say that, they are going to wonder if that is the truth, or if it is a cop out to avoid hurting them. One of the worst cases I have seen with that was the wife had figured out she was attracted to women more than men, had fallen in love with someone, but didn’t want to hurt the husband but also didn’t want to tell him the truth. The guy felt like he must have done something, when he eventually found out why she left, it was a relief to him, it would have been better to tell him the truth, for the year or so before he found out the poor guy felt like he had done something wrong. The wife was a good person, she basically didn’t want to hurt him, was afraid in part that if she told him she was attracted to women it would make him feel like it was something he had done (she admitted later it was primarily because she hadn’t really come to grips with herself and her feelings), so she used that line. It was technically true, but ambiguous enough to make him feel badly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?autoplay=1&v=RBumgq5yVrA
Passenger - Let her go
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Even if a person is asking for feedback, it could potentially lead to a argument (“what do you mean I am clingy? Give me an example… Oh that? I was just staying by you because I didn’t know anyone there. I am not that clingy…” ) Why go there.
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Right because there were probably multiple incidents. Few would think someone is being clingy if ONE time he/she stayed near you at a party where they knew no one.
I can only think of one time that I broke up with someone for a single “offense”.
^^^It must have been quite an offense.
There are certain offenses that are deal-breakers.
I read Diane Vaughan’s “Uncoupling” after being blindsided by a breakup last year - this was before Gwyneth Paltrow introduced “conscious uncoupling” to the world.
Motivated by her own experience of leaving her marriage after going back to school, Vaughan surveyed hundreds of couples, the initiators and the ones left behind. What I came away with is that the initiator more often than not truly cared for the partner, but at some point had a vision of herself that was at odds with her perceived identity in the relationship. Rarely is the rift repaired, despite the initiator’s honest attempts at repairing (at least in her mind). Of course, the dumpee doesn’t know this. It is the growing asymmetry of information and therefore level of preparation (after all, the initiator has had more time to prepare for the breakup, and has had the time to find a landing spot) that dooms the relationship rather than the partner’s qualities. Vaughan makes the case that though the initiator thinks he/she is being kind by staying in, the greater kindness would have been honesty earlier on.
Knowing this doesn’t mitigate the heartbreak, of course, but it helped me to get over my sense of failure and inadequacy. My best wishes to your friend.
Affairs.
In situations when you don’t want to date the person, but are willing, even interested in being friends, you may also recognize that this will give the other person false hope, that you could get back together.
Better to separate, and after you have both gained distance, only then consider if you want to be platonic friends.
However, I have had relationships that began as friends, moved on for a short while as something more, but then went back to just being friends with no regrets on either side.
If you are finding that people often lie to you, asking them why, may not get an accurate reason as much as serious introspection.
If someone is trying to end their relationship with you, I don’t think they owe you a resolution, or vice versa.
They may have been trying to end it for weeks, so further discussion would be pointless.
http://lyrics.wikia.com/The_Blow_Monkeys:If_You_Love_Somebody
I agree with this. I have a good friend whose college boyfriend broke up with her. He was going away to school for his grad degree and just felt like they were too young to try a long distance relationship. He was a year or two older than her and definitely more mature. It was tough for her, but he was very sweet and they ended on good terms. Six years later they ran into each other at a friend’s wedding and started seeing each other. This fall they’ll celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary.
If I truly loved someone, at least the way I love the man I’ve been married to for 34 years, there are no deal breakers, just as there is nothing that either one of my children could do that would force me to end our relationship.
He might ( and has) done things that prompted me to move out, or to prompt him to move out for a time, but I never stopped loving him.
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certain offenses that are deal-breakers.
affairs
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Yes, that would be one. But that wasn’t the case in this instance. It was just something that (at the time) seemed to scream that he had a very selfish core.
Never is a long time. I cannot envision a scenario when I would leave H, but then again none of us knows what the future will bring. I hope, that after our decades together, we can be honest if one of us wants out of our marriage and will give honest reasons. I have always tried to be as honest but kind as possible in my relationships.
In more casual and even exclusive longer term dating relationships, it does seem better sometimes to end things as quickly and cleanly as possible, so as not to create unreciprocated thoughts that CPR will revive the relationship.
If it takes, “it’s not you, it’s me,” that seems slightly kinder than, “I’m just not that into you,” or similar.
I can think of marriage deal breakers:
Physical abuse and spouse refuses to seek professional help.
Discovery of sexual abuse of anyone, particularly children.
Drug or alcohol abuse where spouse refuses to reach out for or accept professional help.
Infidelity where he or she refuses to give up the lover.
I knew a woman who learned her husband had a lover. She was willing to work through it with marriage counseling, but he absolutely refused to give up his mistress. She felt that putting up with that would be the equivalent of accepting extreme emotional abuse, and I agree.
I think that my problem with the “It’s not you, it’s me” line is that it implies that there is hope. For my friend, that is not helpful. And this was a longterm relationship. Four years. Two of them living together. I also agree that the person doing the break-up knows well in advance that things are heading south. It is the other person who is in the dark. From my experience, that is a humiliating aspect of the break. I do think that some honesty is appropriate. I’m not saying that it should be a mean critique of all of your flaws, but some gentle specifics are okay. That way the wounded party can move on. It will still be painful but…
Interesting the way we interpret the same words differently. To me, “It’s not you, it’s me” means there is no hope. It is a clear indication that there is nothing I can start or stop doing to heal or prolong the relationship, the other person just doesn’t feel it (any more).
To me, " it’s not you, it’s me," means by definition that something about ME makes the relationship not work. It means the relationship is done, period.
To me it’s BS saying to get out of a relationship without hurting the person getting dumped. The same as “I’ll call you”, means the same, nobody says I won’t be calling you but don’t want to say it to your face.