I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be contentious and I'm not taking his side.

I just think (a) if you have sex with person for a year you don't break up with them over the phone unless there's an issue of abuse or drugs or stealing or really damaging lies; and (b) it's not hard to be sympathetic with somebody who doesn't want to lose smonster. Nobody would want to lose smonster.

I think there are more shades of grey than you are allowing for Hec. I'd agree that it would be best Smonster can follow Scrappy's suggestion successfully. If she knows that won't work for her, then the choices are "break up over the phone"/"stay in a bad relationship". And I'd say if the choices really come down to that, "break up over the phone" is the lesser evil.

Stay strong, smonster.

I don't think it's okay to break up over the phone unless you have a fear of physical danger.

I'd say that depends on the value of that "okay". It gives the person broken up with something to complain about to his or her friends, but that's as far as I'd go. It's nicer to break up in person, sure, but nice is not necessarily what's called for.

As to smonster's plan specifically, I have no advice. Good luck, though, hon.

If she knows that won't work for her, then the choices are "break up over the phone"/"stay in a bad relationship". And I'd say if the choices really come down to that, "break up over the phone" is the lesser evil.

You're the one that's presenting an unlikely binary scenario. She's already laid out her plan, which I think will serve her. She's got a friend waiting for her, and a letter to hand over. That should be enough.

I won't belabor it further. I hope it goes as smoothly as these things can go.

I think if the breakee uses a person's presence as an opportunity to manipulate her, then he loses the right to an in-person breakup.

I'm gonna say it's not a right, it's a courtesy.

Eta: but I agree with Calli's point, taking advantage of someone's courtesy makes one undeserving of it.

Whatever you do will be the right thing, Smonster.

I think if the breakee uses a person's presence as an opportunity to manipulate her,

I think many folks being broken up with might plead the case for the relationship a bit. That isn't manipulation to my mind. Saying "I will kill myself if you leave" is manipulation. saying "Can't we work on this? Isn't there anything we can do to fix things?" doesn't feel like manipulation. It's damn uncomfortable to deal with if you are the one leaving, but it's not manipulation and to call it that seems disrespectful of the person being left.

That being said, the dropping a letter thing seems to me a PERFECT combo--respectful of both his feelings and her own.

As Miss Manners is of the opinion that there is no good/polite/nice way to break up with someone - no matter what you say or how, breaking up with someone is going to make them unhappy - I think smonster can do this however she damn well pleases. Over the phone, in person, carrier pigeon, semaphore*, whatever.

(*Please note that breaking up by semaphore does require both parties to be able to decode semaphore signals, and therefore may be not be ideal unless you are breaking up at sea in the 19th century.)