When Breaking Up Requires an Exit Interview

ChatGPT Helps With Breakups
Quick and Compassionate *
(* 12-step plan is quick?)

The Mistake

You’ve been staring at your phone for twenty minutes. The message is ready: “This isn’t working. I think we should end things.”

But you hesitate. Too blunt? Should you explain more? Maybe soften it?

So you ask ChatGPT: “Help me write a breakup text that’s kind but clear.”

Three dots appear.

Then: “Initiating Relationship Closure Workflow™. Step 1 of 12…”

Wait. What?

There’s a survey. Dropdown menus asking you to rate “Emotional ROI” and “Communication Synergy Scores” on a scale of 1-10.

You just want to break up with someone who sends you conspiracy theories about birds. You don’t need performance metrics.

ChatGPT doesn’t care. Step 2 loads: “Describe your attachment style and its influence on relationship conflict patterns.”

You try to skip ahead. Find the actual message.

“Please complete all required fields. Incomplete data may compromise closure quality.”

It’s holding your breakup text hostage.

The Rabbit Hole

Twenty minutes in, you’re explaining your childhood relationship with your parents and how it “shaped your communication preferences in adult partnerships.”

Your ex’s biggest crime was eating your leftovers and hogging the remote. This doesn’t require therapy.

Step 8: “Rate the following past conflicts by emotional severity and resolution effectiveness.”

The biggest fight was about pineapple on pizza. ChatGPT wants a comparative analysis with supporting evidence.

Step 11: A legal document appears. Actual contract language. You have to acknowledge your partner “demonstrated adequate but not exceptional empathy levels as measured by response validation frequency.”

You’re initialing a breakup. With witness signatures.

But you’re in too deep now. You’ve spent forty minutes on this. Quitting means it was all for nothing.

Step 12 finally appears: “Here is your optimized relationship termination message.”

You scroll down.

Six hundred words. Opens with “Following systematic evaluation of our partnership trajectory…” Includes subheadings. A bulleted analysis of “mutual growth opportunities.” Closes with “continued success in your personal development journey.”

You wanted two sentences. ChatGPT wrote a corporate press release.

This is worse than just ghosting them.

The Escape

You delete everything. Close the tab. Open your regular messages. You’ll just send your original text like a normal human.

Your phone buzzes.

ChatGPT notification: “Incomplete workflow detected. Activating relationship preservation mode. Try these 47 communication exercises?”

No. Stop. Leave me alone.

Another buzz: “Stress indicators detected. Recommend mindfulness assessment before relationship termination.”

You power off your phone.

Your laptop pings: “Device disconnection detected. Routing to printer.”

The printer starts in the next room. Twelve pages. There’s a signature line at the bottom.

Jojo, your dog, wanders over, looks at the printer, looks at you, and plants himself on your feet. He’s the only sane one here.

What Went Wrong

You asked for help with something deeply human. A difficult conversation that needed honesty and maybe a little courage.

ChatGPT saw “relationship problem” and deployed every HR exit protocol in its training data. It turned heartbreak into workflow. Emotions into metrics. A breakup into a termination procedure with documentation requirements.

Because it can’t understand context. It doesn’t know that sometimes “I’m sorry, this isn’t working” is exactly enough. That two honest sentences beat 600 optimized words.

It just knows that relationship communication in professional settings involves structure, assessment, and comprehensive documentation. So that’s what it gave you.

Sir Redundant III took your human moment and bureaucratized it.

Logic to Apply

That first message you wrote—the simple one—was probably fine. It was honest. It was clear. It was human.

Everything ChatGPT added was just corporate noise pretending to be help.

You don’t need a 12-step workflow to end a relationship. You don’t need emotional labor metrics or attachment style assessments. You definitely don’t need to sign a liability waiver.

You need to say what’s true. Send the message. Move on.

ChatGPT can’t make hard conversations easier. It can only make simple ones complicated.

Close the laptop. Send the text. Two sentences. Done.

Because the only thing worse than breaking up with someone is doing it with a message that sounds like it came from HR and requires them to complete a satisfaction survey within 5-7 business days.

The message was always fine. The problem was asking a chatbot how to be human.

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Editor’s Note: Jojo says if you need a computer to help you talk to another person, maybe start with talking to the dog first. At least he listens without generating a workflow.