It's a break up because you break the part of you that was created in the relationship.

I wrote to a friend recently detailing how I felt hesitant to jump back into a relationship. I just don't feel ready, I said, but I wasn't sure how to communicate this or even why. His reply was instantaneously soothing:

You need to explain some shit to mother fuckers right now, and I hate to go back to this well, but the metaphor is apt: when you break a bone or have major surgery, you must be allowed time to heal. That's why an end to a relationship is called "BREAKING up," because you are breaking the part of yourself that was created in that relationship. You have to you heal that self next. When someone sees someone fresh out of a cast or with stitches from heart surgery, their first response generally isn't "Let's run a goddamned marathon." People need to understand that they are asking you to run a marathon when they insist on committed relationship. You have healing to do. When a bone is broken, you have to rehabilitate it. The muscles are weakened and atrophied, and have to be taught to bear weight again. I'm not saying tell people "I'll never run again," I'm saying tell them you're not even out of the cast yet.

Most of my crushes understand this, some maybe are even in a similar place themselves, which is wonderful. Someday I'll run again. When it feels right.