Did you ever 'dump' someone in your youth?

Gosh yes, I was a great believer of in try before you buy. I was fickle, I dumped somebody because I saw him spit in the street, and somebody else because he had bad breath - weirdly both were called Simon. There was only one I still feel bad about though, and he wasn’t a Simon but we are still friends on Facebook so I hope he doesn’t hate me for it 40 years later.

I've loved reading all your stories and glad to know that I'm not the only one who gives the occasional thought to past boyfriends. If I ever cross their minds too, at least I'm still 16, slim and reasonably pretty somewhere

I dumped my first husband in a very unkind way and I'm sorry about it. He died a few years ago and it's too late to apologise but I am sorry and a bit ashamed of myself.

I didn't dump someone but did send a Valentine card to a boy in my study group at college. I wrote it is thick black felt tip and sent it to him. The following week a rather plain girl from the group sat next to him and wrote in black felt tip and he asked her out there and then. I was gutted. He was gorgeous and had a car!

How do you break off with someone in a way that isn't effectively a dump, unless it is mutual?

I think if you reach a point in a relationship where you know it has died on your side, but where the othe partner is still keen to make it last, the last thing you want is someone emotional or begging you to give them another chance, and the emotional pressure to do so. Once it is over, it is over and the best way to do this is short and sharp with an abrupt cut off.

I have been dumped and have dumped others and think painful though it be, it is the best way. I would rather have my head cut off with an axe than gently sawn through.

When I met my husband I was engaged to a lovely man and we were in the process of buying a house. But he lost his mum and in the months that followed he stopped wanting to have fun which was very understandable but I was young and my husband came along and well I felt so terrible for my fiancé when I ended it. I tried to give him his ring back but he threw it back at me. I don’t think it would have worked though as he is a professor and has travelled the world and I just wanted to escape my difficult home life. I would love to know where his life took him.

I can remember one guy who I dumped when I was around 18. He was lovely and a friend of my brother. Thing is I still hankered for a previous boyfriend who was back on the scene. The friend of my brother posted me a letter with a simple typed message - au revoir.

Yes, and I still feel bad about a long-term BF, who was evidently a lot keener than I was, as I realised once we’d gone to different unis. I just stopped answering his letters, because I couldn’t bring myself to write, Sorry, it’s over. But by then I knew I was never going to marry him.

I googled him not long ago and found that he’d gone bankrupt back in the 90s, which made me feel even worse - not that anything would have made the slightest difference.

No never, I was too "nice". But looking back, that wasn't kind either, because it left them dangling not really knowing what I felt about them. Relationships took ages to peter out fully, but I'm still friendly ish wih a few.

I only had 3 boyfriends before I married, and I was always the one 'dumped'. One I particularly remember as we had arranged to meet in the college library. I arrived there to find a note on the table where we were to meet finishing it! I suppose it was the 70's version of texting! A bit of a cowards way really. It was always awkward after that if I bumped into him.

I still feel bad about handling the end of a relationship with my long term teenage boyfriend whose family has been so kind to me when my mother died. I was right to see no future for the relationship but very wrong not to be honest and up front about things. I learned to be braver because I felt so rotten about myself. He married three times, had a successful career as a research scientist so he survived my immature behaviour but I still carry the shame of behaving unkindly.

Not in so many words, no. But I did stand someone up........we had known each other for quite a while and made a midweek date. I had forgotten that I had already arranged to meet up with some school friends on the same night - one of them was having a rough time and we girls wanted to cheer her up. Naturally, it was 'sisters before misters' and I couldn't meet him. I did apologise when I next saw him and did explain but never got a second chance.

I have been both dumper and dumpee ( sorry pedants) one of my first boyfriends was very attractive and well mannered - no liberties. It was not until I moved into the nurses home that my more worldly wise friends told me he could be gay. I was a very naive 18 year old.

Yes, I did. We had been engaged for a month or two and I disappointed him by breaking our engagement. However what I did was better than marrying him for the wrong reason.

This is not the same sort of case as breaking off the emotional investment of a friendship of thirty or forty years, or breaking a contract that cost someone a lot of money.

MissAdventure

I've dumped people left, right, and centre.
I don't regret it, I'm sure they all went on with life without me.

This. I prefer the term 'ghost' - I refuse to be with people who aren't truthful. I don't need bad behaviour in my life.

People 'dump' or 'ghost' by walking away or just estranging.