Abstract
This paper compares and contrasts the outcome of two different breakups from two popular young adult s book series shows in order to show that the situation where the parties honestly communicate their feelings while breaking up has a far better outcome. These contrasting outcomes show that lack of communication in a relationship can have dire consequences and that it is healthier to communicate one’s intention and feelings in a relationship so that one’s parner is not forced to jump to conclusions.
Main Body
Lack of communication in a relationship can have dire consequences. When one is in a relationship with someone else, it is best to make one’s intentions clear so the other person does not become confused and jump to (often harmful) conclusions. When one looks at two popular young adult series, the Harry Potter series and Twilight series, one can compare and contrast to demonstrate how the relationship where the boy doesn’t communicate with his girlfriend about what his problems are and why he feels he has to break up with her is less healthy and causes more strife than the relationship where the boy does communicate his reasons to his girlfriend.
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"The Consequences of Lack of Communication in a Relationship".
In Twilight, Edward Cullen feels Bella Swan is not safe in a relationship with him because she will constantly be surrounded by vampires who might kill her. So he breaks up with her. However, when he does so, he does not tell her his real reason for breaking up with her (Meyer, 2006). He does not respect her right to know to the truth because he feels she would not accept his reasons and he feels the only way to keep him away from her is to make her hate him. While it is definitely true that Bella is unlikely to accept this answer, he still needs to respect her right to make her own decisions about their relationship and her right to know the truth about his intentions. It is because Edward does not communicate to her what is worrying him about their relationship that Bella instantly blames herself for their breakup and spirals into a deep depression. She is convinced Edward doesn’t love her anymore and that assumption is something she makes because he does not communicate to her otherwise. She engages in a lot of self-harming behavior as a result and almost dies. Edward’s refusal to communicate with Bella and her family leads him to jump to conclusions based off second-hand information that she did actually succeed in killing herself over their breakup and out of guilt, he tries to kill himself in response (Meyer, 2006). Obviously these are two very unstable individuals who really aren’t healthy enough to be in a relationship at all, but the whole situation would not have spiraled out of control if Edward had just communicated his feelings and reasons to Bella in the first place.
Harry Potter offers a similar situation to the one in Twilight- Harry has to break up with his girlfriend because he feels it is dangerous for her to be around him (because she will be targeted by his enemies if they stay together). However, while the basic situations are comparable, how Harry handles the situation contrasts heavily with how Edward handles his situation. Harry actually tells his girlfriend, Ginny, that he does enjoy being with her and that he’s just breaking it off for a while because he’s afraid she might die. Unlike Edward, he actually respects Ginny enough to allow her to make her own decision about it. As a result, Ginny doesn’t jump to any conclusions and blame herself for her breakup. Though Ginny is saddened, she understands and accepts Harry’s reasoning (Rowling, 2005). Rather than spiraling into self-hating depression, she continues to live her own life while Harry lives his, even leading a resistance group against the evil regime that has taken over her school while he is away (Rowling, 2007). The results of this situation weren’t disastrous like Edward and Bella’s situation because there was proper communication between the two people. Obviously, Harry and Ginny are more stable and less codependent people than Edward and Bella and that helped a lot, but a big reason their relationship was more stable and healthy was because they were honest and open with each other.
Conclusion
These two situations just show that when one doesn’t communicate with their partner, the partner can only draw conclusions about the other person’s intentions based on their own guesswork and these conclusions can be inaccurate and lead to disastrous results that hurt everyone involved. This is why it is very important that one always communicates their feelings and intentions while in a relationship. It is the only way to avoid misunderstandings.
- Meyer, S. (2006). New Moon. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
- Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Author A. Levine Books.
- Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York: Author A. Levine Books.
