The easiest breakups, relatively speaking, are the ones where the love has clearly faded on both sides. The hardest are the ones where it hasn't — where you can list everything you love about someone and still know, with real certainty, that the relationship isn't right for either of you. Incompatible life goals, unhealthy dynamics that genuine affection can't fix, or a mismatch in what you each need are all reasons that can coexist with real love.
The temptation in this situation is to let the love argue you out of the decision — to mistake the intensity of your feelings for evidence that the relationship should continue. But love and compatibility are different things, and plenty of relationships end not because the feelings weren't real, but because feelings alone can't resolve a fundamental mismatch.
Being honest about still loving someone, while also being clear that you're ending things, is one of the harder conversations to have — it's tempting to downplay your feelings to make the ending feel more decisive, but that dishonesty usually backfires and can read as confusing rather than clean. It's possible, and often more respectful, to say both things plainly: “I love you, and I still don't think we should be together.”
Grieving a relationship you still have feelings for takes longer, and that's not a sign you made the wrong call — it's just what it costs to end something real instead of something that had already died.