Right girls, you want to come out of this alive then you’re going to need to think smart. Unless you want to be THAT girl that is begging on her knees for her boyfriend not to leave her, you need to do things the classy way, the smart way, the right way. You need to learn the rules of a successful breakup, written by someone going through yet another bloody and gruesome breakup. And trust me, this is just one in a looooong line.

Are you ready? Sitting comfortably? Got yourself a cup of a tea and a nice Bourbon biscuit? Tissues handy?

1 – Facebook unfriend.

This needs to be done almost immediately. Make your Facebook page private so he can only see the things that you ‘accidentally’ set to public. AKA the photos that make you look beautiful, funny, skinny, well-styled, etc. You don’t want him to see those tagged photos of you looking like a fish from Friday night when you were trying to perfect your pout for the paparazzi…

This will also stop you from checking to see if he is online every five minutes. Which you will. We all do.

Plus you won’t see photos of him out with girls (unless he has everything set to public at which point you should just go for step two) and wondering which one of them he’s sleeping with. Which you will. And you’ll ask him too. And it’ll be embarrassing because he’s probably actually not doing half the things you’ve made up in your head. You look crazy again. Completely cuckoo.

2 – Facebook block.

When you’ve un-friended him and realised that you still can’t stop checking out his profile hoping that he posts something, (he doesn’t actually have his page on private, everything is public) you need to do the Facebook block.

You won’t be able to send him any Facebook messages that you’ll regret later on. Such as my one “Oi, you awake?” at 2:51am after a particularly drunken night. Luckily it didn’t send as I had no signal. No love-you’s, miss-you’s or anything like that… Just “Oi, are you awake?“

Who said romance was dead?

Don’t be a mug – just block him. Trust me. Plus, you can only block and unblock once every 24 hours or whatever it is, which will stop you doing it every five minutes just to have a look, and he’ll see that you’ve un-blocked him by the way that your name comes up in his message feed.

Have all your bases covered ladies.

Think of EVERYTHING.

3 – Delete his number.

You may have stopped Facebooking him but that hasn’t stopped you from checking to see if he is online on Whatsapp every five minutes. Or whether he’s seen your latest iMessage. Why is he online on Whatsapp? Why are there no blue ticks? You were the only person he ever spoke to on that! Why is he online all the time? Who is he talking to? Has he moved on already?! WHY ISN’T HE READING YOUR MESSAGES?!

You turn into a crazy bitch when you’re going through a breakup. When you delete his number, you can’t drunk call him, text him, Whatsapp him, etc. Plus if he has his privacy settings right (which he probably won’t), you’ll only be able to see when he was last online if the two of you are contacts.

Getting rid of his number altogether is the only way you’re going to get through this. You WILL make that drunken call you promised yourself you wouldn’t, and you ARE going to see red and say all the things you didn’t want to when you saw he was online again and still didn’t reply to your last message. Prick.

4 – Delete old messages.

You’ve done the number removal but you can still contact him if you’ve kept those old messages. You can just reply to the same thread. Of course, this is assuming you don’t know his number off the top of your head. But who knows phone numbers these days? I certainly don’t.

Get rid of his text messages, his iMessages, his Whatsapp messages, his Skype messages, his Viber messages, his first POF messages… Get rid of every way that you have communicated with him. We’re talking usernames, old messages, friend requests, etc. Get rid of EVERYTHING.

You won’t be able to communicate with him so you aren’t running the risk of embarrassing yourself by messaging or calling him, and you won’t be able to drive yourself crazy by checking to see if he is online, when he was last online, who he was talking to…

(*Most messaging platforms give you the option to backup your messages if you ever fancy getting nostalgic years down the line*)

5 – Remember emails too.

If you’ve ever emailed each other, get rid of those too. Print out the ones that mean a lot to you and put them in a memory box that you’ll put out of sight and out of mind. Drunken emails are just as bad, if not worse, than drunken texts and calls. And they will happen. I wasn’t even drunk and I still sent soppy emails begging him to give us another go. Fuck, it’s pathetic. You’re pathetic. I’m pathetic. We’re pathetic. Just get rid of it.

6 – Get rid of photographs.

Don’t destroy them because one day, you’ll want to look back and smile. You wont believe that now but you will. Put them in that same memory box that you’ll put out of sight and out of mind. Take them out of the frames and off the walls and hide them. They’ll only make you cry if you don’t.

The worst of it is you won’t even notice that you have photos of him on your wall until months later where they happen to pop up in the back of a photo you’re trying to send of yourself to a potential new bae. Be prepared for that.

7 – Cry.

Just do it already. Do it in the privacy of your own bedroom, snuggled up in your bed. Cry on your friends if they’ll let you. It’s not a bad thing to cry. I don’t think people cry enough. Sometimes you just need a cup of tea and a good cry. If you feel the tears, let them flow. Stop trying to pretend you’re stronger than you are. Breakups suck. It hurts. It’s all cool. Let the snot flow freely.

8 – Start a journal.

After a couple of weeks, your friends are going to get really bored of you talking about your ex. They are going to get annoyed at new stories of him with that skinny blonde at the party, or that fiery looking redhead at the local store. You’re gonna wanna talk about that shit. You’re going to want to rant about it… For hours.

Start a journal or do what I did and start a blog! Get it out somewhere, down on paper or furiously tapped out on your laptop. You never know – you might just create the next best seller!

Seriously though – your friends are going to get really pissed off sooner or later, and you are going to want to talk about this a lot. Why is he talking to her? How could he move on so quickly? Who does he think he is wanting his concert t-shirt back? Trust me on this one. Start writing that shit down.

Plus, it’ll give you something to laugh about years later when you look back and realise that it wasn’t quite as dramatic as you thought it was at the time. See – you did survive without him! Woo hoo!

9 – Have drunken, meaningless sex.

…But only when you’re sure it’s over. Completely sure. One million percent sure. Having sex with someone else does something to the relationship you HAD with your ex. It puts a line under everything. That’s it – you fucked someone else. You’re not just his anymore. When he has sex with you, he’s going to have that thought of someone else having sex with you in his head. If neither of you cheated and everything was nice and truthful throughout your breakup, having sex with someone else will put a strain you both if you ever get back together and you end up telling him. I probably wouldn’t tell him… I haven’t yet anyway…

Be sure before you go down this line. Do you know that the guilt won’t eat away at you afterwards? Can you be sure of that? Would he take you back if he knew you had slept with someone else? Most men wouldn’t. Just saying. Look at it from all eventualities. Either way, it doesn’t look good so it’s probably best to avoid screwing someone else until you’re absolutely sure that there is nothing left for the two of you.

Long story short – don’t go out and drink if you’re angry because you’ll probably shag someone else just for revenge, and then you probably definitely won’t get back together.

Is that really what you want?

10 – Do the pro’s & con’s list.

…But only do it when you’re angry. You know the list – his good points versus his bad points. Working out which list is longer and whether or not you should get back together…

If you’re all loved up, missing him and crying, the list you write is going to be focusing on all the good things you miss about him and you won’t get the full picture. By all means do the good list, but leave his bad list until you are really angry and need to vent everything out – everything he ever did to piss you off. You’ll be surprised at how much your mind can be swayed just be being reminded of all those times he left you waiting, didn’t turn up, didn’t call or text you back, and was caught out chatting up other women. Plus there was that time he didn’t get you a birthday present. And who can forget that time he refused to go to the theme park with you because he “didn’t like them at all” and then invited you with his ex and her daughter just a few months later?

If you ever feel that breaking up wasn’t the right decision (even when it probably was), re-read that con’s list and realise why you broke up in the first place. An ex is always an ex for a reason. How many fairy tales have you heard that started with “Once upon a time, Barbie and Ken had been together for five years on and off…”?

11 – Keep yourself busy.

When you stop and think, you’ll hurt. You’ll cry. You’ll get angry and want to vent at him. You’ll message him. You’ll call him. You’re going to want to get really angry at him. You’re probably going to have some questions that he should answer. He should but he probably never will. Not honestly anyway.

Screw it. Leave it. It’s not worth it. He’s not worth it. Keep yourself busy. Work on your website or clean your home. Take on some extra hours at work. Go to the gym. Hang out with friends. Go shopping. Redecorate. Spring-clean. Organise your closet and sell the shit you don’t wear on eBay. Do whatever you gotta do. Just don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. When you stop, your heart will break and then you’ll cry and your mascara will run all down your face. Plus no one looks pretty when they cry.

12 – Win the breakup war.

Go to the gym, get your hair cut, get a new tattoo, try a new look, learn a new skill or talent, buy more shoes, wear different clothes…

Winning the breakup war is simply a case of coming out of it better off than the other person; the ex. You need to put effort into that; effort, dedication and time. If you ever needed a great time to get to the gym and start getting buff-ting, this is it! You can’t just go once and think that’s it either. You need to keep going. Keep at it. They say that it takes 12  weeks of working out before family and friends will start to notice the weight loss and change in body. That’s it – give yourself a three month goal and see who says what about your new physique? Win that breakup war! Be fit and give him something to miss and regret. Imagine how much better it would feel to turn him down knowing that you now look fit after losing those extra few pounds you put on while you were getting comfortable and eating too many Bourbon biscuits with him.

Would you rather just lie down and cry? No, I didn’t think so.

13 – Songs.

Do not forget about the songs that are on your phone or mp3 player. All those little songs that remind you of him – they are going to cut you like a knife when you hear them on the way to work by accident, or when you are getting ready to go out with the girls. I cried on the way to work three days ago because I heard “All of me” by John Legend… in public!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=450p7goxZqg]

Write a list of all the songs that remind you of him. Listen to them one more time. Cry it out. Get the Ben & Jerry’s to help you through it. Then remove them from your life. One by one, delete them. Fuck off. Click.

14 – Start online dating.

Right, I’m not telling you that you need to get under someone in order to get over someone else (although it doesn’t hurt), but online dating is actually the perfect distraction to help you through a breakup.

Every time I break up with someone, I go back onto my trusty POF account and start secretly night-stalking random guys. I have no intentions of making my profile public of course, and I’m definitely not up for messaging anyone, but every once in a while someone will catch my eye and it’ll give me something to do for a few weeks – a little complimentary text-action to lift my spirits when the day has started with a nasty fight with the now-ex. With Jock I just made my profile public for enough time for him to make his move, and with Mr. T, I just straight-up messaged him first. It would have been rude not to… He’s so beautiful!

It gives you something to do even if you don’t have the balls to actually start dating, plus you might just find a little hidden gem. Jock was that little hidden gem for a while. Maybe Mr. T is the next one? Instead of desperately watching his WhatsApp messages, waiting to see if he comes online and ignore your messages again, you could be having a hot discussion with some fittie that you have no intentions of meeting up with, but will definitely give you something to smile about. Everyone needs a little boost from time to time and you never know, you might just find Mr. Right while you’re getting over Mr. Wrong.

15 – Don’t try to be friends.

Right, after a year or so it might be possible but trying to be friends just a couple months after your breakup…? Nope, this friendship is never going to work. Not a chance. Not in a million years. You’re going to end up back in bed together with one of you taking the move as a mixed signal. You’ll end up breaking down and admitting how much you miss him. He’ll beg you not to leave. You’ve already gotten over the hardest part of your breakup… What’s the point in going right back to square one? He’ll pull on nights out and you’ll get upset watching him neck on with another girl, and when you even dare try to move on and get over him, he’ll put on the waterworks and accuse you of being a cold-hearted bitch that never gave a shit about him. Honestly guys and girls – friends will not work. It’s like someone killing your dog and then letting you keep it stuffed. What’s the point?

So there you have them – the 15 rules you need to know to get through a successful breakup. If you can even call a breakup successful….?

If you follow these rules, you will come out of this looking every inch the classy, sophisticated, dignified woman you are. And let’s face it, us girlies need all the help we can get!