The Break-Up 101: How to "Save Face"

So… You met, you fell in love, spent a few weeks, months, years on cloud 9 and then you crashed and burned… Now what?

Here are the do's and dont's after you and your precious sugar pie, honey bunch, babycakes break up.

SAVE: Save his phone number under the reason you feel you broke up, everytime he calls, texts or you go to call or text him, you’ll have a constant reminder of why you have NOTHING to talk about.

i.e. Jason Banks=Cheated with 3 girls. Mark Young=Stubborn, Selfish, Dishonest. Kevin Finch=Online Affairs/Internet Addiction.

FACE: DO NOT change your physical appearance.

Yes, a makeover might sound like a great idea, “A new start” but if you get a tattoo or cut your hair, you’ll always associate that new look with your break-up.

CLOSE: Close ALL lines of communication! You have NOTHING to talk about! You broke up because you couldn’t communicate effectively, why start now? No texting, IM’ming, emailing, facebooking, tweeting, pinning, NOTHING!!! Delete! Block! Un-friend! Stalking his social networking pages wont help either, so try your best to stay away!

DISCLOSURE: Your social networking “friends” don’t need you to become the Confucius of break ups. Instead of taking to twitter and facebook, try talking to your close friends and family. Don’t focus on what went wrong…focus on how you feel.

RUMINATING: Go ahead and cry! Don’t let it consume you. You loved him/her and it didn’t work, it is devastating. Allow yourself to feel what you feel but don’t obsess over what went wrong and how you can fix it. Your relationship more than likely ended because you two couldn’t agree or act on what it took to fix it.

AVOID: Avoid songs, movies & places that remind you of him/her (at least for the first 2-3 weeks). If the two of you made cd’s & playlists together or as a reminder of one another… you might not wanna lie in bed watching “Friends with Benefits” listening to Rihanna’s “Diamonds” if (s)he told you that you were his/her diamond & you spent every Saturday of your relationship watching romantic comedies.

REBOUND: Only you know if you’re a “rebound” kind of gal. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “Best way to get over someone old is to get under someone new” and thought to yourself, “Aint that the truth!” then you might need to check out Bedside Manner:How To Have A One Night Stand. Whether you decide to jump back on the dating scene, have a one-night stand, keep to yourself, etc. do it because its what you’re comfortable doing.

Break-ups are tough, especially if you were in love (or thought you were), take your time sorting through the wreckage, learn your “lesson” and leave it where it is, try not to bring any of the leftover hurt into your next relationship. You can and will recover whether you were together 4 months, 3 years or 20 years. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

With that said, I’ve got some of my own sorting to do.

Did I leave out any rules you tend to follow after a break-up? Let me know.

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