3 Rules to Get Over a Breakup

The old method of getting over a guy involved nothing more complicated than a tub of ice cream. These days, your tactics have to be tech-savvy.
By Bethany Heitman

Splitting up sucks. You got dumped, you cut him loose…sometimes it doesn't even matter. Fact is, there's pain and sadness and anger, and that's never going to change. (Sorry.) And these days, getting over a split may be tougher than ever. "Technology is a huge obstacle," says relationship therapist Belisa Vranich, PsyD, coauthor of He's Got Potential. "Facebook and Twitter make it incredibly difficult to move on because you're bombarded with reminders of the guy on a daily, even hourly basis. Plus, texting means keeping up contact is easy and impersonal, causing a lot of confusion and mixed emotions. Unless you take specific actions to address these issues, you're in for a rough time." We asked experts for the updated rules on dealing with the grief and the guy and finally getting your life back on track.

RULE 1: Block Him on Facebook Pronto

Seeing a tagged photo of your former guy with his arm around some chick is pretty much the last thing you need to add to your freaked-out state of mind during this mourning time. Even if there's nothing as blatantly agony inducing as that, little news-feed updates or minor profile tweaks serve as constant reminders of him that will start to eat away at you. "That period after leaving someone can be very emotional, and you really need a clean break to get your head on straight," says Ilana Gershon, PhD, assistant professor of communications and culture at Indiana University and author of The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting Over New Media. "Besides, it's easy to become obsessive and read too much into minor things — like if you see that he's online at 2 a.m., you may jump to the conclusion that he can't sleep because he's thinking about you when he's really just pulling a late night."

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