Box Up His Crap
Get a box. A shoebox will do for a shorter-term relationship. A ream-of-paper-size box from your office’s supply room will do for a long-term relationship. Now start throwing any relationship-related stuff in it. If you want to burn the Patriots jersey he left over at your place, or sell it on eBay, or toss it (with a nice flourish) into a city Dumpster, fine, but you can’t do that with everything. A short list of items that must go, after the jump…

Go Grocery Shopping
You’re single now, and you can buy what you want. No picking up bacon and Budweiser or catching flack from a guy for your steady Diet Coke habit. He hated Pirate’s Booty? Guess what: You’re buying three bags. You feel like eating gourmet brie on Ritz crackers every single evening this week? Go right ahead. Pick up 16 different flavors of low-fat yogurt and throw them all onto the conveyor belt with gusto. Congratulations: You’ve got your fridge back.

Did you just go through a horrible breakup? Is your heart in a million little pieces? Whether you got dumped or did the dumping, splitting up with someone sucks. But have no fear, The Frisky’s 30-Day Breakup Guide is here! Once you’ve a good cry over the loss of your relationship, spend the next month working on yourself. We’ll be posting detailed instructions for the next 30 days to help you get over he-who-shall-not-be-named. There’s even a handy-dandy calendar to help you keep track of your progress. Now get to work!

Buy A Ticket
Today, you’re going to plan to get the hell out of Dodge. Take a minute and think about all of those friends and relatives you probably neglected when you were off in Coupleland. Grandma? A girlfriend in Baltimore who needs someone to help her move next weekend? Pull up Kayak.com or Greyhound.com and buy a ticket to see someone you love. Because love, despite what you’ve just gone through, still exists, even if it’s in friend or family form.

Did you just go through a horrible breakup? Is your heart in a million little pieces? Whether you got dumped or did the dumping, splitting up with someone sucks. But have no fear, The Frisky’s 30-Day Breakup Guide is here! Once you’ve a good cry over the loss of your relationship, spend the next month working on yourself. We’ll be posting detailed instructions for the next 30 days to help you get over he-who-shall-not-be-named. There’s even a handy-dandy calendar to help you keep track of your progress. Now get to work!

Get A Drink (Or Six)
Call your two best friends. It doesn’t matter if they’ve never met each other. Tonight, they’ll sit on either side of you at a bar around the corner from your apartment. You will get drunk. Very drunk. Your friends will intercept and rebuff any dudes who try to hit on you, because tonight, it’s about you, Jack Daniel’s, and your pals reassuring you that it’s gonna be okay. When you can’t hold your head up any longer, your two friends will carry you to your place and deposit you directly into your bed.

Did you just go through a horrible breakup? Is your heart in a million little pieces? Whether you got dumped or did the dumping, splitting up with someone sucks. But have no fear, The Frisky’s 30-Day Breakup Guide is here! Once you’ve a good cry over the loss of your relationship, spend the next month working on yourself. We’ll be posting detailed instructions for the next 30 days to help you get over he-who-shall-not-be-named. There’s even a handy-dandy calendar to help you keep track of your progress. Now get to work!

Make Your “Breakup Bible”
Remember how you told all of your friends about your breakup? Chances are, you got a slew of voice mails, texts, and e-mails offering support or telling you what they really thought of that jerk. It might be hard to hear, but it’s going to come in handy.

Type out or cut and paste any particularly insightful things your friends said to you into a document. This Word file is to become your Breakup Bible. Print it out and stuff one in your purse, paste one to your bathroom mirror, and place one on your nightstand. If you want to bust out the hole punch and stick one into a three-ring binder to make it more official, knock yourself out. Any time you feel like contacting your ex, read your Bible. No doubt you’ll read something from a friend that will prevent you from picking up your cell or crafting that perfectly worded text message that you hope will bring him back to you.

Did you just go through a horrible breakup? Is your heart in a million little pieces? Whether you got dumped or did the dumping, splitting up with someone sucks. But have no fear, The Frisky’s 30-Day Breakup Guide is here! Once you’ve a good cry over the loss of your relationship, spend the next month working on yourself. We’ll be posting detailed instructions for the next 30 days to help you get over he-who-shall-not-be-named. There’s even a handy-dandy calendar to help you keep track of your progress. Now get to work!

Tell Your Friends
Update your Facebook status, send your besties a mass e-mail, call your pals one by one and give each a histrionic blow-by-blow—or do all three. Telling people makes it real and final, like ripping the Band-Aid off quickly, and you’re going to need your friends right now. Prepare to be amazed by how much people care for you. (Um, unlike your ex.)

Did you just go through a horrible breakup? Is your heart in a million little pieces? Whether you got dumped or did the dumping, splitting up with someone sucks. But have no fear, The Frisky’s 30-Day Breakup Guide is here! Once you’ve a good cry over the loss of your relationship, spend the next month working on yourself. We’ll be posting detailed instructions for the next 30 days to help you get over he-who-shall-not-be-named. There’s even a handy-dandy calendar to help you keep track of your progress. Now get to work!

Change Your Cell Phone’s Wallpaper
If you were “that girl” who had her boyfriend’s pic as her phone’s wallpaper, that ends. Now. Even if you didn’t and your phone’s screen has always proudly displayed the default “dewy leaf” background, it’s time to start over. Today you’re going to find your Inspirational Photograph that will accompany you on your 30-day journey. Much like power animals, everyone’s photo is going to be different. Don’t put too much thought into it. If a yellow-lined blacktop street calls to you today (a theme of moving on, maybe?), snap it with your cell’s camera. If you’re angry about the relationship, take a picture of yourself flipping off the camera. If all you want to do is breathe, maybe a nice ficus tree will do. Upload it as your wallpaper, and you’re done. Whenever you open your phone, your Inspirational Photograph will stare you in the face. “You are going to get through this,” it will say. You (and your ficus) are going to be okay.

Did you just go through a horrible breakup? Is your heart in a million little pieces? Whether you got dumped or did the dumping, splitting up with someone sucks. But have no fear, The Frisky’s 30-Day Breakup Guide is here! Once you’ve a good cry over the loss of your relationship, spend the next month working on yourself. We’ll be posting detailed instructions for the next 30 days to help you get over he-who-shall-not-be-named. There’s even a handy-dandy calendar to help you keep track of your progress. Now get to work!

Divorce is one life event that isn’t typically celebrated with a ritual. But that’s all changing with the increased popularity of divorce parties. But even if your homegirl really isn’t into the whole party thing, you can still make her laugh with one of these divorce gag gifts.

I’m back in the dating game again, sorta, and I’m not thrilled about it. One of the reasons? I remember, oh-so-well, how annoying it was when guys I thought I was connecting with and having fun with, pulled “the fade.” That is, when you’ve gone out on a few dates, had a great time, maybe hooked up a little, and then, BAM! He’s gone. Like he got lost in the Bermuda Triangle and forgot his cell phone. WTF is up with that? Are we blind to the signs that someone isn’t that interested? Did he meet someone new overnight? I went to my trusty soldiers, the guys on our IM, to get an explanation. Some of them clued me in quickly—others gave me a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style quiz…

For about four years in my mid-twenties, I dated and lived with a guy who was as wrong for me as a double-breasted blazer. He certainly wasn’t the only guy I ever got involved with who wasn’t Mr. Right, but he’s only one I stayed with about three years longer than I should have. I could cite plenty of reasons why it took me so long to leave him: he was comfortable, I was afraid of being alone, I got free turkey sandwiches at the restaurant he managed, but if I’m being honest, it was my financial dependency on him that made it so hard to end the relationship. Even now, I’m embarrassed to recall how I, an “independent woman,” allowed myself to be dependent on a man, but the truth is I was lazy and spoiled.

A few weeks into dating him, when it wasn’t even clear that we were doing more than falling into bed and blogging the pillow talk the morning after, he texted me to ask, “We’re not secret right?”

“Secret?” I wrote back. “Aren’t we on Flickr?”

That’s the moment when it got, as the uselessly succinct Facebook menu options put it, both “serious” and “complicated.”

Our relationship wasn’t founded simply on this trendy sort of self-disclosure: we were just reporting on our sex lives before anyone else did.  It shouldn’t have shocked me, let alone the audience we gained along the way, that it’d all have to end online, too.  So how do you deal with a breakup like that, without breaking up with the Internet?

It’s become my understanding that “sex on the beach” is a cliché that leads to sand in bad places.  However, sex and beach are both words that bring to mind the ultimate summer fling.  Scantily clad bodies, sun, surf, outdoor bars, gleaming tans, it all makes for a lovely little fantasy.  Unfortunately, fantasies often come to an end.  Sorry kid, time to wake up from that dream.  Fall is almost here!  So how are you going to let your summer fling fade gently into the sunset?  Here are my tips:

(WO)MAN UP: I don’t like people who ignore—they have absolutely no backbone and are cowards.  Own up to what you’re doing. Make it clear that it is O-V-E-R.  This was fun, but now it’s done.  You don’t want to get stuck with a Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction: “I will not be IGNORED, Daniel!”

Breakups are bad enough without looking like a total fool in the aftermath. So, in a bold move of honesty, and to help save others in the same place, I’m going to admit that in the throes of some past breakups I’ve been a little bit intense. I’ve learned my lessons on what not to do through a lot of tears, friend and family interventions, and often through making huge mistakes. And now I will pass along this harnessed wisdom to you.

Now, there are probably a lot of people who are just as stubborn as me, who in the face of rejection might just want to burn their ex’s stuff and cause a huge scene—to hell with other people’s advice. However, I’m going to beg you not to – it’s not worth it. Of course, just for clarification, if someone did something truly horrendous that warrants major destruction, such as cheating? Well then all bets are off.

Color me cynical ladies, but let’s face it—no matter how great your relationship might be going at the moment, chances are it’s going to end. And while breaking up is never pleasant, why make the inevitable anymore painful than it has to be? Since there are very few “great” ways to dump a man, we’re going to list all the ways you shouldn’t go about kicking your once-loved to the curb:

Sure, more than 20 million people visit an online dating site every month, but how many do you actually want to meet? And then after you do come face to face with the few you deem worthy, how many of those do you want to keep seeing? If your experience is anything like mine, you know that the second number is small—heck, it might even be zero. So, after you’ve gone out with someone you’d rather not have to feign interest in, you have a couple choices.

Remember back when the mere mention of his name would give you a white-hot jolt to the heart? The sound of his voice was like an exquisite punch to the gut? His hand brushed against yours, and you’d get a warm swelling in the heart region? Yeah, well these days all you feel is sick to your stomach.

Though it seems most of us spend an inordinate time trying to get one, the truth is, once you land that boyfriend you’ve always wanted, you discover the truth— relationships can be a giant pain in the rear.

As Erin already pointed out, there will be some point in your career as a twentysomething when someone will break your heart. There’s also a chance you’ll break someone’s heart. Either way, there’s a good chance that someone will be your roommate, making cutting ties an even bigger bitch than usual. Here are the dos and don’ts of breaking up with your live-in boyfriend from girls who’ve done it.

I remember the end with a daunting visual and emotional clarity that is sometimes even accompanied by a distinctly palpable nausea. We were lying in bed one overcast afternoon, the bed we’d shared for years, the bed that had actually lived against a different wall when we first met, the bed with the creaky mattress that necessitated a trip to Sleepy’s, whereas there was no store where we could purchase a salve for our dying relationship. Annihilated by that particular form of fatigue that results from an exhausted argument for which there is no solution, we drowsed in and out of sleep. At one point I felt that very bed lift, as if suspended by an unseen platform, and to my left I could see a coursing, churning brook, and to my right, a dried up riverbed. As I caught myself falling to that side I jolted awake, felt him sleeping next to me, and tried to insinuate myself beneath his heavy arm. He too awoke with a start, and then rolled over to turn away from me. All the glassy looks, the distant conversations and the poison tongued exchanges suddenly seemed inconsequential compared to this very concrete action, proof that it was indeed over.