When you break up with someone, you should immediately just pretend they’re dead. Here’s why

Break-ups are the worst. There's really not much more for me to say about them that hasn't already been explored in a Nicholas Sparks novel or a Cosmo essay. But I have found a way to make break-ups, and even that awkward transitionary period where you feel like your entire life is a failure, a little bit better.

You have to pretend your exes are dead

Yes, you've heard me correctly. Dead. Let me tell you a little bit about my theory.

We've all had a first love we thought we'd never get over. Mine was artsy and sensitive and a total bibliophile. When we broke up, we wanted to "stay friends" — or at least as much "friends" as exes can be. That meant an occasional text, a sometimes Snapchat exchange, and broken plans to meet up. For years.

All that time, I was hung up on someone and what they thought of me or our relationship

I was hurt by small things they did or said. I cut open the wound of our break-up over and over.

I didn't want to be held back by my other exes, so I swore to make a change

When I broke up with the next guy, I decided to swear him off. To make him really, truly dead to me. I was terrified to block and delete his number, to block him on all social media, to erase all our pictures and to defriend all his friends. I didn't want to lose the memories or the connection. What if he wanted to come back? What if I wanted to catch up? What if I wanted to smile on the good times when I was old and over this whole thing?

I set my fears aside and blocked him and his friends on everything

And in doing that, I realized something. The pain of my broken relationship dissolved a lot quicker than it had before. And with my next ex, I was able to disconnect almost immediately. A switch went off in my head the day we broke up. It wasn't meant to be. I went home, deleted any evidence of him, and the pain was gone.

Immediately disconnecting any avenues to your ex doesn't just help you get over your relationship, it helps make future break-ups a little bit easier

If you keep an ex on the line, there's never really an "after" him. There's only a during. Completely cutting off an old relationship teaches you life really can exist after a love. It doesn't have to last forever.

So yeah, my advice for anyone doing anything romantic is to pretend your exes are dead. You can't really wish bad things on dead people or try to reunite with them in this lifetime. They just exist in a separate world from you. And that's how we should try to exist with our exes: on separate planes, without grudges, knowing there's really nothing we could change.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

● How soon is too soon to join a dating app post-break up?

● The 'after breakup' playlist for when you're finally done dealing with that toxic fuckboi

● Girls share all of the crazy shit they've done after a breakup