If you are reeling in the aftermath of a torrid relationship breakdown and being held together by besties, vodka and Tim Tams, the last thing you need is social media to feed your demons. If you’ve been a prolific user of Facebook throughout your relationship, the ups and downs are now preserved in your digital history and new posts from your ex have the ability to sting you at will.

But you do have choices.

Unfriend

Why torture yourself over late night vino studying your ex’s account, poring over new friend additions or suffering through smiley selfies of your replacement? Unfriending is a simple, no-fanfare way of cutting ties. Although it may be a hollow victory in the overall scheme of things, you’ll be absurdly gratified if you get in first.

If the breakup has been of the ‘cheating ex, possessions out on the front lawn’ type, consider the block function which will render you completely invisible and uncontactable.

Take a break

With a recent development, Facebook has jumped on board with the conscious uncoupling movement and, rather than the band-aid style ripping that is represented by the unfriend button, is trialing functionality ingeniously titled ‘take a break’.

It’s for those who don’t wish to defriend but wish to choose the level of self-torture by social media in the aftermath of a breakup. It offers you the ability to ensure your ex’s posts never appear in your news feed, whilst reserving you the right to still indulge in some late night wine-fuelled visiting of their account.

It also prevents their name appearing as a suggestion when you are composing a message or tagging people in photos. Last thing you need after a breakup is to have your ex’s name appear top of the list when tagging pics, purely due to the algorithm that knows he appeared in 8799 of your last 9000 selfies.

You can also untag yourself from prior posts with your ex, also very satisfying in digitally deleting all reminders of the good times.

Finally, you can prevent your ex seeing any of your new posts. If you are mournfully posting breakup memes in the wee hours on a regular basis you might want this.

If you have bounced back via the heartbreak diet and now have all the sassy bodycon flair of a post-Lamar Khloe Kardashian, then you might want version 2.0 of yourself quaffing bubbles with your new fabulous single-girl posse splattered all over his feed.

You decide.

Ditch the memories

Just as Facebook routinely seems to pipe up on a mundane Monday morning to remind you that three years ago a slimmer tanned version of yourself was drinking cocktails in Duke’s Bar in Waikiki, its sure to instinctively sense a breakup and present you with the three year old pics of you in the early flush of love.

No one needs this.

Facebook understands. You can now choose to ensure that none of your pics with this person ever appear in your memories.

Still leaves you with the ability to be tortured by memories of your 2012 bikini body that were several cases of wine and many wheels of Brie ago.