Breaking up is never easy, especially when it comes to changing your relationship status online. Make the process as painless as possible with these expert tips that will have you getting back on your feet in no time.

1. Deactivate
First and foremost, deactivate your account. This way, you can go incognito for a while until the dust settles, and it will prohibit you from doing anything you might regret.

2. Unfollow
When your online presence is restored, instead of immaturely blocking the ex in question, a less passive-aggressive approach is to unfollow them. This way you won’t see any updates on their newsfeed allowing you to continue your day-to-day scrolling with ease.

3. Refresh
You need to move on yet you don’t want to come across as a psycho by pretending your partner of five years never existed. A rule of thumb is to delete all couple-y photos together going three months back, and to keep all photos where other people feature in the image.

4. Renew
Refresh your 5-year-old profile picture with a more recent image of you candidly laughing — always a fail-safe option. You also want to project an image of being A-OK so it’s important to make regular appearances at social gatherings and document such excursions by taking a snap to prove you haven’t been hibernating (even if you are only there for 10 minutes).

5. No Status
Our advice is to keep your private relationships private — that way you don’t have people meddling around in your business, and you don’t have to explain to nosy acquaintances why you and Mr or Mrs Right just weren’t so… right.