We’ve all been there. Your best friend has been MIA for the last 6 months, due to the appearance of “the love of her life.” She’s ditched you, lied to you, and asked you to cover for her, all so she can spend time with this new-found sweetheart.

You’ve kept your comments to yourself about his controlling behavior and how he treats you and your other friends like garbage, but now it looks like she’s finally seen the light.

The jerk dumped her and she’s in the “I hate his guts” phase. You want to tell her all the nasty things you’ve been holding in, just waiting for this moment to condemn every sleaze-bag thing he ever did to her and everybody else.

The same situation can be applied to guys whose friends just got out of a relationship. She was a “psycho.” She never let him hang out with the guys and was always calling. He wasn’t allowed to even talk about his mom, but she was allowed to hang out with her ex-boyfriend whenever she felt like it.

 The same hindsight may apply and one may be tempted to attack every detail of her personality, but are these truly the best ways to help your friend “get over it?”

Now is not the time to dish out all the secrets on their ex you’ve been keeping just to spare your friends feelings. This is a classic “How not to heal a broken heart” tip.

It’s not going to help if your friend thinks you’ve been holding out on them. It also won’t help if they think you’re just trying to get with their ex. There will be no recycling of boyfriends/girlfriends until you have a written document giving you their blessing. Needless to say, these situations are inevitable. People date and, therefore, people break up. It’s all about knowing how to handle it.