“Jane” and I were attached at the hip the moment we saw each other.

I began to feel heartbreak just within a couple of weeks into the relationship. I had applied for a job out of state prior to meeting her, and as luck would have it, I began to get requests for more information and interviews. Things were going so good for Jane and I that I did not let the thought of leaving deter the natural progression of the relationship. We became closer. She met my children and I met her son. He was a great kid and he captured my heart as she did.

When I was offered the job, I knew I had to accept it. Breaking up with Jane was something that I did not want to do. Even though we had only known each other a couple of months, my feelings for her were strong enough that I asked to her go with me. She declined. It was heartbreaking to hear that although she loved me, she was not willing to give up the stability she had to move with me. I had a choice to make. I made the wrong one.

Jane helped me pack my moving truck. As I pulled the door down on the truck, the tears started to flow. This break up was the hardest I had ever had to bear. There was something about this woman that I did not want to let go of. We listened to a couple of sentimental songs on the radio as we hugged, kissed, and cried our goodbyes.

I settled into my new job and life. Jane and I talked less and less. It was heartbreaking for me to hear her voice so I think I just avoided it. Eventually our communication dwindled down to a few friendly emails here and there. We both started dating other people.

Jane is happily married now with three children. I never have found anyone to fill the hole in my heart that she left. I recently talked to her. I finally got to tell her that choosing my job over her was the worst decision of my life and I will forever have to live with the heartbreak that I have caused myself. I wonder if she feels the same.

“Michael”, 40. A radio personality

She was the girl for me. I knew it the second she came into the car wash where I was working, the second our eyes locked in front of the M&M machine after I asked her, “Care for a quarter?”

True story.

We had our first date that night, our first kiss the next, and two weeks later she practically had her wedding dress picked out. So that was why my breath got knocked clear out of me when she called that night.

“Brock, it’s not working.”

I gulped. “You mean, like, you need some space?”

“No, you dork.” I couldn’t believe she was calling me a dork. That was so dated. “I mean that my relationship with you is ended. Done. We’re breaking up.”

“I’m not breaking up, you’re breaking up,” was all I could manage. Dumb, yeah. I know.

I spent the next weeks getting over our relationship. For one thing, I never saw the relationship ending, so I was unprepared. I felt like a Marine who’s been sent into enemy territory with no preparation, no briefing – no map, even. I had no experience in getting over a relationship breakup. I made all the wrong moves.

Like for instance, walking in on her client meeting. It was Valentine’s Day. Yeah, she had the gall to break up with me right before Valentine’s. I’m not the most romantic guy in the world, but I know chicks dig this stuff. I had no way of knowing that this particular day, she had an important rep from her company’s biggest supplier in her office, and they were trying to close another rep from a huge firm. So when I pushed into the room, all I saw was her through the bouquet in my arms.

Now, in the movies, the scenes always go something like this. Girl looks up, girl looks shocked, girl melts, girl runs out of meeting with guy, lips lock, roll credits. Not this time. Lauren said, “Can you excuse me a moment, gentlemen?” She pushed me out and in the hall, she propelled me toward the outdoors. “Do you have no respect for my time?”

“It’s Valentines.”

“I told you I was ending the relationship,” she said. “Don’t come around here with that stuff.”

“Don’t you owe me some kind of explanation?”

“Not really.”

It was still hard on me, breaking up and all. But I learned from the experience that the movies are lies. Getting over a relationship is hard, but staying in a broken one is impossible.

That night I got a phone call. My heart jumped when I saw the number. “Baby!” I answered, ecstatic. I knew those flowers would work.

“Brock!” She was in tears. “You lost me the client, you -” The rest is unprintable.

Brock Tonelli, Age 28, House Painter, Handyman

Her name was Patty. We met while in college, and soon were inseparable. We studied together, worked together, and soon were talking about marriage. I thought my life was complete. I soon found out that Patty didn’t feel the same way about me.

I should have noticed the changes in her. She lost weight and got a makeover. She even starting waxing her legs, something she had said before was worse than going to the gynecologist! Soon she kept talking about her friend named James, and spent many nights in front of the computer screen talking to James. At this point, I still had no clue about her love affair with James.

However, the relationship came to an end one night she asked me to drive her to a hotel so she could meet James, and packed her suitcase with sexy lingerie.

Okay, at this point even I figured it out. I drove her to the hotel, and then called it quits. She was so happy she even paid me for giving her a ride to the hotel.

Those days after the breakup were difficult. I had a tough time getting over my ex-girlfriend. I spent hours in bed, depressed and crying. I watched talk shows and ate ice cream. I had to buy bigger pants, but I sure felt better. I taped a picture of Patty up to my wall…then threw darts at it.

Soon I felt like I could face the world again. I felt like I got over my broken heart, and was ready to move on. I started exercising so I could work off all that ice cream. I started doing things that she never liked, such as leaving beer bottles on the table, leaving the toilet seat up, and walking around in my underwear. I never realized what pleasure those simple things brought to me.

Even though I felt better, I still wanted to get her back. My chance came one day when I was on a date with my new girlfriend and I saw Patty with James. James was talking nonstop about the stock market, and Patty looked bored stiff. I walked up to Patty, said hello, and told her I met my girlfriend when I stopped for dinner after I dropped her off at the hotel that fateful night. And I used the money Patty gave me for the ride to treat my girlfriend to some sexy lingerie.

John B., 39 – customer service representative

We met on the day that I broke up with her best friend, which, in retrospect, was a bad omen. I had offered to give her a ride home earlier in the evening, and on the way, I poured out my heart, asking what I had done wrong. She assured me that I was completely right, and her friend was totally crazy. Blinded by her obvious good sense, I asked if she wanted to go out some time. She told me she didn’t want to be involved with someone getting over a break up. Within a week, we were inseparable.

As often seems to be the case in most breakup stories, I noticed by the end of the first month that we didn’t have much in common.

The final straw and the break up came the day that her cable installation was scheduled for the same time as our date to the art museum. Apparently, she realized that twenty-four hour marathons of Law and Order meant more to her than I did.

She called and explained that she didn’t feel ready for more commitments other than her one year contract with her cable provider. I wasn’t prepared for the struggle that can follow after a break up… Especially when you share the same group of friends. Everyone immediately chose sides.  It’s hard to get over a break up when half the people you’d normally count on for support suddenly treat you as if you had a contagious disease.

Was it my fault for being too demanding? Was it her fault for not getting a satellite dish? I spent days going through my cellphone contacts, searching for the undecideds to lobby to join my team.

Getting over a breakup is never easy, but as relationships breakups go, ours wasn’t so bad in the end. As the weeks wore on, the pain gradually began to lessen, and I knew I had finally turned a corner when I saw her at a friend’s graduation party. She was talking about her new high definition flat screen TV, and I congratulated her on the purchase. She told me that she had upgraded her cable package to get the new HD stations, and maybe I should stop by some time. The picture clarity was amazing, she said. I responded that, ironically enough, the one thing I had gained from the last few months was a greater sense of clarity. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t get the joke.

David Bruce, 23
Customer Service Associate

There are very few sure things in life, very few rules that go uncontested through our daily routines. It seems that when these truths make themselves evident, they make our ears bleed, our teeth crack and our chest numb. This particular relationship, I learned, broke one of those rules. When your best friend breaks up with a girl, do not, I repeat, do NOT date her.

Especially if he began living with you two weeks ago.

As far as painful relationship go, this caused me pain the second I started dating this girl. Sharing a room with the aforementioned friend caused me emotional stress even when she was miles away. It’s a bit hard to be discreet when the person causing you pain outside of your relationship sees where you sleep. This led to some of the most memorable and quirky moments of my dating career.

We somehow lasted the better part of six months. The best part about it was the fact that she didn’t drive and her mother refused company. This gave us two options: go out every time we see each other (which, for a college student, was financially crippling), or hang out at my place where my friend would be. Welcome to hell.

This relationship broke another “life rule”: Don’t date people you work with. If you disagree with me then you either haven’t done it or you’ve worked at such establishments as Hooters or the Playboy Mansion. While I worked nights, she worked days. We worked, at most, two hours a shift together. Two hours of tiptoeing with everybody knowing something was going on, but not quite what. Not a very good idea as you might guess. Not a good idea while we were together, even worse when I was trying to get over the relationship afterwards.

With the girl leaving for school at the end of the summer, this train wreck of a relationship ended. Goodbye to the picking up and driving home. Goodbye to the awkward hangouts at my house. Most importantly, goodbye to the uncanny ability she had to make me smile no matter what mood I was in.

When the relationship actually ended, it didn’t hit me until a few days after. Not until my daily routine was interrupted by constant reminders of my ex girlfriend’s absence… And while large amounts of alcohol seemed to help, the truth is it didn’t… My feelings for her never quite left, and the emptiness never really left.

They were, at best, replaced. It’s been two years since things ended, and every time I see her we slip into the old routines. And my friend just won’t let it go…

Phillip, 24 – Student

She left me before she actually moved out.

The distance between us kept growing, but I was working so hard I didn’t notice at first. Then one day I was eating breakfast, looking around the apartment, and I realized half of our crap was missing. I’m not the most observant guy in the world, but even I eventually notice when the cat’s gone.

That’s when the break up and the confession came. She’d been slowly moving everything she considered hers out of the apartment since Christmas. As it was currently April, I had to applaud her sense of stealth or risk having to acknowledge my own obliviousness.

Getting over an ex is never easy, but it’s especially hard when she’s still living with you. Getting over her was going to be impossible no matter where she was.

Apparently all her stuff was at her mother’s because she was still saving for a place of her own. I thought about being the bad guy and telling her to get the hell out right now, but that would have made getting her back a lot harder, and at the time I was determined to get her back.

Obviously I’d been doing something wrong. Working too much, paying too little attention to her, something that had made the idea of staying with me a real chore. I started dressing better, wearing that cologne she gave me that smelled like rotten apples, even helping out around the apartment. (There was a lot less stuff to clean – apparently everything that was good besides the TV was firmly in the “hers” pile.)

Once it was out in the open, then it really began to feel like the relationship was ending, as she moved into the guest bedroom. There was nothing but the rock hard futon her sister gave her in there. It was kind of humiliating to realize she preferred sleeping on it to sharing a bed with me.

Even more humiliating when I realized she didn’t always sleep alone in there. She didn’t rub it in my face, but it got the message across.

Getting over her happened slowly. My ex girlfriend lived with me for two months after we officially broke up and it was the most wonderful, awful time. I entertained fantasies of us working it out, her realization that I was the only one for her. It never happened.

I got the cat back, though. At least she lets me watch the Playboy channel.

Mark Street, 24, retail manager

We’ve all been there, the inevitable end to a relationship. Some we see coming from far away and almost try to hurry up the process. Others, you get completely blindsided by. The later are the one’s that obviously hurt the most and take the longest to get over. When you didn’t see a relationship breakup coming, you aren’t able to brace yourself and prepare to move on.

My version of the breakup story happened the day before New Year’s Eve. Nathalie and I had been dating for about three years and had decided to move in together that year. We found a great two bedroom condo in a fantastic neighborhood. There was a great Italian restaurant, bookstore and even a karaoke piano bar nearby. I could visualize myself staying here, with Nathalie, for years.

Around Thanksgiving, I had noticed she was behaving differently. She started traveling a lot more often for work, which created a divide between us. Christmas came and past, we each spent it with our separate families. When I called to wish Nathalie a Merry Christmas, she seemed distraught and explained she had to travel the next day for work. I was surprised she was traveling right after Christmas but let it go. When she arrived home on December 30th, she looked exhausted. I asked her what was wrong and she blurted out “I have another boyfriend”.

The worst part was that she wasn’t even apologetic. Nathalie acted as if the break up was my fault, that I had driven her to this other guy.

I’m not exactly clear about what happened next. I know there were a few broken coffee mugs and I had a very sore hand from punching the wall.  I started packing my things and was out of the condo completely by New Year’s Eve morning. I spent New Year’s with my single buddies who were determined to help me get over the break up. I definitely drank away my sorrows and it did help with getting over a break up.

Two good things came from this. First, I was able to start the New Year completely anew, without her. Secondly, I was intoxicated enough that I definitely slept that night and well into the next day. My lingering headache made it almost impossible to think about her.

The weeks and months that followed were difficult. I had to find a new place to live. I ended up moving in with a friend. And I somehow had to start dating again. My friends attempted to set me up but I was definitely not ready.

After about six months, I started to seek out girls again, on my own. I wanted to ease back into the dating game with people who didn’t know my past and how badly I had gotten burned. Getting over a break up like this was definitely left its last effects, I am not sure if I’ll ever be able to trust someone so blindly again.

Felipe R, 34, Quality Control Inspector

She was a beauty, that Shelly. It even pains me to think right now that she’s my ex girlfriend.

We had been solid since tenth grade. She liked the tortured writer thing I had going on. I was headed to the West Coast to find myself; she was applying to every major university out there she could find. In the end, she settled for a small school. I landed a low paying entry level job at a newspaper close to campus. We were grown-ups, living together and getting on with our lives.

The end of the relationship began when real life set in. Bills and housework and deadlines put a damper on our romantic notions of living in poverty and taking the world by storm. She found out the campus was running over with brainy beauty queens. Suddenly, she was no longer the belle of the ball. She also figured out that tortured writers have terrible mood swings.

One cold night in February the bottom fell out. She was up late with a paper that was giving her grief; an experience she never had in high school. I was in the tiny kitchen of our apartment trying unsuccessfully to come up with an interesting angle on an article about a sanitation workers’ strike. My nerves were on edge. All she wanted to do was talk, and talk some more.

My patience was paper thin. I was a writer, a real-life professional whose career was quickly going down the drain. She was merely a student in a freshman composition class. Her writer’s block could spell only the drama of an average grade. Mine, I succinctly pointed out, could mean the loss of our only source of income; and the end of a promising career in this self-made man.

Somehow, she didn’t appreciate my assessment of her plight.

“As a symbolic gesture to end our relationship she swaggered back into our bedroom and tossed every belonging of mine she could find into a pile in the tub.”

Squeezing the last ounce of her apple scented shampoo on top; she turned the faucet on full blast, gathered her things and walked out of my life. I didn’t discover the mess until citrus scented suds flooded the apartment.

Interestingly, that break up didn’t leave me a broken man. For weeks, the heartbreak and angst drove me to write like a mad man. My career was the better for it, though I doubt that was the effect she planned. The worst part is that, to this day, I cannot bear the smell of apples.

-S.D. Lee, age 36, writer

“Breaking up is hard to do”; but sometimes it is an absolute necessity. Especially if the relationship carries all the caustic characteristics of a tabloid horror story. naturally, it also emcompassed all of the aspects most intelligent people try to avoid in a relationship: long distance, a bucket full of jealousy, and a heaping helping of a little bit crazy! Throw in the holidays, the worst time of the year to break up and you have the disaster that was my Thanksgiving a few years back.

The relationship started out nice enough. We had met online and seemed to have a lot in common. But a flight across country for our first meeting should have been a clue of what was to come. I called her cell as soon as I got off the plane. I saw a woman talking on the phone that looked like the picture I had of her and quickly mentioned I thought I saw her. “Oh no, it can’t be me. I am still coming up to the airport.” That was her first lie. Basically, she wanted to scope me out first so that if I was a dog, she could bolt. Too late! I had seen her. This was just the beginning of the relationship breakup.

After a year of similar craziness it all came to head over the thanksgiving holiday. Locked in her home with a crazy dog, 5 nutty cats, two daughters, one of whom was constantly in “shoot me please, she’s at it again “drama, and regular jealous badgering about every text or phone call I got, it was time to make a stand…and make a run for it! There was just one problem though; she was planning on taking me back to the airport. I knew my leaving was going to be hard on her, and that it would shock her but I know eventually she would get over us breaking up. There was no way to sneak out with all my “stuff” without creating a scene.

Luckily, the night before I was scheduled to leave it began to snow like crazy. There was going to be blizzard conditions soon and the airport would be closing down by the next afternoon. I dutifully used the “I have to get back to my business” speech and loaded up early for the drive to airport. It was only after I was safely on the plane home that she noticed I was gone for good..

Rodney D – 53, Writer and Sales Trainer.

Last December it was time to call it quits with Linda-the-little-princess. After two years of good times and bad, it was time to have The Talk and call it quits.

No matter how desperate things seemed now, I was still unprepared to make the final goodbye and end the relationship. The two weeks of anticipation leading up to the separation seemed worse than its actual happening. So, we went to a sidewalk cafe and vented everything.

All went well when I told her she was a wonderful person and a catch for somebody else, but too emotional and high maintenance for me. Surprisingly, the break up talk went smoothly and we were in mutual agreement and talked things over rationally. No harm done until the last minute when she fired back with an arsenal of insults. Fair enough, at least its over and I’m free.

Three days have passed with no phone calls or emails, seeming the little princess and her tantrums are behind me.

Then Saturday night at three o’clock in the morning there’s a scurrying noise coming from the front yard. I turn on the porch lights and see nothing but a few bags of fast food trash thrown in the flower bed. The real surprise would not be known until sunrise when the cops show up and ring the doorbell.

My ex pint-sized little psycho ex girlfriend had employed the services of others to steal a 6 foot Christmas tree and anchor it to the top of my Jeep parked in the driveway.

All the price tags and proof of no purchase were as plain as day dangling from the bottom of the tree. At 7am, “someone” informed the police that there was a stolen Christmas tree on my street and the rest is history.

Court appearance, fines, and a mountain of accusations until she was finally arrested for theft. Whatever emotional bond I had for her was snapped for good, setting me free from the guilt of hurting her feelings.

So guys, if you’re trying to get over a breakup, let the situation play out and you will see a side to your ex that you won’t soon forget. Once you see her for what she really is, there’s no more hurt or repentance.

Mel, 22