I love being in love … it’s just the breakups that bite. They’re messy and distasteful and depressing. Yet despite the pain and anger, I almost always wind up obsessing about ways to get the ex back. Sound familiar?

Over the years I’ve shed countless tears, consumed untold pints of Ben & Jerry’s, and bored too many of my close friends to tears of their own. But along the way, despite my cluelessness, I learned a few things about relationships. I’m no expert … just a gal with more first-hand experience with breakups than she cares to admit.

Looking back, one thing is really clear: I wasn’t prepared to handle a relationship breakup, much less to get the ex back. At first, the best I could do was to take my cue from my unlucky-at-love friends and that didn’t work very well. No matter how cool or popular, they were just as clueless as I was about how to get a ex back. Small consolation.

I wish I could say I saw the light early on. But no. I just kept following my emotions into, and out of, romantic relationships. Unfortunately, doing “what comes naturally” can often be the kiss of death when we’re trying to get the ex back. It took me the longest time to realize that being able to get the ex back is like being able to play the piano. It’s something that, with proper guidance, can be learned – it’s something that has techniques and methods.

You can pick up some really great tips reading articles and blogs but, unfortunately, that’s really not enough. Or, at least, it wasn’t for me. Most of those just give you a piece of the puzzle but to get the ex back, you need a plan … a strategy.

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Instead of pitching his ex girlfriend’s clothes out the window or door, a California man piled some of them atop the kitchen stove and turned on the burners.

Now that’ll get her attention. Unfortunately, it also grabbed the attention of the fire and police departments. The 25-year-old man wound up Tased while being arrested, according to The Turlock Journal.

While most people don’t go to this extreme when a lover breaks up with them, out-of-control behavior is all too common. And can be the kiss of death for the relationship.

Too bad this California dude hadn’t seen this video that shows the first step to stopping a breakup. (Even though he’s at a disadvantage now, he should still watch it if he wants to get the ex back.)

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But word comes from England this weekend that August – hot, steamy August – actually is one of the times during the year when breakups are more likely to flourish than romances.

A greeting card seller in County Durham told The Journal Live that he’s noticed “just the same as at Christmas, summer holidays are a time when relationships can become frayed and can end….”

And get this: He thinks it’s because people have to spend more time together.

Oh, My Summer of Love.

And he’s backed up by a scholar. “It’s a common misconception that summer is the time when love blossoms and relationships thrive,” Dr. David Holmes, of Manchester Metropolitan University’s department of psychology, told the newspaper.

They say that misery loves company, but I’m not sure I find this new myth-busting bit of information very comforting. Give me a little of Dusty Springfield’s “Summer Love” any day. Or even Old Blue Eyes’ rendition of “The Things We Did Last Summer.”

What I can take consolation in, is in knowing that relationships, no matter how hopeless they may appear, can be saved. I wish I’d found this out sooner; then it wouldn’t have been such a struggle to survive that first breakup and to get the ex back.

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