For many people, Facebook has become a part of daily life, including romantic relationships.
Facebook can be a fun way to share pictures, links, and memories with someone you’re dating.
Unfortunately, however, if the relationship ends, Facebook can become an unpleasant reminder of what was.
New tools being rolled out by Facebook will provide users with the ability to limit what they see from an ex, helping to ease the transition out of a relationship.
Facebook’s new tools are optional and come up in a prompt after a user changes their relationship status to single.
Facebook invites you to “Take a Break” from your ex’s Facebook content. If you choose this option, your ex’s posts
will not show up in your News Feed, and Facebook will not suggest their name to you when you’re composing a message or tagging a picture.
You can still see your ex’s content if you visit their profile, but you won’t be caught off-guard by their pictures and posts when you’re innocently browsing through your News Feed.
On the flip side, you can also limit what your ex will see of you.
Facebook gives you a choice between “Keep current privacy settings” and “Hide your posts from [name].”
If you choose the second option, your ex will only be able to see posts that you tag them in, share on the Timeline of mutual friends, or post publically. So you can feel free to post a sad status or picture of your night in, knowing that they won’t see it.
In addition, Facebook will let you edit past posts with your ex. Facebook will take you one-by-one through each of your past posts with your ex so that you can opt to untag yourself or make the post private.
If you don’t feel like taking that trip down memory lane, however, you can click one button to make all posts with your ex private.
In one fell swoop, you can erase your entire relationship from your public profile.
Facebook will do all of this without notifying the other person, and you do not have to un-friend or block them.
These options are much more flexible than what was available previously. In the past, you would have to un-friend or block your ex in order to stop seeing their posts or prevent them from seeing yours, which some people considered too extreme.
Now, once you have had some time to move on, you can edit your settings to reincorporate your ex into your News Feed. Or you can keep them out permanently.
Facebook rolled out the new relationship tools on mobile in the US on November 19th, and they should hopefully be making them available internationally soon.
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Written by content manager Meghan Woolley
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