One of the first steps in making a breakup official these days is severing all ties to your ex on social media, and changing your status to “Single” on Facebook has become as effective as sending out embossed announcements to everyone you have ever met.

Of course, unfriending your ex is not always desirable, especially if you share many of the same friends and are trying to stay amiable, but now Facebook has announced that it is testing out some new features that will make it a lot easier to ignore your ex and control what they see without having to actually unfriend them.

“Facebook is a place for sharing life’s important moments, which for many people include their romantic relationships,” Kelly Winters, a product manager at Facebook, wrote in a blog post. “When a relationship ends, we’ve heard from people that they sometimes have questions about the options available to them on Facebook.”

“Starting today, we are testing tools to help people manage how they interact with their former partners on Facebook after a relationship has ended. When people change their relationship status to indicate they are no longer in a relationship, they will be prompted to try these tools.”

The new feature will allow you to hide posts from your ex in your news feed, and it will also remove them from suggested tags when you post a status update or add a new picture. It also lets you hide your own posts from your ex’s timeline, so you’re not constantly updating them on your daily activities.

Perhaps one the most useful new features is the ability to hide old pictures and status updates involving your ex from your own timeline. You can automatically untag yourself from all of their pictures and status updates, effectively removing all history of the relationship from your timeline.

“This work is part of our ongoing effort to develop resources for people who may be going through difficult moments in their lives,” Winters said. “We hope these tools will help people end relationships on Facebook with greater ease, comfort and sense of control.”

Image courtesy of Facebook