Try to lose 10 pounds. Getting rid of this nagging weight will assure that he finally loves you the way you’ve always wanted to be loved. Okay, 15.

2. Buy shoes! Buy makeup! Buy handbags! Spend loads of money on shiny, seductive trifles with the idea—not that you’d ever say it, but in the back of your head—that they will actually make a goddamn bit of difference.

3. Drink to ridiculous excess. You heard me: Get tanked. Getting loaded like this clears your mind and readies you for serious, life-altering conversations about why you’re both so unhappy, how no matter what you do, how you bend and stretch and beat the thing with both fists, it’s never enough. Nothing is ever enough.

4. Bum a smoke. Screw it: Buy a pack.

5. Oooh, buy one get one free!

6. Never underestimate the womb-like safety of overeating while watching MTV.

7. Scream inside small spaces. Bang the steering wheel. Claw the sheets. Throw things if you must, but be careful—some of this stuff is pricey.

8. Think about couples counseling, about getting your own place, about things that have worked for friends you talk to late at night while draining bottles of wine. Think about taking a trip, just you, to someplace you’ve never been where the air smells of wisteria and promise. Think about moving to another city. Think about this: You were never enough. Jesus, why were you never enough?

9. Go over to his place one morning. Crawl into bed with him, still warm and sleepy. Talk about how much this hurts, how scared you are, and hold each other as you cry. Know that you will miss things—the way you’re laying right now, the way he runs a knuckle across your cheek. Know that you keep these things somewhere, maybe the back of your throat. Know that you both tried, that you both fought valiantly. That you loved him. That he loved you. Thank him for that as you leave in a car filled with plastic bags of junk you bought one day, thinking you could avoid all this. You couldn’t avoid all this. You never wanted to—not really. But you are glad he invited you, you of all people, to share his life for a while.

10. Carry tissues. You’ll need them.