I remember the vogue for going 'on a break' starting when I was a teenager. Blame Ross and Rachel in Friends, or maybe someone in The OC, but it was all the rage.

You'd go on a break with your boyfriend/girlfriend over the summer holidays so you could both snog/shag your way around Cornwall/Tenerife, and then get back together in September.

New school uniform, new stationary, old boyfriend. Our parents were exasperated by the entire thing. 'Either you're going out, or you're not' was my mother's perennial response. Only, she was an adult therefore, so obviously understood nothing about life or relationships.

Unlike belly button piercings and chunky highlights, though, this break mentality wasn't something that we grew out of. Even into my twenties it's something I find my female friends doing over and again.The latest woman to get in on the 'we're on a break' act?  Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney.

Gaga posted an Instagram of the pair recently, with a caption that read: 'Taylor and I have always believed we are soulmates. Just like all couples we have ups and downs, and we have been taking a break. We are both ambitious artists, hoping to work through long-distance and complicated schedules to continue the simple love we have always shared. Please root us on. We're just like everybody else and we really love each other.'

Which, for a celebrity, is incredibly honest. And although I get where Gaga is coming from, but I still remain unconvinced about a break doing your relationship any good.

I'm afraid to say that I've seen couples go on a break hundreds of times, and never known them to get back together stronger or happier. During my first long-term relationship, after we'd been long-distance for 18 months, I called a break.

At the time I would have claimed we needed space from each other (yes, despite the geographical distance), that I wanted to stop us from saying anything to each other that we’d regret, and that it was about reflecting on ourselves individuals.

The truth was, I didn't want space. I wanted to feel loved, needed and reassured. I wanted him to get in the car and drive to Bristol to hold me. Or, at least answer my phone calls.

Calling a break was a way of breaking up without having to break up. The idea was that it would force him to confront the reality of losing me and, when he realised what life would be like without me, he'd try harder and be kinder. I wanted to use the break as a way to hurt him, to shock him into being a better and more loving boyfriend.

You'll be shocked to learn that it didn't work. Of course it didn't. Anyone who needs to be pushed into loving you in the way you need to be loved probably isn't right for you and definitely doesn't value you. The reality of my break was that I spent three days crying, checking my phone and writing then deleting emotional emails. He got on with his life and waited for me to burn myself out, before sending me a terse three line email asking if I wanted to end it formally.

I said no. The relationship limped on for another two years.

The biggest problem with a break is that you have to experience all the horrors of a splt, but without any of the finality or closure. You leave the door open to get back together and it's not surprising that after a few days - the worst part of a break-up - you want that person back. The reality is, if you were to stay separated and push through the misery of the first couple of months, you'd likely realise that you’re better off, aren't dependent and that there are great things about being single. A break rather than a break-up doesn't leave you with that option.

So it's fair to say I'm sceptical about the function of a temporary time-out from your other half. I can't help feeling that once you open the exit door on a relationship, sooner or later someone is going to use it.

But then, perhaps staying together in the face of everything is a bit like that ultimate piece of bad relationship advice: 'never let the sun go down on the argument.' Maybe committing blindly - whether to finishing a discussion or working on the relationship - can end up doing more harm than good.

In the same way that the best thing you can do when you're still fighting at 2am is to go to sleep and pick it back up in the morning, maybe the smartest thing you could do for your relationship is to take that break while you're still very much in love with each other – as Gaga and Kinney claim to be.

At least that way you still feel that there's something to preserve.