Please help me with Dating... :(

:book: Ok not actually physical dating… but PHP dates.
For some reason I am just not getting it. :upset: I have tried searching over and over.

I am capturing a date from visitors in this format “4/13/2007” or “mm/dd.yyyy”.

I am going to need to be able to add anywhere from a few days to several months.

Is it possible to keep the date in this format and still be able to use php’s functions with it? Or do i need to convert it first?

I will be using this to set up automated email reminders. So, essentially, when i add the customer to the DB depending on a criteria i will set their next reminder date X number days from the date they provide me.

Thanks in advance. I would appreciate any kind of help.