End Games By COURTNEY WEAVER how do you get along with your ex? No, really. Is there any relationship that is more subject to the ego's whims than that with the ex? William and I lived together for two months in London, once upon a time. I was hopelessly and utterly in love with him. He was two years younger than me, dramatic, passionate, reckless. Though my friends derisively called him The Tortured Poet behind his back, I didn't care. Pheromones were blasting. I was willing to throw aside everything for him, and I did. When the summer came to a close and I was due back in the U.S., we wept bitterly. Life was so unfair. The world was against us. But no, we would persevere: I would come back to London when I could; he would save up and perhaps come at Christmas. Six weeks later, I got the fateful letter telling me he was back with his hometown sweetheart from his native Belfast. They'd been together since they were 16, and he'd felt terrible all summer about the way he had dumped her for me. What's more, he was moving to Dublin to finish his studies with her. A year later, I would find out that they'd had a son, and another baby was on the way. Never again, I vowed. I will never never speak to him for the rest of my born days. For the next five years or so, once a year, I'd receive drunken phone calls from him in the middle of the night. When I picked up the phone and heard that familiar transatlantic echo down the crackling phone line, bang. I'd hang up. How dare he? He'd dumped me unceremoniously, like a piece of lost baggage. Now he would pay. Andy lived with his girlfriend for six years. Towards the end of their relationship, his job as a screenwriter began to take off. He was sent all over Europe to monitor film shoots, to provide moral support to crazy directors. Danielle -- who had always been a beguiling and secure woman, if prone to depression -- began to call him incessantly: when are you coming home, who're you with, what are you doing. She'd telephone crying, saying you're sick of me, you're bored of me. Andy reassured her again and again that this was not the case. Finally, back home, they agreed to break up. He was devastated: Danielle was his best friend. At one time, they had been inseparable. Not long after the mutually-decided-upon breakup, Danielle broke into his apartment. She tore the place apart. She read his diary. She confronted him at work, and when he confessed that yes, he was sleeping with someone, she kicked him with a roundhouse swing of her leg. Hard. This was three years ago; they haven't been able to bridge the gap. For a while, Andy valiantly made the effort to be "just friends." He called, he wrote. Finally, Danielle told him to go away. Her current boyfriend didn't appreciate the specter of Andy, friendly or no. Who are the losers in these situations? I wish I could say that it's the bad eggs, or rather, the ones that behaved like assholes at the time of the breakup. But we're all losers. I don't get anything out of carrying a vengeful grudge against William. William clearly feels remorseful, and remembers the bond we once had, however short. Andy feels he's lost the person who understood him best, and wonders if he'll ever meet someone with whom there is that unspoken bond. Danielle, by all accounts, feels guilty about her roundhouse kick and knows that her jealousy was out of control. Do we ever get anything -- besides fodder for bitter poetry -- by alienating our exes? At one time, this person was the most important thing in your life. Now they're... nothing. Oh sure, we can tell ourselves they were assholes all along, and it just took us a while to see the light. In some cases, that's true. But in most cases, it's not. And the fate of your future relationship hinges significantly on the behavior you each exhibit in the crucial months following the decision to break up. In the end, it doesn't really matter who's the dumper, who the dumpee. I mean, really, think about it. What difference does it make? If the breakup is in sight, try to do everyone a favor by acting gently and respectfully. You'll thank yourself later, believe me. Even if you don't remain friends, the memory of better times doesn't have to be forever tainted by an isolated month or two of bad behavior.

Is there any way to take the high road in a breakup?
Or does dealing with your ex fill you with regret?
Hash it out in Table Talk.

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