Exes Quotes

Why are old lovers able to become friends? Two reasons. They never truly loved each other, or they love each other still.

this is why we call people exes, I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it's too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it's not, because there's no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths.

Alec looked down at the shattered pieces in disbelief. “You BROKE my PHONE.” Jace shrugged. “Guys don’t let other guys keep calling other guys. Okay, that came out wrong. Friends don’t let friends keep calling their exes and hanging up. Seriously. You have to stop.” Alec looked furious. “So you broke my brand new phone? Thanks a lot.” Jace smiled serenely and lay back on the grass. “You’re welcome.

Can we go back to using Facebook for what it was originally for - looking up exes to see how fat they got?

Some people don’t realize what they have until it’s gone, but that does not always mean they are supposed to get it back.

Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.

So...have you ever thought about dyeing your hair punk-rocker-chick black? As I'm sure you've heard, I have a thing for brunettes and always avoid blondes." "I've heard. And no." "Too bad. Because you're making me rethink my stance about doing my friends' exes." I snorted, not even trying to hide my...incredulity? Surely I wasn't amused. "Your making me rethink my stance on cold-blooded homicide

I've had more difficulty accepting myself as bisexual than I ever did accepting that I was a lesbian. It felt traitorous. A few years ago, I admitted to myself that I was still interested in men in more than a "Brad Pitt is slick hot sexy" kind of way. But I worried what my friends, exes, and the Community would think. I never even broached the subject with my parents. Because what bothered me the most was that people would think that being a lesbian had been a phase for me, when that was so very not the case. What I feared was that I would no longer be part of a community, that I might be seen with my boyfriend and not be recognized as something not the same.

Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It's nothing. Just sad dreams. Or something like that...Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and sob probes, and you would mark them. Women--and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses--will wake and turn to these men and ask, with female need-to-know, "What is it?" And the men will say, "Nothing. No it isn't anything really. Just sad dreams.

It feels like a perfect night, to dress up like hipsters, and make fun of our exes.

that is why we call people exes i guess -- because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it's too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it's not, because there's no way to cross out something like that, the X is a diagram of two paths.

I didn’t answer. We were not buddies. We could not chat about the proximity of our offices, or football, or forgiveness.

I read so much, in fact, that one of my exes used to complain that I spent all my money on booze and books, which inconveniently couldn't be bought at the same locations.

Think carefully, Gideon. I have exes in my past, too. You’re setting the precedent now for how I’ll handle them. I’m taking my cues from you.

I was rubbing the pieces of bacon like they were strands of a lover’s hair. Of course they weren’t, because all my exes had hair like scrambled eggs.

This is why we call people exes, I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end.

You’re going to have people who are going to say ‘Oh, you know like, she just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends’ and I think frankly that’s a very sexist angle to take. No one says that about Ed Sheeran. No one says it about Bruno Mars. They’re all writing songs about their exes, their current girlfriends, their love-life, and no one raises a red flag there.

Exes should never, never go out with or marry other people but should remain celibate to the end of their days in order to provide you with a mental fallback position.

It's always gratifying to share a hobby with a friend, and pining for erstwhile suitors falls into that category. In the months to come, Libby and I would analyze our respective exes with the gusto and intellectual rigor of Jesuits.

I thought I was over him! So why did my heart still rip? Why did I still feel this sorrow? I got this strange sensation that God was with me. And he was angry. He was very angry--not at me and not at Jack. God was angry at the pain I was going through. I wondered if that was why God hated sin, because of the destruction it caused. For a moment I felt awe for a God who loved me enough to hate the things that hurt me without hating me for causing them.

this is why we call people exes, I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it's too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it's not, because there's no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths.

this is why we call people exes, i guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end

Always wanted a girl with a heart-shaped ass. Most of my exes have ass-shaped hearts.

Healing is an uncomfortable and lonesome process. It’s why we pick our scabs, it’s why we drunk text our exes.

should read a book, I should make some friends, I should write some emails, I should go to the movies, I should get some exercise, I should unclench my muscles, I should get a hobby, I should buy a plant, I should call my exes, all of them, and ask them for advice, I should figure out why no one wants to be around me, I should start going to the same bar every night, become a regular, I should volunteer again, I should get a cat or a plant or some nice lotion or some Whitestrips, start using a laundry service, start taking myself both more and less seriously.

Men who make all the decisions in a relationship are also the ones who will blame you when they don’t work out as they expected.

this is why we call people exes, I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up seperating at the end. It's too easy to see X as a cross-out. It's not, because there's no way to cross out something like that. The X is a diagram of two paths.

Like wading through water; That hard, that slow.

Can I ask you about Caroline Mathers?" "And you say there's no afterlife.

The amount of perfume she had on was like a human sacrifice on Incense Night.

You're gone and you left me. My heart has dissipated. The only thing I can feel is the blood rushing through my veins and the strings that hold my fragile heart together.

Leaves don't grow back onto a vine, cracked walnuts don't fit back into their shells, and girlfriends who've been enchanted don't just wake up and decide to let things slide with their terrifying exes.

Some people each left their spouse or lover because he or she was no longer the primary source of their happiness; some, because their spouse or lover was, at that time, the primary source of their unhappiness.

Realizing that many you once thought the world of are nothing but glorified assholes means you've grown up. 

What was it with exes? Why were they always twice as attractive after a break-up?

Sometimes I look at him and feel such an overwhelming appreciation for him, I almost want to write thank-you notes to our exes. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

There are no real Californians. There are only people who live there and people who don't.

you don't have to be dead to haunt. Parents, songs, exes.

I’ve got plenty of friends. It’s only exes I’m short on. I’m so single I don’t even have someone to drunk text,

My entire life, I thought I needed to hold on to love with an iron fist. It was a feeling I needed to trap, to smother, so it wouldn’t slip through my fingers. Little did I know, when you’re with the right person, being in love never feels like the bottom is going to fall out. It’s solid, stable, and indestructible.

Change is always difficult, which is why people so often retreat into the familiar even when the familiar is awful and depressing. That’s why we get back together with our exes even if things ended the last time in screaming and broken glass. It’s why we go out with the same friends even when we know they bring out the worst in us. We crave familiarity,

Oftentimes someone leaves their partner who is comparable to the sun for someone else who is comparable to a spark.

There is such a deep level of communication that unless you and your partner are really in touch with your own sensuality can’t reach. This has always been my biggest struggle in my previous relationships. My exes have always accused me of being deep, like it was a bad thing. I kind of felt weird and bad about it at times though, because I did not know how NOT to be deep. I tried so hard to have petty conversations about frivolous things with them, but I would always end up taking our conversation to the next level. The best way to put it is, I ALWAYS SEARCHED FOR “SOUL” OR ATTEMPTED TO BRING IT INTO EVERY CONVERSATION WE HAD. But I could still be a clown

Your enemies don't have a chance when your spirit knows how to run, swim and fly beyond the evil they carry within them.

My dear, you have a lot to learn about relationships if you think all problems can be solved by a single conversation.

I'm sorry you feel so threatened by depictions of fictional men doing more than the bare minimum.

Honestly, your exes are proving to be very challenging, Mr. Grey,

There is no point in hating all your exes after a breakup—Because you will end up hurting yourself instead of the person whom you hate.

Even though i'd admittedly accepted every advance he made on me, picking up my hand and putting it on his thigh seemed mighty forward of him. I didn't take the radical step of removing my hand,but I did open my mouth to act all indignant. He put two fingers to my lips to stop me from talking.He knew me pretty well. His mouth close to my ear,he growled, "You know,you and I are exes." "So?" I asked around his fingers.My skin tingled with excitement,or possibly eucalyptus poisoning.

Also, it's offensive and demeaning to be written off as crazy. Especially given the stigma of mental health. And maybe the real issue here is that some men can't confront their emotions. Instead of taking responsibility for your own behavior, it's easier to screw us, write us off as loons, and forget about us.

A couple of years ago, I read the findings of a study on the effects of divorced and separated parents talking negatively about their exes in the presence of their children. What I remember about the study most vividly is really just one thing: that it's devastating for a child to hear one parent speak ill of the other. In fact, so much so that the researchers found it was less psychologically damaging if a parent said directly to the child "You are a worthless piece of shit" than it was for a parent to say "Your mother/father is a worthless piece of shit." I don't remember if they had any theories about why that was so, but it made sense to me. I think we all have something sturdier inside of us that rears up when we're being attacked that we simply can't call upon when someone we love is being attacked, especially if that someone is our parent, half of us-the primal other- and the person doing the attacking is the other half, the other primal other.

When you enter your next relationship, you become the person you split up with.

men south of sixty who regularly read fiction are an endangered species that must be protected at all costs.

Unbeknown to us, some of the people who we hope are missing us wherever they are do miss us; some miss someone else; and some are dead.

Raccoon." She saw Ellie put a hand to her mouth to cover the giggles and then looked back at Tom. "Like, you caught it?" "Well, it sure didn't get Fed-Exed [...]

The current girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, or husband is often an utterly unsuccessful attempt to stop missing or loving the previous one.

when you’re with the right person, being in love never feels like the bottom is going to fall out.

Whatever happens, whatever her final words are to me, I won't turn into one of those pricks who badmouth their exes out of boredom and bitterness. I'll cherish the time we had together. That's what's up. You know damn well it was a great time, stop the faking.

Because I couldn’t love anyone else but you.” His throat moved as the corners of his eyes creased. “I know there’re more romantic ways to say it, but that’s the truth. I might have made a vow on our wedding day to love you forever, but I’d known that years before saying those

Or like when we follow the Facebook profiles of our exes, Rachel said. We’re broken up but we never really break up. I never totally forget the past because I’m seeing it on my Facebook wall every day. You can never reinvent yourself because your social media identity is set.

Diane sometimes hears that Troy is an actuary. Sometimes she hears Troy is a florist. Sometimes she hears Troy is a cop, a toll collector, a professor, a musician, a stand-up comedian. Once, she heard a terrible rumor he became a librarian but she could not imagine Troy becoming the darkest of evil beasts no matter what he had done to her. Is it even possible for a human to become a librarian?

Do we always fret about our partners’ exes? he wonders. And do we extend that to everyone they knew before they met us? Is it their whole past we’re jealous of, as though we want them to be born again when we walk into their lives? It’s a depressing thought. He has believed himself to be bigger than that, and a whole lot more rational.

Lesley said that my exes knew that past a certain point I’d lost interest, and that’s why they always packed me in first. That’s not the way I remember it, but Lesley swore she could have constructed a calendar based on my love life. A cyclical one, she said, like the Maya – counting down to disaster. Lesley could be surprisingly erudite sometimes.

When you truly love someone, it doesn't go away,

Getting you to realize that you and me, we’re not over.

Love, as we’re told, is not something you actively seek out. The best love stories just magically fall into the laps of those who don’t expect or want them.

I'm sure we could have so much fun, but only if you learn to be good to me.

the rose-fingered moon exeeds all stars

I’d either fallen out of love with him or he’d bored the love out of me.

I have to keep things vague, jumble up all the men, the lovers and the exes, but I tell myself that’s OK, because it doesn’t matter who they are. It matters how they make me feel.

This is why we call people exes,I guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end.

It's like this, Bunny Boy, if you walk up to an oak tree or a bloody elm or something - you know, one of those big bastards - one with a thick, heavy trunk with giant roots that grow deep in the soil and great branches that are covered in leaves, right, and you walk up to it and give the tree a shake, well, what happens?' (...) 'I really don't know, Dad,' (...) 'Well, nothing bloody happens, of course!' (...) 'You can stand there shaking it till the cows come home and all that will happen is your arms will get tired. Right?' (...) 'Right, Dad,' he says. (...) 'But if you go up to a skinny, dry, fucked-up little tree, with a withered trunk and a few leaves clinging on for dear life, and you put your hands around it and shake the shit out of it - as we say in the trade - those bloody leaves will come flying off! Yeah?' 'OK, Dad,' says the boy (...) 'Now, the big oak tree is the rich bastard, right, and the skinny tree is the poor cunt who hasn't got any money. Are you with me?' Bunny Junior nods. 'Now, that sounds easier than it actually is, Bunny Boy. Do you want to know why?' 'OK, Dad.' 'Because every fucking bastard and his dog has got hold of the little tree and is shaking it for all that it's worth - the government, the bloody landlord, the lottery they don't have a chance in hell of winning, the council, their bloody exes, their hundred snotty-nosed brats running around because they are too bloody stupid to exercise a bit of self-control, all the useless shit they see on TV, fucking Tesco, parking fines, insurance on this and insurance on that, the boozer, the fruit machines, the bookies - every bastard and his three-legged, one-eyed, pox-riden dog are shaking this little tree,' says Bunny, clamping his hands together and making like he is throttling someone. 'So what do you go and do, Dad?' says Bunny Junior. 'Well, you've got to have something they think they need, you know, above all else.' 'And what's that, Dad?' 'Hope... you know... the dream. You've got to sell them the dream.

One ends a romantic relationship while remaining a compassionate friend by being kind above all else. By explaining one’s decision to leave the relationship with love and respect and emotional transparency. By being honest without being brutal. By expressing gratitude for what was given. By taking responsibility for mistakes and attempting to make amends. By acknowledging that one’s decision has caused another human being to suffer. By suffering because of that. By having the guts to stand by one’s partner even while one is leaving. By talking it all the way through and by listening. By honoring what once was. By bearing witness to the undoing and salvaging what one can. By being a friend, even if an actual friendship is impossible. By having good manners. By considering how one might feel if the tables were turned. By going out of one’s way to minimize hurt and humiliation. By trusting that the most compassionate thing of all is to release those we don’t love hard enough or true enough or big enough or right. By believing we are all worthy of hard, true, big, right love. By remembering while letting go.

Maybe, for whatever reason, you just don’t want to date right now,” I say, “and that’s fine. People feel that way all the time. But if it’s something else—if you’re afraid you’re too rigid, or whatever your exes might’ve thought about you—none of that’s true. Maybe every day with you would be more or less the same, but so what? That actually sounds kind of great. “And maybe I’m misreading all of this, but I don’t think I am, because I’ve never met anyone so much like me. And—if any part of all this is that you think, in the end, I’ll want a golden retriever instead of a mean little cat, you’re wrong.” “Everyone wants a golden retriever,” he says in a low voice. As ridiculous a statement as it is, he looks serious, concerned. I shake my head. “I don’t.

I felt myself tense up, having long noticed that this was something men (and boys, obviously) did after any breakup. Dub their exes “crazy.” Discredit them, make it seem as if the men were lucky to have gotten out of the relationship. In fact, Julie had once told me it was the most common narrative in the aftermath of a divorce—the justification men used for their own misconduct. A form of misogyny.

Not having emotions would be beautiful because pain is so ugly. Watching neglect and not having the freedom to scream about it at the top of your lungs is painful. It’s hard, having a heart when people come in without one.

When I was 12 years old, I was obsessed with codes, conspiracies, and secret messages. I would record TV commercials with SoundRecorder.exe on Windows 95 and reverse them to see if I was subliminally influenced to watch Pokémon by Japanese spies

Male sexual jealousy is the leading cause of the murder of adult women, accounting for between 50 and 70 percent of all such homicides.8 Police know this. When women are murdered, the prime suspects are boyfriends, husbands, ex-boyfriends, and ex-husbands. Although jealousy sometimes motivates women to murder, only 3 percent of murdered men are killed by their romantic partners or exes, and many of these female-perpetrated homicides are women defending themselves against a jealously violent man.

this is why we call people exes, i guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it’s too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it’s not, because there’s no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths.

this is why we call people exes, i guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it’s too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it’s not, because there’s no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths.

this is why we call people exes, i guess - because the paths that cross in the middle end up separating at the end. it’s too easy to see an X as a cross-out. it’s not, because there’s no way to cross out something like that. the X is a diagram of two paths. i

Emotionally abusive men don't go on to have amazing relationships after you leave them. They tell the new wife the same lies about other people and exes that they told you. They use the same games and play the victim to get their way. After the honeymoon stage has worn off and there is nothing exciting to learn about his new love he will become bored. This is when he is back to the same pattern of abuse, which includes securing new narcissistic supply. That new wife will start to wonder why they can't have deep conversations. She will start to wonder why he gets so quick to anger. She will not understand why she is being abused. She will start back down the same road you took to reach his heart. It will be an emotional trip she won't understand because she was too stupid to believe that his long line of broken relationships were because of the women before her. Her arrogance will be her undoing because we both know she is in for the worst ride of her life!

Nuclear didn't describe families. How could it? Dry physics was not equal to that task. In the twentieth century we needed a biological metaphor, Darwinian in scope, to suggest the gnash and crash of carnivorous life in the family gene pool. But for the 21st century, the new century, I think the metaphors must be chemical. Molecular. In the molecular family people are connected without being bound. They spindle themselves around shared experiences and affections rather than splashing in the shared gene pool.

You describe her as an Eden. This rare, unknowable place. Distant. And you tell me to wear her skin but I refuse. I shift in my seat. Distant. What is it about the men that go looking for old lovers in new women. And why is it that they always want you to touch them like she touched them. Wear her head like a show piece. Use her words as lipstick.

She smelled like gardenias. Plus something muskier, gardenias with carnal knowledge.

Well played, Isla, well played.

Point, Jessie.

So the bimbo’s a hairdresser? Sadly for her, I’ve seen better hair on a stray dog out on the street, over the bleached mess that she has on her head. “You

I’m probably the clumsy sidekick who cracks blunt jokes at all the wrong times. The disheveled one who provides emotional support to the more desirable and levelheaded heroine.

sex is about connection and intimacy, pleasure and release.

She had to defend him in order to defend herself. That was why people were so prickly about their partners, even their ex-partners. To admit that Duncan wasn't up to much was to own up publicly to the terrible waste of time, and terrible lapses in judgment and taste. She had stuck up for Spandau Ballet in just the same way at school, even after she had stopped liking them.

It’s a matter of curiosity—and anyone who says they are utterly indifferent to what their significant exes are doing is, in my opinion, either lying or lacking a certain amount of emotional depth. I’m not saying it’s healthy to be past-obsessed, ferreting out details of every ex. But it’s simply human nature to have an occasional, fleeting interest in someone whom you once loved.

Zach: Are you close with your brother? He’s partially to blame for the wrong number thing, isn’t he? * * * Me: Kind of. Yeah, we’re close. My mom worked at the hospital so it was usually just us two fending for ourselves. * * * Me: Okay, so I shouldn’t say fending for ourselves. That makes me sound like a dick and unappreciative of all my mom did. We just spent many nights just the two of us because my mom was a hardworking single lady and she wasn’t searching for a man to put a ring on it because she. Is. Fierce. * * * Zach: I bet your mom is the shit. * * * Me: She really is. You should meet her sometime. * * * Me: Oh, awkward…I’m talking about meeting the family and we’re not even officially a couple. * * * Zach: We’re not? * * * Me: We are? My phone lights up with a call from Zach. “Are you saying we aren’t dating?” he says before I can say anything. “We are…” “Are you saying you’re wanting to see other people?” “No…” “So then we’re a couple.” I’m quiet, unsure what to say. I’m so scared to label this, which is stupid, I know. “Delia?” “Yes, Zach?” “Do you not want to be?” I take a deep breath and push out the answer I know is right, even though my head is saying otherwise. “No. I want to be a couple.” “Are you sure?” “Yes. I’m just…scared. I know I shouldn’t put that all on you, but you’re kind of the reason I’m scared. I like you, Zach—a lot—but what if this doesn’t work out? What if we jump in too soon?” He sighs. “Remember when we were talking about our exes? About the lack of fireworks?” “Yeah.” “I swear to god, someone is going to swoop in and take my man card for this shit, but I felt them with you. When we first kissed, I knew right then you were worth jumping in with both feet and taking a risk.” I don’t let myself overthink his words, wanting to keep my head level and clear. “What if I’m not worth the risk?” “We’ll never know if we don’t take it.” “Say you’re a couple already, Dalilah!” Robbie’s voice comes loud through the speaker. “He paused the movie during an epic scene!” “How many times have I told you that her name is Delia. Deal-ya. Get it?” “You talk about me with Robbie?” I ask. “Sometimes.” “Say yes! He looks like someone kicked his goat!” “Shut the fuck up, Robbie!” I laugh. “If I say yes, will he stop shouting?” “YES!” Robbie shouts again. “I’ll take the risk, Zach, but you better be worth it.” “You’ve seen my Harry Potter underwear—you know I’m worth it.” Then he whispers, “Wink.

I would fall in love with someone’s potential rather than with who they actually were. I’d walk in, find a guy who was smart and funny but a complete mess, and light up like a talent agent from the 1950s. I’d think to myself, “This kid’s gonna be a star!” I’d take on a guy the way Michelle Pfeiffer took on the punk-ass kids from Dangerous Minds, seeing the best in them and pushing them to be better. And also like Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds, I had to teach a couple of guys how to read. Of course, this dynamic caused my relationships to feel maternal, making my partner resent me and making sex feel like incest. To add insult to injury, I basically ended up coaching a guy to be the best he can be for the next girl who came along. To anyone dating my exes, you’re welcome for getting them together so you could have the perfect boyfriend. Love you, girl.

People who think that queer life consists of sex without intimacy are usually seeing only a tiny part of the picture, and seeing it through homophobic stereotype. The most fleeting sexual encounter is, in its way intimate. And in the way many gay men and lesbians live, quite casual sexual relations can develop into powerful and enduring friendships. Friendships, in turn, can cross into sexual relations and back. Because gay social life is not as ritualized and institutionalized as straight life, each relation is an adventure in nearly un-charted territory—whether it is between two gay men, or two lesbians, or a gay man and a lesbian, or among three or more queers, or between gay men and the straight women whose commitment to queer culture brings them the punishment of the "fag hag" label. There are almost as many kinds of relationship as there are people in combination. Where there are -patterns, we learn them from other queers, not from our-parents or schools or the state. Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends' tricks and tricks' bar friends and gal pals and companions "in the life," queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. Most have no labels. Most receive no public recognition. Many of these relations are difficult because the rules have to be invented as we go along. Often desire and unease add to their intensity, and their unpredictability. They can be complex and bewildering, in a way that arouses fear among many gay people, and tremendous resistance and resentment from many straight people. Who among us would give them up? Try standing at a party of queer friends and charting all the histories, sexual and nonsexual, among the people in the room. (In some circles this is a common party sport already.) You will realize that only a fine and rapidly shifting line separates sexual culture from many other relations of durability and care. The impoverished vocabulary of straight culture tells us that people should be either husbands and wives or (nonsexual) friends. Marriage marks that line. It is not the way many queers live. If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations. Straight culture has much to learn from it, and in many ways has already begun to learn from it. Queers should be insisting on teaching these lessons. Instead, the marriage issue, as currently framed, seems to be a way of denying recognition to these relations, of streamlining queer relations into the much less troubling division of couples from friends.

I’ve always been a bit of an anomaly, finding purpose not through what I do but through my relationships with friends and family. But when everyone is absorbed with their own lives, where does that leave me at the end of the day?

People change. You change. Some relationships just aren’t meant to last beyond a certain point. It’s okay to simply let those friendships fade. This is a natural evolution of some relationships. Unlike romantic relationships, with friendships there’s rarely a reason to have a full-on breakup. Even if people go in different directions and the friendship slowly peters out, trust can endure. And unlike most exes, it is possible to rekindle/reactivate friendships later on when your lives are more aligned.

Oh, come on,” she countered. “All women, especially New Yorkers, do that, Susannah. We’re competitive. Seriously, don’t be so hard on yourself. Just try not to do it again.” Mackenzie would later admit she was concerned not by the act of snooping itself but by my overreaction to having done it. I spotted Paul smoking nearby and posed the same question. I could depend on him to tell it to me straight. “No, you’re not crazy,” he assured me. “And you shouldn’t be worried. Every guy keeps pictures or something from their exes. It’s the spoils of war,” he explained helpfully. Paul could always be counted on for a man’s perspective,

A couple of years ago, I read the findings of a study on the effects of divorced and separated parents talking negatively about their exes in the presence of their children. I tried to locate it when I was writing this column so I could cite it properly and quote it directly, but I had no luck. That’s fine because what I remember about the study most vividly is really just one thing: that it’s devastating for a child to hear one parent speak ill of the other. In fact, so much so that the researchers found it was less psychologically damaging if a parent said directly to the child You are a worthless piece of shit than it was for a parent to say Your mother/ father is a worthless piece of shit.

Marlboro Man was out of town, on a trip to the southern part of the state, looking at farm ground, the night I began conceiving of the best way to arrange the reception menu. I was splayed on my bed in sweats, staring at the ceiling, when suddenly I gave birth to The Idea: one area of the country club would be filled with gold bamboo chairs, architecturally arranged orchids and roses, and antique lace table linens. Violins would serenade the guests as they feasted on cold tenderloin and sipped champagne. Martha Stewart would be present in spirit and declare, “This is my daughter, whom I love. In her I am well pleased.” Martha’s third cousin Mabel would prefer the ballroom on the other end of the club, however, which would be the scene of an authentic chuck wagon spread: barbecue, biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, Coors Light. Blue-checkered tablecloths would adorn the picnic tables, a country band would play “All My Exes Live in Texas,” and wildflowers would fill pewter jugs throughout the room. I smiled, imagining the fun. In one fell swoop, our two worlds--Marlboro Man’s country and my country club--would collide, combine, and unite in a huge, harmonious feast, one that would officially usher in my permanent departure from city life, cappuccino, and size 6 clothes.