BEYOND ‘EAT, PRAY, LOVE’
What To Read When You’re An Ex
Writers talk frankly about sex, love, and more in books that can help when your marriage or relationship ends
As a rule, I don’t believe in knowing your place in life. I believe in making your place.
But there are exceptions. One involves men I used to be involved with. In their lives I know my place, which is in a balcony or mezzanine — not orchestra — seat.
That policy has worked better than I might have expected in the tumultuous days when a romance was ending. I’ve had no children with my exes, which would have changed everything, and that’s allowed us to stay friends without benefits on remarkably good terms.
Two exes have invited me to their weddings, and I can count on several to like my social media posts and want to get together when I’m in town. I’m glad to have them in my life, and the feeling seems reciprocal.
My life has never turned into a drippy Adele song about grief on the other side, full of regrets and passive-aggressively spurned efforts to reconnect. Nor have I had the kind of tragicomic breakups George Strait sang about in “All My Exes Live in Texas”: “Sweet Eileen’s in Abilene / She forgot I hung the moon.”
