Today's ex is a new beast.
We have more of them than generations past did, for starters. Cellphones, texts, instant messaging, social networking and e-mail can keep exes tethered to each other, even if there is no intimacy left, or hope. And there is the new habit many have of keeping a small army of exes around as friends.
“What these cultural changes amount to is a lot of time spent on exes” and not on future prospects, write psychotherapists Heather Belle and Michelle Fiordaliso in their new book Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Ex.
The authors spoke with The Globe and Mail about how to manage relationships with exes – if you haven't written them off altogether.
You've coined a new verb. What's ‘exing?'
Ms. Fiordaliso It means using a past relationship in an addictive way. You're exing when you can't stop Googling your ex, when you keep telling friends the story over and over again and just don't move on. And when you have sex with your ex – even though you've ended the relationship and ultimately want to be with somebody else.
You write: ‘Nowadays the person who says she can't be friends with an ex is seen as unsophisticated and insecure.' You call it a 'cultural confusion.'
Ms. Fiordaliso We want to believe that we can make this seamless and sophisticated shift from being romantic partners to being Facebook friends and coffee dates, instant messaging and texting.
Ms. Belle I've dated men who made me feel very uncool because all these exes in their life made me uncomfortable. A lot of women say, “Well, I don't want to be insecure,” so they accept all this intimacy in their partner's life that isn't healthy for the relationship.
Unless you share children, what's the place of an ex in your life? Is it an indulgence? What's the risk?
Ms. Fiordaliso When you don't have children it can seem a lot more innocent to keep exes in your life.
I have so many girlfriends who are now in their mid-30s and early 40s who spent the last 10 years having these casual interactions with exes, going back for sex or having them come over to kill their mice – getting little needs met. Ten years have gone by and they're not in the relationships they want to be in, and they're wondering what happened.
It can eat up a really critical part of your life very quickly.
You recommend playing a simple game like Bejeweled every time you feel an urge to Google your ex. That speaks to how compulsive exing can become.
Ms. Fiordaliso The Internet makes it so easy to feed obsessions. In an earlier time, if you wanted to stalk an ex, you had to resort to some pretty expensive and crazy measures like hiring a private detective or driving past their house. Now you can do the same sorts of things with the same intention but from the privacy of your own home. People don't realize how compulsive it is, how destructive it is to our life – and that we have a choice about it. We are so accustomed to acting on impulse that we don't realize the effect it has on us. Playing a game like Bejeweled or cleaning out your closet, it's not a distraction, but it gives you a time out to think about, “Why am I going to do that and how is it going to serve me and is it really going to get me to the end that I really want to be at?” Which is usually resolution or a new love.
How much of exing is a roundabout way of sidestepping grief?
