Was Your Ex a Gold-Digger?

Antony and Cleopatra

Source: Wikimedia/Public Domain

This post is the third in a series based on my new book, How to Get Over a Breakup: An Ancient Guide to Moving On. For part 1 see here, and for part 2 see here.

Have you ever heard a friend talk like this?

She got that…she got that…and she’s not just happy with stealing that; that gold-digger’s forced me to sell my whole house! That’s when she swore we’d meet up; that’s when she went back on her promise…leading me on all those times…freezing me out at the door. Other men? They’re just great, but she’s “too good” for my loving. Hell, the delivery man gets all the nights that I don’t!

What’s going on here?

Ovid (pronounced Áh-vid), our relationship counselor from ancient Rome, is channeling the mindset of a man who’s been badly damaged in a breakup. He’s angrily recalling all the material possessions his ex wound up with, and he’s getting bitter.

If you've ever had a friend go through a divorce, you’ve heard sentiments exactly like this. if you've ever gone through one yourself, you may well have said it too. You certainly hear it when a dating relationship was lopsided and one person was more into it than the other.

Dinners out, vacations together, birthday presents, jewelry? It adds up.

The root of much human misery is the realization that love is a marketplace, and that our stock is highest on the day we're born. For most of us, it's downhill from there.

If life goes according to plan, we start out life as the recipient of unconditional love. Our parents cherish and nourish and encourage us no matter our mistakes. They always will, and we know it.

As we grow up and venture forth from home, though, we discover that the sexual marketplace is nothing like that. The dating scene is wildly competitive, critical, arbitrary, and unforgiving. Rejection is common and second chances are rare. Painfully, we discover what it means to feel unattractive and unwanted. To feel unloved.

Even worse, we discover that money plays a role in our lovability. It really does. It’s taboo to acknowledge it, but romantic relationships require “investments” — and not only of emotions. If you don’t shell out for dates or presents — or put out in exchange for them — a budding relationship won’t last long.

That’s reality. Ouch.

Alas, it gets worse. The economics of romantic relationships, we realize, are more confusing than those of business or professional relationships. Why? Because although love is a market, it’s not a straightforward market, one in which exchange is even and predictable. Paying for dinner does not entitle you to your date’s favors, much less on any kind of price list or schedule.

That’s called prostitution, not love.

These reflections bring us to Ovid's 8th recommendation in his list of 38 tactics for coping with unrequited love. Remember, his first six strategies entailed getting out of town and immersing yourself in some activity. The idea, as the adage has it, is "out of sight, out of mind."

In the days of yore, that did work. Twenty years ago you could just get physically away and forget things. If your relationship at college fell apart, you could head back to your parents’ house, hole up, and let time pass. Long-distance phone calls were expensive, so before long it stopped making sense to make any.

Those days are gone because the rise of social media means that no one is ever out of sight or mind. Even if we don't cyber stalk an ex — and most of us do — the algorithm ensures we see reminders every day. For better or worse, the world has become a lot smaller, and we’re all living in the same “city” now. There’s no escape.

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In such circumstances, says Ovid, who was writing for readers living in the city of Rome, the best way to get over a failing relationship is to quit cold turkey:

Your best chance to get free is to break the destructive addiction chaining your heart and endure all the withdrawal pains at once.

Quit the other person, says Ovid, the same way you’d quit smoking or give up coffee. No “tapering” and no “cheat days.” Just do it.

Easy to say, but hard to do. So how exactly will we power through the withdrawal symptoms?

Ovid’s answer is, by brooding on the financial costs of our failed relationship. Those thoughts will in turn bring to mind all the times we felt emotionally cheated or betrayed. That is why, in the passage I quoted at the start, Ovid illustrates the thought process you'll go through. It illustrates his 8^th “remedy for love.” Ruminate on all the bad things your ex put you through, and

Fixate on all that you lost, fixate on all that she cost.

Count up all the money and emotion you invested in the relationship, says Ovid, and you’ll feel resentment grow.

Let’s be clear here. Accepting a gift or vacation doesn’t necessarily mean your ex was a gold-digger or a gigolo. Neither does taking half the property in a divorce. So why say it?

Sigmund Freud, who lived 1900 years after Ovid

Source: Wikimedia/Public Domain

Ovid lived nineteen centuries before Sigmund Freud, so he could not think in the terms that Freud did. (Indeed, Latin has no word for the concept of the ego, even though ego itself is a Latin word!)

Nevertheless, Ovid intuitively put his finger on a powerful defense mechanism. Telling ourselves that in retrospect, the person we loved was really only after our money to begin with, protects our ego. It preserves our self-esteem.

Saying it is all the more powerful if it's not true. Because by “rationalizing” our ex’s behavior and projecting these malicious ideas onto her or him, it means that we are not personally being rejected—because the relationship was never based on love and respect to begin with.

No, we tell ourselves, our ex was merely a sort of prostitute, a sex worker, a parasite and shameless reprobate who enjoyed living high on the hog while we had to go off to work each day to fund it all.

And that means we are a better person than her or him. Of course we are.

Ancient philosophers drew a distinction between something that’s moral (good for you in the long term) and something that’s expedient (effective in the short term, like chopping hands off thieves). Demonizing your ex probably is helpful in the short term if you’re aiming to get over him or her once and for all. But is it good for you in the long term?

What do you think?