20 Apr 2008 8:21:00 pm

If there's a silver lining in the ex-lovers' spat between national athletes Ronald Susilo and Li Jiawei, I guess it is that they never got around to getting married.
Think about it. If being engaged (although she now denies that they were even that) has led to squabbles over who took the $1.99 dishwashing detergent, imagine the accusations that would be flying if this were a full-fledged divorce.

But who am I to judge?

While the couple's mud-slinging has provided grist for Sunday gossip, it happens every time a relationship ends.

Regardless of how old you are or your station in life, break-ups are ugly. Just look at Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Paul McCartney and Heather Mills and all the fighting couples at the Family Court in Havelock Road.

When love dies, every petty episode of your life together is exhumed in detail, money always enters the picture, tears are spilled and venom spewed.

Actually, I envy the way Ronald and Jiawei broke up.

They both seem to detest each other and there's no way they'll ever get back together.

That, in my book, is the healthiest way for a romance to end: That's it, end of story, I hate you, goodnight and goodbye.

More debilitating are break-ups that don't conclude with a firm and final full-stop but a hesitant, half-hearted semi-colon, where things get dragged out and there is no finality but tears.

You know, break-ups where both sides know they should stop seeing each other but don't really want to; where one part of you wants to let go but the other wants to cling on; where residual feelings keep clouding the picture; where you promise not to call anymore but still can't fight the urge to send a 'u ok?' SMS because you 'still care' and, after all, it's just a harmless SMS, right? (wrong); where you split up because there's no future but pledge to 'still be friends'.

I don't know about you, but I prefer being angry to being sad.

Besides, unless you are both truly big-hearted and have also both moved on to better relationships, it is near impossible for ex-es to 'be friends'. Just be thankful if things are civil.

THERE are only so many reasons a relationship ends and I can think of five:

1. You weren't really that into each other in the first place and the reality sinks in after you have exhausted the early bouts of physical desire.

2. You love each other but your personalities clash.

3. One party - or both parties - betrays the other and forgiveness is not possible.

4. One party - or both parties - no longer loves the other. Sometimes, no external stimulus is needed. Love simply dies.

5. You love each other but can't have a life together, for whatever reason.

How can you tell if a break-up is imminent? There's a tonne of literature out there but you could break it down to three crucial signs (don't ask me why, but articles on relationships always hinge on numbers):

1. You're no longer No. 1 in her universe. While you used to be the first person she would call if she got promoted at work or scolded by her boss, she has lost the enthusiasm to share with you the details of her life.

2. She doesn't desire your company anymore. Phone calls are getting shorter, she is always busy and you're the one calling, not her. Neither does she want to meet up. When you do, she is distracted and keeps sneaking peeks at her mobile phone to check for SMSes. And she keeps the phone on silent mode.

3. She starts to argue, a lot, and over trivial things. She is impatient with you and sighs a lot. She starts muttering things like 'we need to talk' and 'you deserve someone better'.

Break-ups bring out the worst in people. A colleague had an ex-boyfriend who went psycho and flooded her with text messages that alternated between pleas and curses. If she didn't pick up his call, he would keep hitting the redial button until her phone would register 20 missed calls and she had to turn it off.

Then there's the case of the man who went berserk when he found out his ex-girlfriend was getting married. On her wedding day, he went from hotel to hotel trying to track her down.

I've been guilty of cutting up photos and letters, deleting all SMSes and numbers from my phone, and harbouring dark thoughts.

For years my revenge fantasy was to walk up to a particularly hateful ex and fling a glass of red wine onto his white office shirt. I never got around to doing it, not that I actually would.

Such spiteful behaviour is stupid and childish and always leaves you feeling small and mean. The pettiness also negates all the good times you had together, which is sad because how can someone you once cared about suddenly become your No. 1 foe?

It gets messier when money is involved. Money always crops up because, when the love is gone, what else is there left to measure a relationship by other than dollars and cents?

A colleague feels Ronald comes out looking bad because he seems small-minded about money. 'Why can't he just write it off and move on? It's not as if he can't afford it. Okay, you may have had some money tied up in a relationship that is now over, but then who doesn't?'

My colleague had lent $6,000 to a boyfriend and when they broke up, didn't ask for it back. 'The money was part of the magic of the relationship, for better or for worse.'

But not everyone is willing to let things be. Another colleague's ex-boyfriend refused to pay her back for more than a year. She bugged him for the money because she wanted closure. He also didn't deserve to be let off so easily as he was earning more than her. She got it back in the end.

Counsellors have a list of dos and don'ts for breaking up. They advise you to do it in person, in a private setting, to be considerate and to keep your friends out of it. They say you should never break up in stages but go for a clean cut, and that the break-up should not be announced via SMS or e-mail.

It's easier said than done, of course. The hottest love has the coldest end, Socrates observed more than 2,000 years ago. Things haven't changed. Civilised break-ups remain rare.

Pity that Ronald and Jiawei had to find this out too.

sumiko@sph.com.sg