The ex factor

A second marriage usually has more people in it than two. An ex who co-parents is in your calendar; an ex who never quite left is in your evenings. What you feel about that is allowed to be complicated.

These pages describe the patterns — the jealousy, the comparison, the calls that land at dinner — and the boundaries couples build as agreements between the two of them. What you will not find here: scripts for managing an ex, tactics, or a case for treating a former partner as a villain. Exes are people, mostly outside our knowledge and entirely outside your control.