Relationships are hard. The act of giving ourselves so wholely to another demands an emotional and mental investment rivaled by nothing else on earth. Similar to the way the ancient Greeks viewed the meaning of education — the act of giving oneself wholly to another in learning — so too do we give of ourselves to our lovers as we learn to trust, to learn, to live.

And when relationships fail, when trusts are betrayed, when feelings of love turn to hate, it’s easy to let animosity and rage rule our hearts as we seek to avoid the pitfalls of a post-relationship period. It’s a strange thing that happens: the person you loved and would have given your life for just last week becomes, as the esteemed Keith Olbermann might say, “the worst person in the world!”

“Kate? Oh, she’s dead to me.” said Jack.

“But you were ready to marry her before your last fight!” Robert retorts.

That post-relationship meanspiritedness takes over, shades, and distorts our memory of a former lover, in the same way a time later celebrated often seems to forget to include the bad times along with the good in the recounting.

This meanspiritedness is coarse and unsettling in the sense that it’s counter-factual to a shared experience (at least at the time) that was evidently loving or at least marginally meaningful.

Barring infidelity, many happy relationships that, for whatever set of reasons, come to a close, seem to be readily put aside with one partner being labeled at fault, the bitch, the jackass, etc.

This seems like an odd way to regard one you professed to at one point to love. Poor treatment at one point or another in a relationship would seem an inadequate reason to retroactively disparage the entire relationship a waste, or vilify the woman you once whispered sweetly to in quiet evening hours.

In the end, perhaps we need that lashing out period (with hope that it’s merely a passing attitude); perhaps such nastiness exists precisely to be overcome, as one side of the affection/animosity coin of human relations.