Of course, there are exceptions to everything in life, but I’m going out on a limb for this edition of Sleeping with Money to argue that you should never go back to dating your ex. Never! Especially do not start dating your ex again around the holiday season. You are not thinking with your heart. You are thinking from a lonely frame of mind. It’s no crazier to be thinking with your wallet instead.

Why?

Mending a broken relationship is a dim prospect — an investment with diminishing returns. Your time and money could be going to more rewarding relationships in your life, like friends, family, new dates, the local video store, Ben & Jerry’s, anyone or anything that brings more value to your life than your ex can at this minute. Not to take any value away from your ex as a person — one should always cherish the good memories of a past love. However, it makes better sense to keep them as memories.

Just Leave It In the Grave: Think about the time that goes into rebuilding and repairing a torn connection. How do you spend that time? Usually over romantic dinner and drinks. And romance doesn’t come cheap.

There’s a conventional wisdom that says dating your ex is like watching a rerun and hoping the outcome will be different. Nothing will change though. Same plot, same character flaws, same ending. Why spend money on something that’s dead and won’t grow? Digging up the grief won’t make it go away. And what you find might not be pretty.

How Am I Going to Pay For All These Gifts: The holiday season is expensive, isn’t it? Lots of gifts to buy, travel arrangements to be made, cards to send out, parties to attend. Hopefully you’re not putting too much on your credit card, or making unnecessary expenditures during a time when money will be tight. Are you confident that money spent on dates with your ex is the best use of limited money right now?

A Drain on Minutes: If you decide to date your ex anyway, I hope you have a good cell phone plan. Cutesy text and picture messages, long talks – they all add up on a cell phone bill. Then there are the minutes you spend with almost all your friends, analyzing what your ex said; speculating what this or that meant.

It’s all fun in the beginning, until the long talks with your ex devolve into familiar arguments, jealous tirades, nagging about ‘œWhere is this all going?’ again and again until the only resolution is that one of you starts dating somebody else. And whoops’¦ you’ve exhausted all the minutes on your cell phone plan.

High Rent in Limbo Land: It’s hard to concentrate on work when your heart is riding on a dizzying rollercoaster. You spend lots of time debating whether your ex will hurt you all over again, or if you’re consciously making a big mistake that feels better than being lonely for the holidays. Pros and cons lists are made, memories are revised to be rosier for the time being.

Then the same unresolved issues pop back up again. You realize why you’ve always felt your ex was the devil’s spawn, and you fester. Meanwhile, you could have been making sales, impressing the boss during bonus season, making important business contacts that all your competitors are making.

Investing in Closure Instead: It’s true that sometimes the best deals are those you walk away from. The same can be said for some relationships. You don’t have walk away mad though.

I’m writing all of this because I’ve made the mistake of going back to an ex during the holidays many times in my life, and I see people all around me doing it too. Though my friends would always try to talk me out of it, I’d tune them out or resent them because they were happily coupled or loving the single life. I was too focused on my own pain and longing to listen to everyone telling me that I deserved to move on.

The message never sunk in until one year, a guy I was dating abruptly broke up with me the night before I flew to New York to see my family for Christmas. I never saw it coming. I was stunned, and of course, angry. I didn’t even want to bother thinking about him, or any of my exes. Instead, I just picked up the pieces and went on with my life.

Granted, it’s a lot easier to forget about your ex when you’re 3,000 miles away from him/her during the holidays, but don’t let proximity be an excuse to keep your ex around as a fallback option.

In getting caught up with the whirl of the holidays that year, I realized there would always be people in my life that I’m important to no matter how cranky or depressed I am. It was the people who offered unconditional love that deserved my attention more anyone else. They deserved the best from me, and some of my holiday spirit too. I finally realized no time spent with an ex could ever compare to the unconditional love of friends and family.

So I offer this to you. Just let your ex go. You can point fingers and blame each other for your relationship failing all you want, but it’s not going to get you anywhere. Being mad just keeps you attached. The best gift you can give each other is just help one another move on. Say your peace to each other and wish the best. Doing so may lead to yet another friendship you can rely upon in the future, or at the very least, you’ll have time, energy and money for the relationships that matter most this holiday season.

And one last thing. Please no drunk dialing your ex. That gets messy too.