“Can we still be friends?” These are the words we always say at the end of a relationship, but rarely mean.
But, somehow, the people on the planet you'd think would have egos too large to trump any chance of a truce, seem to be able to pull it off.
We're talking about celebrities, like Madonna and Sean Penn, who married in a great paparazzi whirl of helicopter dust in 1985, and divorced 25 years ago this weekend.
They way they were...
The pair, comprising the famously volatile Oscar-winning Penn, and the ruthless cut-her-losses Madge, seem to still genuinely get on - last seen hanging out together on a trip to Haiti last November, a full two and a half decades after Madonna described their screaming rows, and how on one occasion her estranged husband tied her to a chair.
Time obviously heals all such wounds... or is that the celebrity bubble is such a small world, you have to grin and bear it because you're always going to bump into your ex somewhere along the trail? After all, even Jennifer Aniston managed a smile (small) for her ex-husband Brad Pitt when their paths crossed at the Oscars.
Here is our list of admirable exes who've gone one better...