When you’re in love, you tend to let some things slide where the object of your affection is concerned. You ignore a lot of the little things that might otherwise bug you, and probably secretly bug your friends, because the person with these annoying habits happens to bring joy to your life in some way, shape or form.

For some people, though, the little nuances and idiosyncrasies start becoming more and more noticeable. Not only do they start becoming more noticeable, but they also start becoming more irritating. Sometimes, these downfalls can even begin to outweigh whatever joy the person brings into your life.

These people fall out of love. And that’s exactly what has happened with Packer fans and Brett Favre.

While it might seem a little far-fetched to apply these same rules of love to the relationship between Packers fans and Brett Favre, there is no other accurate comparison to describe the love affair with Favre and the state of Wisconsin.

That’s why when ESPN talks about Favre and the Packers (for the Favre stories that they do choose to cover, anyway), they refer to the situation as a messy divorce and use words like “marriage,” “break-up” and “screw Jay Glazer.”

For 16 years, the way most Packer fans looked at Favre was similar to the way they looked at their loved ones, if only their loved ones played in the NFL and they had never actually met them.

As much as winning a Super Bowl and setting all kinds of records can endear a fan base, the relationship with Favre went beyond simple admiration on the football field. What separated Favre from every other star athlete was the emotional attachment everybody in the state felt toward him.

Due to the high volume of adversity that struck Favre and his family, he wasn’t a quarterback who happened to endure a myriad of personal tragedies; he was a human being who happened to play quarterback. When B.L.F. held his weekly fireside chat every Wednesday, Packer Nation listened intently, hanging by his every word and offering up support and condolences with each new issue that arose. Though creepy and weird in hindsight, there was a genuine love involved.

Excuse the Tony Kornheiser-esque diatribe, but it’s the truth. As much as you don’t want to hear it every single time the Packers or Jets play on Monday Night Football, and as irrelevant as it is to whatever is going in the game while Kornheiser’s babbling, it’s the truth.

After 16 years with the Packers, Favre retired. The Packers, like the spouse of someone in a deep coma, hoped against hope that he would come back, but all the while knew that eventually they would have to move on. So move on they did.

Then of course, Favre came back from what had been an amicable hiatus, hoping that the Packers could back out of the plans he had forced them to move forward with. By that point it was simply too late, but Favre couldn’t accept that, trashing the organization and its leaders, with the help of Fox News personalities with local connections, on his much less amicable way out.

With that, suddenly all of Favre’s little nuances and idiosyncrasies that Packer fans ignored for 16 became both noticeable and irritating.

The way he always threw those costly season-ending interceptions; the way he always seemed to endorse the worst products; the 3-7 playoff record beginning with the Super Bowl loss; the way he would have doubled bagged it; the way he abused drugs and alcohol early in his life; the way Dianna is famous now; the way he says opportunity like there’s an extra t in there somewhere; the way ESPN bends over backwards to spin a story about him in a positive light; all of these things that Packer fans both ignored and defended him for suddenly became too hard to ignore, even outweighing the Super Bowl victory, the three MVPs and the 442 touchdowns.

Then came Jay Glazer’s recent report that Favre gave the Lions information pertaining to the Packers game plan. Whether the report is entirely true or almost entirely true doesn’t really matter. The fact that it’s even a legitimate possibility that Favre is capable of such backstabbing is enough for most fans to sign the figurative divorce papers.

It’s official: Brett Favre is no longer loved here. Not now he isn’t, and it might be a while before that love that Packer fans felt for Favre returns—if it ever does.

Still, as the old adage goes, better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.