The Brett Favre story is far from over, but as far as Packers fans are concerned, the news yesterday that their legend won’t be coming back is about as final as it gets.

Number four is no more.

The breakup talks stretched on Monday and Tuesday, and there was a glimmer of hope from some that the relationship between icon and proud franchise could be reconciled. But alas, they had gone too far in this shenanigan to retrieve the love.

As tired as I have been of this story, much like most of you, you still have to pay homage to a once-great thing. When player and team, different as they might be, are so good together, it’s only fair and right to think back about the best of what they were. But it’s also natural and purgative to put the end squarely in front of us and let the pain seep in. That’s where we’re at right now with this relationship, staring squarely into the abyss.

Why do we love breakup movies so much? Why else do we love heartbreaking, haunting breakup songs like “Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” or Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”? There’s something about us that needs to feel the bottom before we truly can appreciate how good things were.

Or better yet, from there, move on.

In football, the love, one way or another, is due to die. Sure, a legend such as John Elway left the game on top and has kept on with the Broncos in an affectionate way, but for the most part there is always a split between the player and the team that hurts everyone involved. The player misses the team and the fans. The fans miss the player. The team misses the player. It’s a bizarre love triangle that seldom has a clean or just ending.

Favre and the Packers had it good, about as good as it gets. His legend grew exponentially from the day he took over as Packers quarterback. Favre’s first pass completion that fall day back in 1992 was batted down and caught … by himself. It’s like the man missing the mouth completely on a first-kiss attempt — the moment was funny, it was priceless, and it was uniquely Favre. A love affair unlike one we had seen was beginning.

We know most of the rest of the story. Sure, things weren’t perfect along the way, and the Packers, Wisconsin fans will tell you, probably should have won another Super Bowl or two in his time. But there was little regret through most of his days in Green Bay, even when Brett was slinging his patented interceptions or the team was struggling.

Ironically, it took one more blistering swell of romance this past season to make things end up the way they did. With the Packers winning games again and Favre playing his best ball in years, we were swept up again. We got caught up in the past and in the lusty present. An old flame was rekindled.

Bottom line: Had Favre struggled last season, or played along the same lines as he did in 2005 or ‘06, we wouldn’t have gotten to this point.

Let’s face it, both parties think they are better off without each other right now. Favre thinks that it’s crazy his team doesn’t want him back wholeheartedly after a near-MVP season, and the Packers think an improved offensive line, a running game and a defense had as much to do with their success as their aging QB did. It’s a spiritual tug of war that no one will win.

That’s the saddest part about this whole deal. It could have been over. Not clean, not perfect, but satisfactory.

But you don’t break up to make a relationship better, and when Favre left this spring, all sides assumed it was over. It’s hard to undo some things, and there is no better example than the mess we are facing now.

I don’t blame Favre for getting the itch to play again, and I don’t question the Packers for making the decision to move on and basically not waver from it. It’s like hearing your friends’ breakup story from both his and her sides and not being able to find someone to blame. You kind of get what both people are saying.

But whoever is at fault, things got ugly — and fast. Everything seemed to come crumbling down. A once-great thing, for now, is dead.

A day ago, the question that Favre and the Packers were asking themselves was the same that we all have asked all along: How did it get to this point? Both sides dug in, and like Vince Vaughn’s character in “The Break-Up” said, they played “it all night long, like Lionel Richie.” It was a game of chicken, and neither side wanted to be the one that veered off course.

But none of that really matters now. Favre probably will be a Buccaneer here in the next few days. He’ll go on with his career, and the Packers will focus on their season. If it works out like that, they’ll probably meet in Tampa on Sept. 28. It’ll be like a bad wedding where friends of both sides get married and the divorced parties have to smile and talk uncomfortably and cordially about safe topics.

And when the Packers and Favre first see each other again, it will stir up those old feelings in everyone who got something out of their affair, a strange mix of good and bad but an overall sense of numb. Bittersweet, I believe is the term.

At some point, though, Favre and the Packers will rejoin. It’ll never be the same, and there will be some raw emotions left on both sides, but they will come together again. It probably will be a year or two after Favre stops playing and maybe after some of the familiar Packers faces are gone when the first germs of affection start to poke back through. But it will happen.

Joe Montana still loves the 49ers, and Dan Marino will forever be a Dolphin. No one really remembers Tony Dorsett as a Bronco, or John Unitas as a Charger. The best always seems to triumph in the end in these relationships. In this case, I’d be willing to bet that Favre’s ego will take a bruising, and my guess is that certain Packers officials will have wished they handled things differently along the way.

No one ever said breaking up is easy. But getting back together, in some way or form? Count on it. When Favre gets bronzed for Canton in 6-7 years, are we going to talk about the bad stuff? Will he be wearing a Bucs helmet? No, sir. We won’t be sick, as we are now, of seeing the story of the 1996 Green Bay Packers on the NFL Network. We’ll be talking about the good old days, and oh, how many there were. And I suspect, slowly, so will the Packers and Favre.

In one of my favorite breakup movies, “High Fidelity,” there’s a great, anticlimactic scene where Rob Gordon, who always had eyes for something better, and his erstwhile girlfriend Laura, who left Rob and moved on quickly, are considering getting back together. It’s after the love, after the pain, somewhere in the middle where reasonable people are talking reasonably about how maybe some things are just meant to fit together, imperfectly or otherwise:

Rob: I’m tired of the fantasy, because it doesn’t really exist. And there are never really any surprises, and it never really …
Laura: Delivers?
Rob: Delivers. And I’m tired of it. And I’m tired of everything else for that matter. But I don’t ever seem to get tired of you, so …

In five years, substitute Favre for Rob and, say, Ted Thompson for Laura. It won’t be perfect, but the Packers and Favre can be complete again one day. However weird it seems right now, there will be a time when we actually crave to hear about this relationship.