Poll: How did you handle relationship memorabilia? Why?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

so far, at twenty eight voters, the decision has been pretty split. looking at disposed everything vs hid everything, it is tied. i think the votes and the comments just reiterate the fact that there is no right or wrong answer here. everyone has suggested their action was best for them. i see no regrets. which might bring up another question. anybody regret their actions?

thanks all for sharing. hope it keeps up.

Not one bit... .

[Deeno02]

so far, at twenty eight voters, the decision has been pretty split. looking at disposed everything vs hid everything, it is tied. i think the votes and the comments just reiterate the fact that there is no right or wrong answer here. everyone has suggested their action was best for them. i see no regrets. which might bring up another question. anybody regret their actions?

thanks all for sharing. hope it keeps up.

Not one bit... .

[Lifewriter16]

I asked my BPDxbf what he wanted me to do with some of his things.

I returned a large Mimi to him and sent another large teddy bear back to the charity shop. I kept a blanket he bought me for Christmas and a couple of poems that I had already taped into my journal. I got rid of everything else.

I'm about to review my journals to see if there's anything useful in them. I feel inclined to ditch the lot. The question is whether there is useful material in them that I could use for creative writing. If I remember rightly, it's mainly me whinging and moaning.

There was so much pain around my dashed hopes, that I didn't want to look at anything he'd given me. I didn't want to have the pain triggered again. It was bad enough going to places I associated with him without having my house full of things he bought me. Occasionally, I wonder whether I will regret it in the fullness of time, but I'm not very sentimental, so I suspect I won't.

Lifewriter x

[thisagain]

I've gotten rid of or hid all explicitly relationship-related stuff (pictures of us together, cards or particularly sentimental gifts from her, etc). Not in a dramatic way, just putting things in the trash or moving digital files as I encounter them. I didn't have much because she could rarely hold onto a consistent feeling for long enough to write me a card. Pictures of her or of us together are in a folder on my computer, but I don't remember the last time I looked at them.

I have quite a bit of stuff that is mine, but was around in the apartment that she lived in for two years. I now live in a different apartment, so the furniture is rearranged and I don't usually associate things with her. When I do, it's gotten pretty easy to let the memory gently pass by. I've gotten to a pretty balanced place where I can appreciate the good parts of the relationship along with the bad. So if something around my apartment brings up a happy memory, I can smile and appreciate it without getting upset or wishing we were back together.

The stuff that is actually just hers, I boxed up and mailed to her. I recently cleaned out my closets/boxes and came up with another box of stuff that I'll send to her soon. I've done this at the end of a few relationships and find it really satisfying. I can put some stuff in a box and the federal government will forcibly deliver it to her door whether she wants it or not

[MapleBob]

She gave me a correspondence box (with stationery and such... .) early on in our relationship (we were long distance), so I stashed all of the physical stuff in that (letters, mix CD's, some other small trinkets) and hid it in the back of a drawer I don't have to go into very often. Digital media is backed-up to an external hard drive. She gave me a couple of clothing items that are hung in the closet where I don't have to look at them very often. I had some empty frames I was trying to fill so she made me some art to go in one of them ... .that stayed on the wall for a while, but I have since replaced it and stored it in my closet.

So basically I kept everything, but I keep it all out of sight. I wish I was more of an "out of sight = out of mind" BPD kind of guy. 

[GreenEyedMonster]

The past is part of life.  Disposing of the items from a relationship doesn't erase it.  It might feel cathartic, but that's about it.  I still have the pictures and the very few things that remind me of him, but I don't know if I could even say where all of them are at a given time.  They're not something I pay much attention to at all.  I put things away somewhere and that's it.

[love4meNOTu]

I mailed a box of odds and ends that he had left behind. The rest went into the garbage, including my wedding dress and heels. There are no reminders anywhere, and my life is peaceful and my boyfriend and I just celebrated two wonderful years together. After the hell I went through for a 16 month marriage to a mentally ill and abusive man, I just consider myself lucky. I am finally at peace with myself four years later!

[earlyL]

I started putting things away when the devaluation started, I did it to protect myself, but I did keep most of it, just in case I want to look at it again in the future. I hope one day to see the good out of the relationship but right now the pain is too much. And she still has all her stuff in my flat six weeks on, which doesn't help.

The weird bit was there were two notes that I had written I love you, one the kitchen table, I put them in the rubbish bin. She came back one night to get some clothes, and I found she had moved them out of the bin and put them in the recycle bin - I thought what a strange thing to do. Maybe to acknowledge that we both knew they had been moved.

[marti644]

I'm a sentimental person and have kept all kinds of keep-sakes stored away for later in life when all this is a distant memory. All my exes pictures are still on fb or on my computer but I don't look at them and don't dwell on them. Some of the gifts from various exes are in my daily life and I view them as 'mine' now and don't attribute them to the negatives of that relationship. The memorabilia are a part of me, good and bad, so I won't get rid of them ever.

The only thing I scrap is the text messages and facebook messages from my exes (BPD and otherwise). I don't want to re-read them over and over trying to find pieces to a puzzle that aren't there.

[steelwork]

Most of the memorabilia was digital. The most significant artifact was a blog we kept for sharing writing and pictures and music with each other. It was deeply significant to us. He was writing on it right up to the end--through a period when he had secretly begun seeing someone else--a period during which he then claimed we weren't even in contact. It was a compartment for him, I guess. After the horror of the end of our relationship, I stopped being able to look at it.

A few months after he entirely ghosted, I ran into a mutual friend who told me he was living with the new person. That hit me like a ton of bricks.

I don't generally get rid of much, I am awfully sentimental, really, but I have never had a breakup like this, and I was not healing. Out of desperation, I decided I had to behave in a different way this time. I needed that blog not to exist online. I wrote to him after 6 months of no contact to say I was taking the blog down in case he wanted to archive it. I said I thought he had written many fine things there about his childhood, etc, and he might want to save them. I also said I hoped he was well.

He wrote back after a few days, saying he had been too busy to respond right away. He hoped I was well, too, and no, he didn't need anything off our blog, go ahead and delete.

Unbearable pain. I archived and deleted, and that was our last contact--a year and a half ago. Then I deleted all our email, his voicemails--everything I could find. It was totally out of character for me, but I really was desperate for some relief.

The thing is, I remember so much of it anyhow, even now. And I still have a zip archive of the blog.

[cubicinch]

I got rid of it all in the trash... .totally blocked and no contact... .the only way to go is cold turkey!  Or its just like a scab you keep picking at.

I tend to do this with relationship ends... only real way to move on, especially if been hurt, which BPDs tend to do to a lot of people. I've emailed most digital photo files relating to her which I did just before we came to the NC ending... I guess she took that as a symbolic gesture from my side. Files now deleted, so it's her loss if she didn't save them or wants them again. Only really got a few christmas presents off her which I will probably destroy or give to charity. We walked our dogs in a local quarry and we found a rock with minerals in it. She wrote our names and dated it, which I still have. I could scrub it off and keep it, but I may just return it to the place it was found, again symbolic gesture of moving on.

She still retains something of mine, no attempt to return it although did promise. Should she break the NC now after 3 weeks, she can say what she likes but I wont have her back, it's over, you dont treat people like this, you respect their feelings.

[FallenOne]

Ritual style burning of things like cards and more personal items...

It actually felt quite good.

[hopealways]

I kept memorabilia for years in the hope that we would get back, but that hope (hence my name hopealways) was precisely what was preventing my healthy progress moving forward to a life free of BPD toxicity.

I ritualistically burned all of it a week ago. It made me feel good for a day or so but what really matters is how you truly feel inside and whether you have healed. I have.

So while I don't think it would have made a difference either way, I DO think for me it reinforced my strength and commitment to moving on.

[bus boy]

I got clear of everything in the house that she gave me or she left behind. I didn't want anything around that had her bad energy attached to it.

[Curiously1]

I erased and thrown most things away. When I was attached I kept it for a while until after some time felt it was unnecessary to keep. Most of the things she gave me were R rated stuff  and no need to keep those. I only kept one photo of the both of us just to remember her face I guess but it is stored away and the hat she gave me as a gift one time she went overseas. I find the hat useful.

[Aesir]

I tend to ignore or hide things from myself. I have not reached the point of throwing things away yet.