This is an A+ post so our exes won’t read it and ask for their stuff back.
Maybe you kept the black fedora on purpose because it looks better on you. Maybe their copy of The Argonauts got tossed in a box while you were moving out and now it’s yours. Maybe you actually forgot to give her forest green hoodie back and now it’s been a few months since the breakup and it would be weird to text her so now it’s yours forever. Sometimes keeping the thing that belonged to your ex is the best part to come out of a breakup, you know. Here’s a parade of items from our exes and the stories behind them!
Did you ever keep something that belonged to your ex? Why did you keep it? Did you always know it would be yours in the end? Do you actually want to get rid of it now? Let us know in the comments!
Heather Hogan, Senior Editor
I kept an ex-girlfriend’s copy of Rebecca. It was actually an accident and I would have given it back to her but she went kind of berserk after we broke up and sent me this list of 100 Terrible Things About Dating You; and stole my favorite and most nostalgic piece of clothing, which she BURNED; and tried to write about our breakup as some kind of expose for like The Hairpin. (I don’t know what she was going to write. Her number one complaint on her list of 100 things wrong with me was that I liked Mexican food too much????) Anyway, I realized like a month after our breakup that this book was still on my shelf and it made me laugh so hard because it’s just so on the nose for a wackadoodle ex and so I kept it and will always keep it. It tickles me.
Erin Sullivan, Staff Writer
This will be not shocking to people who know me in real life, but I have very little attachment to things. So, whenever someone and I break up, I will have Konmari’d their things fairly quickly! Not in a vindictive way, just in an “I don’t need this” way. I do that regularly with my own things, so having an item that didn’t belong to me in the first place around is noticeable. Some people (my parents) find this ability to toss items to the wind and strip them of any sentimentality harsh. And to them I say: makes sense! But the one shirt that I really liked of one of my exes was despised by another ex (because it was an ex’s) and any time I wore it I was accused of wearing it because of latent feelings and not because I just liked the shirt, so, it feels like my instincts are right here.
Riese Bernard, Editor-in-chief
It’s been a minute since I kept anything belonging to an ex, possibly because I already had so much inventory from one specific relationship — my 2-3 years with Alex Vega circa 2007-2010, during which time we also founded this website! Sometimes people thought we looked alike. We don’t really, besides both of us having weak chins, but regardless, probably me stealing her clothes didn’t help. Although not included in the graphic, there’s a pair of black Uniqlo skinny jeans I took from Alex and wore TO THE BONE for YEARS after our breakup. She went ahead and bought herself a new pair of those, though, in case you were worried she had to live without them. Another un-pictured item are a pair of black bathing suit bottoms that I stole from Alex and then, in a real sneaky move I’ll tell you what, my ex Abby stole from me! Alex is good at fashion, and although she’s shorter than me, we have similar body types (boyish, narrow hips, etc.), so often the brands she found that fit her correctly would also fit me (e.g., Uniqlo jeans, J-Crew boyfriend button-ups, H&M little boys trunks). In late 2012 (so, more than two years after we broke up) we presented at a conference together and she leant me her shirt because I obviously hadn’t packed appropriately but then you know what I did is I ordered the same shirt for myself when I got home instead of stealing hers! Because I had grown as a person. (Although I had stolen her red glasses approximately three weeks before the conference.)
Thanks Alex, I’m so glad we’re still friends!!
Alyssa Andrews, Comic Artist
I don’t reeeeeally have any items from any exes. When a relationship ends, I tend to live like it never even happened, and I find that’s easiest to do if I don’t cling on to any little part of them. While I don’t tend to keep things, that’s not to say my most recent ex didn’t keep a lot of mine. I got out of that relationship with 4 boxes of my things, a three-and-a-half pound dog, and a shitty attitude.
Also though, when I say that I don’t have any items from any exes, that’s not to say that I didn’t take any items from any exes. I did find an ounce of petty in me to “accidentally” tuck a snobby ex’s excessively-bougie and favorite pair of jeans away in those deeply pathetic 4 boxes of things. I then gave them to a consignment store never to be seen again. I couldn’t tell you why I stole a pair of jeans and not the Vitamix, but I deeply hope that some un-snobby babe on a budge in Portland, Oregon found that random pair of $300 jeans on the $5 dollar rack, and that their ass looks fucking amazing.
Rachel Kincaid, Managing Editor
It’s a shirt, but not technically his shirt — it was his dad’s, and came with a pile of clothes that somehow got passed along to him instead (his dad was and still is alive, to be clear, this wasn’t an inheritance, I have no idea why this stuff ended up in our apartment in Wisconsin all the way from Oklahoma, somehow!). It fit both of us — all of both of our clothes fit both of us, for the most part, and we shared a lot — but only I ever really wore it. I don’t know why he didn’t. It was that kind of perfectly soft jersey fabric that’s so hard to find for some reason, and was ideal for a sleep shirt but also enough of a “real” shirt that I could wear it out in a pinch to go grocery shopping, or not feel like I got caught naked if the landlord stopped by. I’m not sure why I ended up with it, either, really. When I was moving out of our shared place we were avoiding seeing each other and he would take care to be out of the place when I was coming by to pack, but he would leave piles of things for me to take that he had decided were mine or maybe just didn’t want to deal with, and the shirt was in one of them. I still like wearing it and find it comforting, if only on a sensory level; maybe because it wasn’t technically “his” and I don’t have memories of him wearing it, it doesn’t bother me. It’s hard to find a perfect sleep shirt, you know?
Molly Priddy, Staff Writer
I drive a 2016 Jeep that is fully paid off and has all the bells and whistles, because the year before my ex-wife wanted a divorce, we decided that I needed a bigger car to tackle Montana winters. Her business was starting to take off, so we felt confident getting a more-expensive car than I might normally just pick out for myself. I love this Jeep. I named it Boss. I drove it to work, it was “my” car, but really she was the one paying for the bulk of it. Then, when she left me, we worked it out in mediation that I’d get the car, we’d sell the house to pay it off, and I wouldn’t have to worry about debt. So now I drive a rad car, debt free, and I don’t want to get rid of it at all, except sometimes when I’m like “it would be nice to have like $15,000, I should sell my car.”
Creatrix Tiara, Staff Writer
It’s not from an ex-partner, but from my ex-best-friend (we were pretty romantic and affectionate anyhow that besides the fact that we didn’t do anything sexual we might as well be dating). He made me a purse out of leftover packaging material for “good luck.” I used it as a safety pocket when I travelled to the US last year in the midst of the Travel Ban. I put a USB stick with all my emergency info, papers with phone numbers, and spare change in this purse and hid the purse in my bra, and wore it EVERYWHERE. (Ultimately nothing bad happened to me so I wasn’t in need of the emergency functions of this purse but I felt safer.)
I did wonder about getting rid of it after our friendship went sour (one of the WORST breakups in my life). It’s still very useful as a coin purse. Maybe if I found a better replacement then maybe? I don’t know.
Stef Schwartz, Vapid Fluff Editor
I’ve written about this before, but I have an odd habit of ending up walking away from relationships with at least one or two of my ex’s coolest friends. I haven’t done it on purpose, I swear! I have respected boundaries and been very careful to not draw lines in the sand, but in at least a few cases my ex certainly did and that’s how I ended up with my best friend Janine.
As a general rule, I don’t keep things from exes; I have a drawer where I used to keep dried flowers I’d gotten from an ex, but I’ve since thrown them out. Somewhere, there’s a handwritten note from an ex boyfriend telling me he had a great time but couldn’t find his underwear so it was mine now (illustrated with a cartwheeling smiley face). I haven’t been able to throw that one out because it still makes me laugh. There’s definitely at least one A-Camp pigeonhole note in my wallet, plus a movie ticket stub from a time I FINALLY hooked up with someone I’d had a crush on for years. They sort of remind me that cute shit is possible, on days where it really doesn’t feel like it. I’m not sure any of these really count.
I’d say the #1 thing I’ve kept from my most prolific ex girlfriends was a looming sense of ever-present dread. Thanks babes!
