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!
Thanks for this fascinating lil peek into your lives.
I had a girlfriend who wore a moss green scarf of mine for the five years we were together, and when we broke up she left it folded on my bed and it felt like a kick in the gut. I’d all but forgotten it was originally mine, i couldn’t bring myself to wear it anymore, I wished she had taken it, like fuck you for suddenly not wanting to wear it just cause it had been mine, ya know?
Like Erin, I cultivate non-attachment and do not keep anything from exes ever. (Also I don’t want their energy in my house?)
There is one exception to this rule. During a period when I was hooking up with an ex, she leant me a fleece hoodie that I had loved wearing when we were together. It was cold the next morning, I was underdressed for the office, etc.
Anyway, I haven’t had the opportunity to give her the fleece back, and it’s now the warm layer that I keep on my office chair for when I get cold which is always. Also it stays at the office and never goes home with me.
Neither of these were at all on purpose, but somehow, out of my last two relationships, I’ve come away with a copy of my ex’s favourite book.
The first time, my ex was lamenting the fact she didn’t have a copy of her favourite book to lend me, because she’d lent it to someone else, and so I bought HER a copy of the book so she could lend it to me. But then we broke up 3 months later and I still hadn’t read the book and she told me to keep it.
The second time, again the ex lent me her favourite book, and we broke up before I got a chance to read it. Except this time, when we made plans to meet up to return each other’s stuff, I couldn’t find the book she’d lent me and I freaked out because I knew it was her favourite and that would be pretty shitty of me to lose it. So I went and bought another copy. Except it turned out I’d actually left the book at her place, so I didn’t actually need to return it, so I ended up with my own copy of the book.
I still haven’t read either of these books, and probably never will just because of what they represent, but it’s starting to become a bit of a collection.
I also kept a book from my ex, though it wasn’t her favorite book. But similar situation in that she had lent it to me and I had not yet read it. We haven’t seen each other since, and maybe never will again, so I guess the book is mine now? I did eventually read it. It was gay and delightful.
…struggling to articulate anything here
Ok, upon further reflection, I have determined it might be possible to like Mexican food “too much” in the following circumstances:
1. Some kind of Mexican food fetish, which the ex did not share.
2. That you were prioritising spending time with Mexican food over her.
However, #1 would be slut shaming and #2 sounds like a reasonable course of action from the description given, therefore the complaint is still invalid.
One of the items that I still have from my ex girlfriend is her sports bra that she left at my apartment and it just happens to be the best sports bra I have ever found. For some reason it is such a struggle to find a good one for me! So I guess she also gave me the ability to exercise comfortably. Thank you, ex girlfriend. ❤
I also have a sports bra from an ex! Actually, I think I might have two exes’ sports bras. Hm.
I feel a bit called out, but here it goes: a mattress (hi, Laneia), two beanies (from two different girls), a comic book, an ekg book, an Argentina travel guide, a pajamas bottom, a compact power transformer, a magsafe power adapter, a spinner and all of their trust in love.
I avoid my exes so much that I prefer to become a thief than talk to them.
When my ex and I were doing the break-up sort, it was mostly very easy to decide what belonged to whom. But then we came to a book. One particular book. That both of us loved. We kind of stopped. We didn’t really want to have a fight over it. It would’ve been stupid; it wasn’t at all a rare book or an expensive one. But…
Luckily a moment later we found a wedding present – an expensive one we had never used and had actually forgotten about. It had come from one of his parents’ friends. Ah-ha, thought I. Clearly that should stay with him, and in return I should keep the book.
I still have it. And I still love it. The wedding present was worth a lot more money, but I don’t care, I won. :)
I keep nothing. Haha. For pragmatic reasons. Peak Capricorn.
I used to have a box full of stuff from high school exes in this vintage toiletry luggage, but, like, my teen girl feelings had very much faded, so I took some pics for posterity of thing I actually cared to remember. Now that cute vintage box houses my nail polish collection.
I was really sad once that I lost emails between myself and the girl who was my first because the random, dinky, early 2000’s email provider deleted all their old accounts. I just want to remember her full name!
Haha wow feeling VERY called out. I have lots of exes and kept lots of things from each one of them. The majority of those things are clothes/coats/beanies but I also have artwork, letters/cards, trinkets, ticket stubs, jewelry, books, and crystals. I usually wasn’t being vindictive or hugely sentimental…I just decided that those items were mine and (mostly) my exes have agreed. Integrating things back into my life that once belonged to my exes is a reminder of who I’ve been and who I am.
‘100 Terrible Things About Dating You’ would make an excellent feature film. Desiree Akhavan would direct it. It would begin with a scene of the ex (played by Julia Stiles) posting her list on Heather’s door like the Martin Luther of bitter exes.
I’d watch it
As I was reading I thought “Molly got the best deal here, no one will be able to top this.” Then I read Stef’s entry. Stef wins.
I like to think so.
I called my ex after we broke up and made her come back and give me her Beyonce Flawless shirt that I loved to wear. I still sleep in it most nights. Not because of my ex, but because of Beyonce, obvi.
Me: I never want to see or speak to you again.
Also me: You know that Beyonce t-shirt? Could you bring that round and just like, leave it.
Reading this I was trying to remember what I have kept from an ex. I realized that I don’t really keep things from exes, but there’s multiple items that I’ve lost to exes. And then I realized that it’s very metaphorically accurate of my relationships in general.
When my ex and I broke up I got her eyeliner and also her job.
fuck yeah you did
Haha that is exactly how I feel about the situation!
Almost everything I’ve kept from exes were things they gave to me, but one stands out: I have neck problems (among other health shenanigans), and when I moved to this city to be with my ex (then-girlfriend) and was trying to buy a pillow for my bed, I couldn’t find one that didn’t cause/exacerbate neck pain. But I noticed that when I slept over at her place, her pillows didn’t bother me because they were old and flat and mushy, which is everything I want in a pillow. So eventually I just gave up. I bought her a new pillow, and she gave me her old one.
So now, years after we’ve broken up, every night when I lie down to go to bed, my head is resting on her pillow. Sometimes I feel like weird about it, but I’m also so grateful that it doesn’t hurt my neck that I don’t even care.
My ex was a very long time ago and there’s no physical stuff left, but I do have some of her wonderful family melodies for Jewish prayers and blessings. The tunes don’t entirely erase her psycho-ness, but it’s nice to have something good left!
I have two pairs of underwear that I accidentally kept from my ex-girlfriend. They are very comfortable and my only boxer briefs-style underwear so they are still in my regular rotation over 2 years later.
RIESE I love you. I managed to keep ALL of my ex’s stuff one time. It wasn’t on purpose and I very much did not want all of her stuff, but I asked her to move out of my apartment and she took one bag and all of the rest of her stuff just stayed at my place. I boxed it all up and texted her to come get it every few weeks, and she kept making excuses. Four years later I moved to the other end of the country and contacted her frantically to come and taKE AWAY HER SHIT but she never did, so it all moved down the country with me. So I kept some, sold some, threw most away, still have a box of baby/grandparents’ wedding/etc photos that I do not know what to do with. I am more confused about what the hell she did – basically all of her clothes were still at my place, was she just naked after she moved out, or just wore the same outfit plus three pairs of underpants? Was it some sort of Minimalist Lifestyle Purge? What the hell?
In my last break up mostly she ended up with my stuff because the process of sorting through the house was so traumatic I just didn’t want to attempt it. I grabbed the most important things at the time and every once in a while I ask her for some random item back that I’ve realized I’m missing.
Are you Mari’s ex girlfriend…?
My ex has two of my favorite books and I have not forgotten and I would like them back, please. (We’re on pretty good terms, I’d just guess that she hasn’t actually read them yet but still vaguely plans to so hasn’t bothered returning them). There’s an empty vase on my dresser that had flowers she brought me at the beginning of our relationship, like a year and a half ago. Eventually the flowers withered enough for me to throw them out but the vase is still right there like some kind metaphor.
My ex has the ONLY extra key card to get into my apartment complex and I really wish I had that back! I deleted her number before I realized I needed it back and she blocked me on social media. I WANT THAT CARD! There’s no way for cat sitters to get in now without that if the gate is closed so it makes my life complicated. SIGH.
Ok so an ex of mine cooked for me once and I took it home in this small rectangular glass dish
And about a year after we broke up I realized I still had it, but I needed a water dish for the cats I had just acquired and it was the only thing in my random assortment of dishes that would kind of work
She visited me a few months ago and tripped over it, spilling water everywhere
But she didn’t say anything about the dish after we cleaned everything up and so I’m still using it for the cats
I understand that it’s probably hard to come up with 100 actual things wrong with someone (unless they didn’t vote for Hillary), but that still wouldn’t excuse “Likes Mexican food too much” being in the bottom 50. Mexican food is delicious.
I have a soft, green hoodie that I can rarely wear because my current gf associates it with the ex I stole it from. (But when it’s St. Patrick’s Day and I see her put on her ex’s shirt, you better believe I’m in this hoodie.)
“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!”
Stef is always so #relatable.
I’m here to reassure Heather Hogan that there is no such thing as liking Mexican food “too much”.