here's what i did...

Guest — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:35:42 -0500

I hope it made you feel better! here's what I did: my husband left pictures lying around of "the other woman" wearing one of his hats, so I cut said hat to ribbons and threw the pieces away. It's a summer hat, so he hasn't noticed yet that it's gone. Maybe he will look for it, months down the road, when he's living alone. It was a somewhat sad and immature thing to do, but it made me feel better for a moment. I'd like to think that I, and yes even my husband, have behaved a lot more honorably most of the time, so I'm going to follow your lead, Alice, and not waste time worrying about it.

is it worth anything? Can

Guest — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 09:15:08 -0500

is it worth anything? Can you sell it? You probably should have sold the humidor as well! CM

Cleaning Out The Ex's Things: A Question Of Character

Alice Brooks — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:00:00 -0500

Jake bought a humidor once, on a whim. It was very expensive and he stopped using it after a month.

After Jake moved out, I had to pack his things and ship them off to his company's warehouse in Oakland. At the time, I was angry. Really, really angry. I figure this is normal and healthy and don't waste a lot of time feeling bad about it. I didn't get vindictive - save for not packing his things terribly neatly. And maybe, maybe finding that the cat had hairballed into one of the boxes and pretending not to notice. Otherwise, I didn't act on my anger — save for this:

That humidor — I took it outside and stomped it into pieces. I figured Jake hadn't touched it or thought about it in years, it wasn't something he cared about, and jumping up and down on top of the stupid thing would go a long way towards making me feel better.

While packing up my living room tonight, I pulled down a stack of books and found Jake's baseball behind them. This ball is from high school and it's one of the very, very few things he's held onto that long. This is something that means a whole lot to him.

Realistically, the chances of Jake ever unpacking the boxes I packed for him are slim. The chances of him even coming back to this country are slim. If I just threw this baseball away, he would likely never know.

This, then, may be the kind of thing that determines what kind of person you are: sitting in a half-packed living room, holding a baseball, wondering whether to throw it away, knowing he may never know, or drive it to Oakland, knowing he may never know I did that either.

firstwivesworld - Cleaning Out The Ex's Things: A Question Of Character - Comments

here's what i did...

is it worth anything? Can

Cleaning Out The Ex's Things: A Question Of Character