have you kept things from past relationships?

[happyscooter]

not marriages, those don't count.

i take a lot of pics.  i have been going through them, trying to get rid of old photo albums.  i have alot from my kids school years.  first day of school, spelling bee, etc...  i have prom pics that are of my kids and their dates.  a few were very serious relationships, not just prom dates.  i feel that those are part of their school years and i am not throwing them away.  if my son knew i have them, he would tell me to trash the pics. 
sorry, he can do that when i die.

do you have anything from old boyfriends/girlfriends?  i have a few record albums (yes i'm old, want to make something of it?) and just threw away a stuffed animal a guy had given me about 37 years ago.   i have pics and ticket stubs and a seashell. 

what about you?

[Deleted]

Absolutely nothing.  The more you need to live in the past, the more you need to work on the present.

[swamp]

I have pictures mixed in with all my other pictures. Beyond that, I don't think so. I'm not big on holding on to stuff.

[Deleted]

I have pictures from vacations with old boyfriends. And probably some other random pictures. I have jewelry. Whatever else I've kept, it was because I like the item, not because it reminds me of the person that gave it to me. It's seperate in my head, lol. If it wasn't and I wanted to erase all reminders of this one guy, I'd actually have to move. He replaced and fixed a lot of things in my house.

I can't think of anything I've kept from a past relationship just for the sentimental value. No cards or letters or anything like that. I may have kept things like that for a while, but eventually I tossed it.

[swamp]

Oh yeah, I do have an opal necklace. I forgot who gave it to me.

[Deleted]

I do.  My (now) husband and I reconnected after several years, and I was glad I did.

What did I have?  A gold necklace he had given me one Christmas.  I don't really wear jewelry, but it is nice.  I wore it on our wedding day.  A beanie baby that reflects part of his online screen name (fox----).  A Christmas ornament that was also a fox.  Three nesting boxes that he brought one Christmas with my present in them.

I was happy to be able to say that I had never really given away anything he had given me.  Except for the necklace and Christmas boxes (decorations), they weren't a part of my everyday life.  But it did demonstrate how important he always was to me.

I had given him stuff, but the thing he loved most was a wallet.  He still has it 13 years later.

I have pictures from my ex and me in a scrapbook; maybe my kids will want to see that once upon a time their parents were happy.  We were married almost twenty-five years so there are tons of us and them.  I have pictures with my ex-bf, but that's because we went interesting places together like Graceland and Disney World.  They are actually on the bookshelf.  I should probably put them in a box (I have photo boxes for almost every year), but DH isn't threatened by them at all.  They are just pictures of a vacation.

I am still really glad that I kept the stuff from DH's and my previous times together.  The pictures are sweet since they were taken in 1998 when we were relatively "younger" and "prettier."  They make me smile.

[zibazinski]

Heck, yeah. I've got clothes and jewelry. 

[Deleted]

Yes, I've kept the jewelry, including the wedding band from my first marriage, which I had made into earrings. I still have an ID bracelet my first boyfriend gave me when I was 16. The gold plating is wearing off and I never wear it, but it's special because it was my first gift from a guy and the relationship was good for me in many ways. I lost contact with him years ago and he's dead now, so it's not like I have any intention of rekindling anything.

My first husband is a complicated case. The last few years of the marriage, DS and I were living in a war zone. Still, I got some of the furniture he'd gotten frrm his family in the divorce, and I still have odds and ends like the 2 small stuffed animals my Ex had on his bed when I first met him. He wasn't 100% evil and he loved DS and me as much as he was capable of loving anyone, and I'm capable of remembering that without forgetting why I divorced him.

[midjd]

I can't think of anything, maybe some Valentine's cards from my elementary school boyfriend. I did keep a lot of the notes DH gave me in junior high/high school.

[constanz22]

I probably have, but can't really think of much, or even tell you where it is. I did keep all of the letters an ex from college wrote to me. He was an amazing letter writer and it always made me smile to go back and read them.

I kept my engagement ring from my last fiancé, but had the diamond taken out and put into a necklace, and a new stone put in the ring setting, but I never wear either one, and I spent a fortune on them...

Not too long ago, I found some photos, like the large professional ones, of my exes kids. I couldn't bring myself to toss them but have no desire to track him down and see if he wants them. I wouldn't even know where to look for him. We had ones done for our engagement and "family" pics. I don't want them but can't bring myself to toss them either, so they sit in the bottom of a hope chest.

[cottoncandyclouds]

I think I have a few odds and ends from my first two boyfriends. My first boyfriend I have the dried rose petals of my first rose,a stuffed animal, and I think the tickets to my first dance. The tickets may have gotten thrown away I'm not sure. From my second boyfriend I kept the notes he wrote me, a cheap necklace, a stuffed animal, and a photo of me with his family one summer. It all fits in a shoe box where it has sit for the longest time. Now if you asked me where that shoe box is I couldn't tell you. I think it may be in my parents basement somewhere.

[marvholly]

I am OLD (getting medicar & soc).  I still have the pix of old boyfriends & I from proms 7 other formal dances.

DD2's MIL was apparently a pack rat.  She kept MANY of her son's (DD2's DH) toys.  She has gradually passed them on to their son.  i suspect both my DDs will save 7 pass on the HUGE collection of books they have from their kids. (NOTE: both are teachers).

[Shooby]

  Well, DH was my first and only serious BF so there isn't much of a past there.  But, I still have my prom pics and a few others.

[Otto the Orange]

I kept Ms Potato Head's lazy eye, she had an extra eye so don't think she noticed.  Also this was before she was with Mr Potato Head.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I have my prom pictures.  I still have and wear the earrings my HS sweetheart gave me.  I also have a ruby pendant he gave me, the chain broke so I keep it in my keepsake box.

My mom was digging thru my old stuff and found a teddy bear that I recieved as a V-day gift from a senior who had a crush on me when I was a freshman.  I forgot I had it.   I didn't know what to do when it as given to me, I was even more socially awkward then than I am now.  So nothing came of it.

We gave it to Gwen.  It holds no meaning for me, but it did make me wonder how different life might have been if I'd been a little more sauve.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

The only thing I have is a porcelain rose that was given to me.  This thing is absolutely gorgeous, so fragile and unless you touch it, looks exactly like a rose.

i just don't know what to do with it, but as I am clearing out crap, it is going to go someplace.  Just not sure where.

[thyme4change]

I have never thrown away a single picture in my entire life.  I remember when my sister got married, she and her husband threw away every memento and picture of every previous relationship as a sign of their commitment to each other.  Neither of them had been involved in anything serious before that - so my sister threw out her prom picture, and pictures of her with friends who were male, etc.  I don't understand the logic, and never made the same offer/request when I got married.  However, I was going through some old pictures and have multiple giant photo albums with me and my college boyfriend and I'm wondering what value they are bringing me.  There are a couple of pictures in there I like - but only because I look smokin' hot, and the fashion is profoundly different from today - so it is fun to see how different we dressed.  So, now I'm trying to decide just how many pictures from a guy I knew 20+ years ago need to stay in my life.

[saveinla]

This reminds me of the episode from Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray goes through all the stuff that Debra has kept from her previous relationships. 

www.tvland.com/shows/everybody-loves-raymond/full-episodes/the-break-up-tape

[tloonya]

No! Because not one moron gave me anything VALUABLE ($$$$$$$$$$) to keep!
Flowers are dead, pictures are faded. Dimonds weren't offered!

[Gardening Grandma]

I have picture albums. I won't toss those.  The pictures are of me in a different lifetime.  DH is the same. We came across his wedding photo to his first wife and had a great laugh about the dress styles and haircuts.

If my kids want to toss the pictures after I die, so be it.

[thyme4change]

My goal is to get between 20 and 50 pictures scanned from every year of my life.  That way I will have a complete digital history.  Some of those pictures are bound to have "other men" in them - absolutely no reason to NOT scan my prom pictures.  My dresses were ridiculous!

[whoisjohngalt]

One of my ex-boyfriends owned (and may be still does) a jewelry store.  Needless to say, I got lots of expensive (but cheap to him - do you have any idea on mark-up on that stuff??) jewelry.  When we broke up, I gave it all back.  I am still debating with myself if I regret that decision.......

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

DH doesn't like that I have my prom pictures.   It's not like I sit there staring longingly at them day after day.  They're in a box at mom's house.

Meanwhile he still has his prom pics.  He says that's different because it doesn't bother me.  Wonder what he'd do if I called his bluff and told him I want him to burn them? 

Screw his insecurity, I'm not burning my prom pics because the idea that I had a boyfriend before him 11 years ago upsets him.  He can get therapy instead.

Otherwise I was surprised at how few pictures I have from that time, especially considering we went on several drama club trips together.

[Phoenix84]

Well, I've not had many "relationships."  Only tangible items I posess from previous relationships are a washcloth, a candle, and a spachula.  Yeah, for some reason she decided to get me those as a house warming gift.

Yes, I have kept them, why give up pefectly good kitchen supplies and a good candle?

But I imagine you're refering to sentimental items.  No, I don't have anything like that. 

[thyme4change]

I love that my husband has pictures of his ex-girlfriend.  She isn't exactly his type.  She is tall, and a little heavy, and was high maintenance, but not super-hot good-looking - just more of a PIA.  She was also $150,000 in debt the last time he talked to her.  Every time the pictures pop up (as we are shuffling boxes around or whatever) he says "I'm so lucky I found you."  So - hey - keep those pictures to remember what your options are, buddy.  

I did remember one "sentimental" thing I have from my college boyfriend.  When I graduated, he gave me a little glass box with a silver top.  It is shaped like a heart and was engraved with my name and maybe the year?  It didn't say anything such as "Love you forever, Joe." It is all tarnished now - but it is still the perfect size to store safety pins in, and it looks pretty sitting on my dresser.  I guess I could find some other pretty box to replace it.  But that seems wasteful.  Because it has my name on it, it isn't like someone else could cherish it.  I doubt my husband cares - maybe he doesn't know.  hmmm....

[Peace Of Mind]

Yes.  I have kept all of my exes in a box in my closet and only take them out to play with them about once a year.  It says Halloween Decorations on it so no one is the wiser.  


I'm kidding!  I've been in 2 serious relationships since forever so I only have stuff from ex DH and now DH.  I don't like crap so out it goes. 

[Bob Ross]

I've kept the stuff I like.  I see no reason to take a torch to everything just because it was given to me by some biyotch.

Also, buried deep in the basement is a box with "correspondence" from my college GF, kept mostly because she's now a successful lawyer and it's not outside the realm of possibility that she might run for public office someday.  And then I can then sell it to The National Enquirer.  

Don't f*ck with the Bobster.

[Happy prose]

I had photo albums, and DH didnt care. Once my daughter was born, I tossed them. A lot of the pictures were from drinking parties, etc.

[quince]

I kept the ex. He wasn't a nice guy but he's not got a whole lot going on for him. His health has deteriorated- a lot. I visit every couple of weeks, help him with things he has a hard time with, chat for a couple of hours.   Sentimental items? Not so much.  

[zibazinski]

Wearing a necklace from one guy and a sweater set from another right now!