In relationships, romantic or not, you usually buy each other things. Material objects that you think they would enjoy. It is always nice to receive something special that the other person put thought into buying for you. I have always loved gifts. Sorry to admit, I do love material objects.
I believe my last partner's love language was gift-giving, big and small. He also loved indulging in fun. If you like something and have the money, get it, kind of mentality. Why not? There is no problem with this until you break up or get dumped. Then what do you do?
The person spent time, money, effort, and thought into buying you things throughout your relationship. And at the time they mean so much to you. They are usually such sweet gestures of their feelings for you. But once they break your heart into a million pieces, you might not want to even look at those objects. This is me. These things became incredibly painful reminders of what was and what no longer will be with that person.
I keep things, of course, especially if the relationship lasted so long. I am not a monster. But a lot of those things end up in tubs in the back of the closet because any time I looked at certain objects my heart broke again.
I also left a huge number of things behind for them to take care of this time. I did not do that to mess with their emotions or to be hurtful. But I felt like I was being kicked out of the apartment that I found for us, that I maintained for us, that I made into a real home for us. My heart was completely shattered and maybe my judgement was a bit cloudy or maybe I was a little bit angry. Hopefully, they understand that I left any items because of those mixed feelings and not to be spiteful. I am not that kind of person.
Photographs are a whole different type of pain. You see a happy photo of yourselves at Disneyland and you are brought back to the time and place when you were having fun together. Most people take photos of happy moments, not sad moments. On the one hand, it is so nice to have photos of your life together. It's almost magic. People frame them because they are special. Or they share them on social media. My social media is full of photos of us through the years. Yours is not. I don't know why. This also brings too many questions to my mind.
Maybe someday in the distant future, I will appreciate keeping objects and photos. I do wish I could look back on things right now and be grateful for the relationship. But right now I am just incredibly sad that it is over. It is difficult to look at happy times and think of them as happy times. Does that make sense?
So the questions are...Do you throw away objects? Do delete all of your photos? Would this even help you move on? Did the other keep things you bought them? Did they delete their photos, if they have any? Did they keep anything to remind them of me?