Divorce and Personal Belongings

Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:25 pm

You were married for 8 years to a partner who was abusive, cheated, and then left. You have been legally divorced for about 9 months, but separated for around 2 years. At the time of the separation, your partner did not move out of your shared home until over a month after the time that they commited to be gone. They moved at the last possible minute before rent would be due again and there would be a problem with the notice you had given. They left the house filthy and left lots of things behind that were not yours. They refused to pay any of the fees associated with cleaning the house or removing the items left and actually asked (unsuccessfully) for a portion of the deposit at one point in the divorce process. Despite all of that, you delivered almost two van loads of your ex's things to them as well as renting a truck, making multiple trips to Value Village and the dump and paying for all of that so that you would not end up in court with your former landlord. You also paid for carpet cleaning and lost all of your deposit because you did not have time to complete all of the clean up your ex left. You have not seen or spoken with your ex since the divorce was finalized. Over the past few days, you went through several boxes of things from the old house in an effort to do some cleaning and reduce excess stuff in your current house. You found several small items that you know have personal, cultural and religious significance to your ex. You are pretty sure that your ex would assume that the things you found were lost in the move and will never ask for them for that reason, but that he would want them if he knew you had them. If these items were yours, you would want them returned.

Would you: a) Mail them to your ex's last known address (which you are pretty sure is still good and was with a relative so even if he has moved they will probably be forwarded), b) Throw them away, c) Keep them in case your ex contacts you to ask if you have found them at some future date, or d) Do something else?

What should you do (as opposed to what you would do)?

Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:11 pm

What should you do? Mail them to the last known address.

What would I do?... Depends on the item but I gotta say that most likely in that situation I would just toss the items. I had a friend who's relationship ended similarly, mind you in her notice to him she gave full disclaimer that anything that was left behind would be tossed, which we gladly did.. except for a few items that we sold. There were a couple items that she was pretty sure he had forgotten and would probably want.. we sold them anyways. Not quite moral but after the immense amount of debt she ended up in due to that relationship and the state he left their apartment in it was pretty hard to make the moral choice.

Sun Jul 15, 2012 10:28 pm

I would say that if any of the items could be sold to reimburse some of your expenses, that would be both morally and emotionally satisfactory. I honestly can't say that I think you have any sort of obligation to be out yet more money to drop the belongings in the mail. Had he taken care of his own business, he could've ensured that he maintained what was valuable to him.

3 angels, Ashley, Elijah's twin Alison, and Baby October.

Mon Jul 16, 2012 10:00 am

I agree with the others. Sure the nice thing to do would be to mail him the stuff but unless its like I found a picture and can mail it for under a dollar I would probably toss it or donate it all. If you are into selling that would be good too but I personally have no patience to list and sell things so I would just get rid of it.

Sara
K is 7 and N is 5
baby K is 1

Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:37 pm

mail to last known address

Fri Jul 27, 2012 3:26 pm

I wouldn't blame you one bit if you destroyed the items out of anger towards him, but I would mail them to him, and forget about it. If he found out you threw them away/destroyed them, you'd likely just have another argument on your hands. Just continue to be a better person than he is

Brentley Peyton

Fri Sep 14, 2012 12:31 pm

I would send a letter, email, text, or phone call or speak in person either to my ex or to a mutual contact and let him know that I found the items and he can come get them. If he does not respond I will assume he doesn't want them and get rid of them. If he does respond but does not come get them I would let him know how long I am willing to hold onto them until he comes to get them. It really depends on what kind of value they have. If this is a picture of his parents, for instance, I'm not going to throw it in the trash, I might just send the item to him. If it's a family bible I'm not going to sell it on Ebay. Since he cheated on you and treated you terribly (or, not great) in the separation process, I'm sure you could just throw the items away and that would be justified in some sense of retribution. But I personally think it does you more good than him even by doing something more generous like trying to let him have the items. But I don't think you need to go to great expense to get them to him if he is unwilling to do what he can to obtain them.

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my nephews: Alec, Jackson, Elijah, Hayden, Eric, Atreus, Nicholas, Isaac, Samuel
my niece: Rubie