You know, the “Ex-Box?” That little shrine where your SO (usually it’s wimmin that do this) keeps pictures, letters, body parts and sundry other things from previous relationships. We’ve done a thread in the past about whether or not you get offended with the Ex-Box and why, but this one addresses it from another angle.
I’ve always treated the Ex-Box as though it were an evil-tempered 15 pound tarantula lurking in the closet. Hey, nothing in there for me, and certainly nothing I need to be mucking about with in that box! None of my business. I wish it weren’t there, but it is, and so I live in self-imposed ignorance of it as much as possible.
Recent events, however, have renewed my interest in this vile practice. Specifically: I am about to become one of its inhabitants! And I don’t think I deserve to be just another trophy along with the extra-marital affairs and just plain lucky sods who escaped her when they had the chance. I’ve been the major player in her life form more than half of the breaths she’s drawn on this planet and being sentenced to the box is, to me, insulting.
What’s at stake? About 20 letters written to her before we were married, some pictures of us, the marriage license and one of my wisdom teeth (long story). None of these things were in the box when I came across them as I was packing up the last of my stuff, so I nicked them. Hey, the tooth is freaking MY tooth, I have at least as much right to the marriage license as she does, at least I’m not the one who shit all over the marriage. Same goes for the pictures taken at the wedding she ultimately dishonored. And the letters…well, I wrote them, they are from me, they have more power to remind me of my life when I wrote them than they have to remind her of how things used to be between us. So I claim the right to them. She disagrees, they were given to her and so they belong to her.
Perhaps this is me being petty, but since I can’t have the last 25 years of my life back, I want her to not have trophies of me for that time. Am I going to push it? Tear the place apart until I find them and enjoy a nice blaze in the back yard? No, but if I stumble across them, they’re gone. I’ll steal them from her just as surely as she stole my dreams from me. And yes, I’ve considered her going over them in 10 or 15 years and looking back at the marriage she wasted and the guy she trashed, and I hope she’s sick. But even allowing her to pity herself for the low road she’s been taking for the better part of 5 years seems generous.
So the poll? After all that do I owe her the right to stick me in the box?