It has happened to me a few times. I’ll look around my closet for a favorite old shirt I haven’t worn in a while. After searching for nearly 20 minutes, it dawns on me: my ex has it.

It’s a testy subject that’s often dealt with at the end of a relationship. What do you do with all of the material goods exchanged throughout the course of a romance? Hold on to them? Return them? Shove them into the deep corner of a closet? Throw them away?

Yours

For some, it’s entirely a matter of context. Andrea Chao, Lawrence senior, says the mutual decision to break up dictates that any stuff should be returned as it is.

“Hopefully the couple could be civil,” Chao says.

She says, however, that a one-sided breakup requires a different perspective.

“If it’s not mutual,” she says, “I can understand the want to destroy their stuff.”

Sean Wilson likes to destroy stuff. The Kansas City, Missouri, senior thinks it’s his OK to do whatever he wants with an ex’s possessions. He likes to view the process as a bit of catharsis.

“If it has no value,” Wilson says, “burn it. It feels like a purge.”

He also expects the same treatment to his former possessions.

“I instantly assume that everything that I left at an ex’s house is going to be destroyed,” he says.

Science seems to back Wilson’s theory. Richard Martinez, who’s studying the subject through the KU psychology department, says in a study conducted with 185 people, participants said having people’s things didn’t factor into people wanting to extend an offer of friendship. The outcomes appear to be fairly universal.

“There were no significant gender differences or age differences,” Martinez says. “However, I can imagine that live-in couples may encounter such problems.”

Mine

Instead of destroying possessions, some turn to third parties to get rid of an ex’s stuff. For Phil Chiles, owner of Wild Man Vintage, 939 Massachusetts Street, being a vintage shop owner can sometimes put him in an uncomfortable position.

“It’s something we try to discourage, because it can get messy,” Chiles says.

Dealing with exes’ possessions is not just a matter of avoiding conflict, either. For Abby Reust, the shop’s manager, it’s also about figuring out whether a person has the right to be selling what they bring in. She has developed a keen sense for whether a customer is trying to sell under false pretenses.

Sometimes people will tell us the story of why they’re selling what they are, she says. “The more you tell us,” she says, “the more suspicious it is.”

As someone who deals with other people’s belongings often, Reust says people don’t relinquish the right to their belongings just because a relationship ends.

“I think the person that left it should have the opportunity to get it back,” she says.

Reust and Chiles have dealt firsthand with people coming into their shop to reclaim pilfered possessions. Wilson, contrastingly, is a fan of selling other’s things.

“Put it on eBay,” he says. “That way they’re paying you back for emotional scarring.”

Not ours

The most puzzling of these decisions deals with possessions that are jointly owned.

Though she’s happily engaged, Chao says she and her fiancé had already decided she would take custody of their dog if the two should ever break up.

“I think it’s tough if there’s ‘our stuff,’” Chao says.