Couch Talks: Discovering My Boyfriend's Box of Memories

Couch Talks is the bonus episode of You Need Therapy that comes out every Wednesday where Kat answers questions that listeners send to [e-mail]. This week, Kat replies to an email about someone who finds a box of their boyfriend’s ex’s things while cleaning his house. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of couch
Talks on You Need Therapy Podcast. My name is Kat.
I am the host, and if you are new to
couch Talks and are unfamiliar with what that is, it
is the bonus episode of You Need Therapy, where I
every Wednesday answer questions that listeners send to me and

(00:31):
you can send those to Katherine at Need Therapy podcast
dot com. Now, as always, I like to remind you
guys that although I am answering your questions in these episodes,
this podcast still does not serve as a replacement or
substitute for any mental health services and is not actually therapy,

(00:53):
even though I am a therapist and it's called You
Need Therapy. So each week I like to answer one
question and we always keep them anonymous. So I want
you guys to know if you are feeling like you
want to send something in, you can do that without
being afraid that you were going to be exposed or
people were going to know your stuff, unless, of course,

(01:14):
you give me information in this email that is going
to do that. But I won't read your name, your
email address, any of that where you're from, so you
can feel safe in doing that, so I think maybe
we should just get into this week's question. It's a
good one and it's an interesting one. Hey, kat, I've
been listening to the podcast for a while and never

(01:34):
actually imagine myself writing you an email, But I have
recently experienced something that I would love your thoughts on.
This is something I don't really want to talk a
lot about with my friends because I don't want it
to affect the way they feel about the person that
I'm dating. Basically, I've been dating somebody for about six months.

(01:54):
It started kind of slow, but in the last few
months we've really become very close and I actually see
that this person as my future husband. We decided to
move in together, and a couple of weeks ago, we
spent the weekend packing up his apartment in preparation to
move him into mine. Well, while going through one of
his drawers, I found something I was not expecting. I

(02:17):
found a box full of his ex girlfriend's stuff. There
were pictures, a couple cards, and what seemed to be
just little trinkets and memorabilia from their relationship. When I
asked my boyfriend why he still has this stuff, he
appeared to be unfazed. He said, they are just memories

(02:38):
that are still important to him, and he didn't feel
comfortable throwing them away. I personally don't feel comfortable with
him storing a box of his ex's memories in my house.
He broke up with his ex about a year before
we started dating, and says in quotes things ended on
good terms and they just weren't compatible for a life together.

(03:00):
To admit it, but this experience has made me feel
really scared and question if he is really over his
ex and if we should be taking the next step,
which is him moving in with me. I feel very
emotional and want to make sure I am not overreacting,
But I also don't want to ignore something. If it
is a red flag, should I be concerned or should

(03:20):
I let this go okay? So, like I said, the
very interesting email, interesting experience. This isn't something that people
experience every day. However, I am sure that this probably
has happened to somebody and maybe even somebody else who
is listening. So the first thing I would like to
offer you, and I I really want to share, is
your feelings that you're experiencing are very very valid. Our

(03:44):
feelings are always valid. Your feelings here are also very justified.
It's much less than ideal to find something like that,
and I'm sure that it surprised you and shocked you,
and it makes sense, like makes actually total logical sense
why you are expressing some of the things that you're expressing.

(04:05):
It doesn't sound like you're overreacting at all, although I
am just getting an email that you probably spent time
composing versus the reality of what it really looked like
when you found that. But from my perspective so far,
I don't see you overreacting. If it feels important to you,
then I want you to know that it is important
to you. And if it is important to you, that

(04:26):
means you need to nail down what exactly it is
that you're needing in order to move forward in your relationship.
After this experience, I don't think it sounds helpful to
just ignore this and move forward without actually accessing what
it is that your heart is needing in order to
move forward with excitement and hope and safety with your

(04:49):
current partner. So we always start with feelings in order
to get to our needs. I would very much encourage
you to allow those feelings that you're having to come
up and have a conversation with them. I hear some
confusion from you. I also hear fear and maybe some
other stuff that you have mixed in there, some other feelings.

(05:10):
So have a conversation with those feelings. What are they
saying to you? What are they telling you? And when
I say have a conversation, allow them to speak and
then speak back to them. Sometimes our feelings can be
loud in the wrong spaces, so we need to ask
our feelings for clarification. And then what are those feelings
asking for? Do you need actual clarification when it comes
to this experience. Do you have a conversation with your

(05:32):
partner about certain things? Do you need some soothing from yourself,
from your partner, etc. Really dive into those feelings because
they are going to lead you to be able to
access and open it up what it is really that
you are looking for. Your heart is looking for now,
him having this box, I do want to say, it

(05:52):
doesn't mean he isn't over her. People can have love
and care for exes without wanting to get back together
with them. And at the same time, I don't think
the average person keeps a box of memorabilia from a relationship.
But I do think it's very fair to keep things
from past relationships that are still meaningful and important to us,

(06:16):
because maybe the relationship is still meaningful and important to us.
And I feel very strongly that relationships are allowed to
still be important to us even if they didn't last forever.
And that doesn't mean that we are still longing to
be in those relationships, but it means that was still

(06:37):
a valuable part of my life, and those experiences were
still valuable experiences I had, and the things that I
gathered along the way are still things that mean something
to me. So we can't go ahead and make up
the story that this box means he's not over her.
We don't have enough information to make that assumption, and

(06:58):
it could mean something, but we don't know what's going
to mean that now. It doesn't mean he is over
her either, like we actually don't have This box doesn't
give us a clue one way or the other. It
just opens up a channel for us to gather information
in order for us to have create an accurate story
and actually understand, really, how does he feel about this

(07:20):
past relationship, in this past person that he dated, And
it sounds like he doesn't hate so I would ask
if you could have a conversation with your partner about
what feels important in keeping the items, talk about why
those items and what about those items are special, and
why it's helpful for him to have those even though

(07:42):
they were in a box in a drawer and it
doesn't seem like he was like holding and staring at
them every day, and it's not like these things are
like on his bedside table. But can you have a
conversation with him about what feels important in keeping the
items and also what would it mean if he got
rid of the items? What would that mean? As well,

(08:03):
gain some more information about this experience from his point
of view. Like I said, we can make a lot
of assumptions up about this and it might be helpful.
In fact, I think it would be very helpful for
you to get an accurate picture of what you need
to do if you had more information about what this
actually is. Because I didn't hear a lot of information

(08:25):
other than he said I don't want to get rid
of them. You are allowed to have a conversation with
him about if you want that box in your apartment
or not. I think the conversation about why that box
is important might be helpful for you before you make
that decision. It also brings up this other thing that
popped in my head of the reality of when he

(08:48):
moves into your apartment, your apartment is not your apartment.
Your apartment is becoming both of y'all's apartment, and that
transition is a little weird when you're when you're moving
into a space that was once somebody else's And how
are you going to transition into the space so that
it feels like it is both of y'all's space, both

(09:09):
of y'all's place, and a healthy relationship. We don't hold
one of those things over the other's head, like this
is my house. I won't have that in my house
or my apartment. You can have a conversation about what
you do and do not want in your together home.
But it just made me wonder of what the and
I'm going to use this word it's not clinical, but
what the vibe of him moving in with you is.

(09:32):
Does it feel like he's just coming in and staying
in your space or you creating together a space that
is collectively yours And how does that shift the relationship
and how the relationship feels and how being together feels
in the progression of your relationship. So there's just some
conversations that I think would be really helpful for you

(09:54):
to have with your partner about this. And like I said,
you're not overreacting. It just sounds like you don't have
enough information right now to really figure out what it
is that both of y'all need in the relationship to
move forward in a healthy light. So follow those feelings,
ask them what you need, have conversations again, follow your

(10:17):
feelings in the conversations, so you guys can together identify
what it is you need to move forward, and hopefully
you can gain some clarity in some of this. Again,
not something that happens every day, so I get why
it's jarring. I imagine i'd be pretty stunned as well,
and that initial stun might not be the feeling that

(10:40):
we hold forever, pending the information we get about what
it is that we have found. So again, more information
sounds like what you need. Thank you for writing in
and thanks for listening to you need therapy. Even if
you never thought you would write in, I still appreciate
you listening and being part of our community. If you
guys have any questions that you would like to send

(11:02):
in reminder, you can send those to Katherine at unithapy
podcast dot com and I will be back with you
guys on Monday for the regular episode of the podcast.
Until then, I hope you guys have the day you
need to have.