—

What do you do when your ex won't take the initiative to return your stuff to you? I called him once, right after the breakup (in early April), but I refuse to call him again. He never returned my call (like the coward he is, because he knows he's been "found out"). He has at least 150 bucks worth of my stuff. I want it back. What do I do?

I considered having a male cancer friend of mine accompany me to his place of work, to ask him for it when he gets off (I would just hang in the parking lot, not go in), but that might be a little too intense of a situation for EVERYBODY. I'm beyond crying when I see him I think...I'm too angry and devastated over what he did. So what's the adult way to handle this? I've never been in this situation before.

KILL KILL KILL!!

🤢gt;

But seriously, put yourself in his shoes (if you can bring yourself to sink that low) he's probably purposely avoiding you because he's aware (from the information I have) that he's in the wrong and now he's being cowardly about the situation. Never underestimate the cowardice of a man in such situations.

It may be incredibly difficult for you at the moment, but i've always found that putting on a cold and indifferent act in all interactions with him may be the best way to go. Be businesslike and unemotional - it will make him unsure of how to react.

I'd call him and say you want to come over and pick up a few things and that it's not neccessary for him to be there. Stress that you only want to pick up a few things because you want to have as little as possible to remind you of him. Accidently call him neil and then say 'oops, that's the name of my new boyfriend' then say...sorry...what was your name again? If he says 'my name is..., or you know my name' say something like 'sorry, i couldn't think of anything other than your poor personal hygene standards'

The joy of these situations is that no one really expects you to behave like an adult - have fun with childish insults. If you do have to meet with him, shake your head and laugh and say 'god, what WAS i thinking'. Occasionally glance at him and laugh and shudder at the same time.

You've reached the anger stage, now turn that anger into ridicule! Regardless of how you do deal with the situation, it's important not to get bogged down in the seriousness of it all.

is this stuff really that important to u? do u really want to give him any control over the situation by asking him to do something for u? dont involve someone else or play childish games. things end, let it go.

hahaha i'd probably play around with him for awhile also, gooooooo phoenix!

email yo.

Phoenix,

I become very cold and indifferent as Cortica mentioned...
I also tend to say things that 'cut', such as, "Once again, you showed me your level of responsibility by not EVEN returning my call, which is why I am calling again....I want my stuff! Simple as that. So, let's work this out and you won't hear from me again."

I hope it all works out so that you get what is yours!

Cortica and Star, I will have the perfect plan if I combine what both of you said! lol--great thinking ladies. 🙂 Thank you! (I'll probably just stew about whether to call him for a while longer though before I act, I need to get some balls, don't I!)

cj7, that's really easy for you to say, "things end, let it go". That was kind of insensitive.

And ays0n, I know. If it makes you feel any better, cj7 is probably equally irritated with me about my lame email correspondence habits. (sorry) I've just got a lot I'm dealing with right now.

unless your craving more emotional drama over the situation, i would let it go. leave him with your stuff, one day he will sit down and look at it and remember u, and he miss u, and he will know that he will never have that back. this will cause him pain if that is what u are after and will not require anything from u. 150 bucks is not something to sneeze at but it is replaceable.

I think I like that post a lot better than your first one. 🙂

See, I always thought that I was allowing him too much power by leaving my stuff with him, that's why I wanted it back. I didn't want him to have anything "over" me, you know what I mean?

What do you have of his?

his car key. I didn't even ask for it either, he gave it to me about six months ago when he said, "I want us to look for an apartment together", treetrunking lying bastard 😢

p.s. cj7, yes, i sure as hell want him to feel pain. i hope he cries and cries and goes through a horrible depression like i did and i hope everyone finds out what he did and turns their backs on him and i hope he realizes what a huge mistake he made by even dealing with me in the first place if his ultimate intention was to turn out to be a backstabbing man-b***h. So yeah, I am after pain. I am after blood.

Take the auto for a trek into the woods and leave it.

I'm very tempted to. My other thought was key-ing it, but it's a '99 VW Jetta with a pretty red paint job and that would probably be really evil of me.

*insert evil grin here*

dxpnet, when are we getting mad faces and evil grin faces?

no pun phoenix but

i would hate to turn you down on something then... cuz you are scary. lol

just don't turn me down when it comes to my stuff, and we should be fine. 😛

It's not really about the stuff though. It's about the fact that I hate that he now holds this power over me and isn't even respectful or man enough to offer it back to me. How did I ever spend four years with this person? That's what I would like to know.

submission, and content...

you made him think for you, and you revolved around him.

think more of YOU rather than your partner, cuz you will end up findin a point of compromise, even if you are alittle selfish. if it doesn't work out dump whoever the guy is.

just my guess? close? you decide?

yes, you're right ays0n.

And now for the "new development"...

I called him from my cell phone today (so he wouldn't know it was me on the caller ID and not answer), and he answered. He said, "hello?" and I said, in the most cheerful albeit shaky way possible, "hey, it's Heather". Silence for about five seconds...he was shocked, I could tell. He goes, "hey, how are you doing?" "Fine, you?" "Fine. I'm on the other line with my mom right now..." I said, "okay, I just wanted to know when we could exchange our stuff". "Oh. When would be a good time for you?" I said, "well, I have saturday off..." "Saturday is fine. Any time after three I'm free" he said. "Okay, so saturday it is. You can call me if plans have to change, but otherwise we're set". He goes, "okay".

BIG UNCOMFORTABLE PAUSE.

He says, "okay, thanks."
I say, "yep. Bye."
"Bye" he says.

He sounded really weird. Not good. Kind of depressed. Which makes me pretty happy, since he is such a bastard. Of course, I sounded weird too. My voice was all shaky. Not "I'm going to cry" shaky, but nervous shaky. This whole exchanging our stuff thing is going to be REALLY WEIRD. I have a feeling he won't even show. That reminds me, I forgot to tell him where to meet me. lol. Dammit. That means I'll have to call him again and tell him where. And I'm also going to ask him to come alone. I will tell him that if he doesn't come alone, I will turn around and go home. I feel a little sick to my tummy with all of this. 😢

3 of my close female friends are also breaking up with long term relationships dayamn... this is depressing.

is it break up year or something. in a way its good, cuz the other halves were arseholes anyways. and all are cute, i won't bother being the fling. LoL 🙂

I went to meet him today. He cancelled yesterday, some sort of lie about having to work late and go to his drama rehearsal (he's a part time actor/comedian)...so we met today. It's the first time I'd seen him since the breakup. We were both suprisingly adult about things. I'm proud of both of us really. I'm suprised there's been no extreme fighting or low blows since it all went down. It's weird. It was weird, just like I knew it would be. It was very matter of fact. It was less than five minutes. We both wore the same clothes, which was strange. All black. There was a lot of not looking directly at each other. He tried to do the "nice guy" thing, I wanted to punch him momentarily. ("here, let me open your trunk for you...here let me help you with your stuff"...I wanted to go, "here, let me punch you in the face you fakey phoney treetrunker"). He's just such a coward. I think that's what disappoints me the most. He's just such a chickenbutter. Pardon my colorful language. There were no "hello"s, no "how are you"s, nothing like that. It was strictly business. And that baffles me. How you can spend so long with someone and have it deteriorate so fast. To the point where you're so disgusted by them, that you barely have emotion left for them at all anymore. I did learn a lot from the whole entire relationship though. One thing I do know is that I will never, ever again be unfaithful to anyone for any reason whatsoever for the rest of my life. It causes such a toxicity in the relationship that it's pretty much never able to be forgotten or really gotten over. I will never be unfaithful again. I will never be like my ex.

I forgot to tell you ("you" being anyone reading this), that he said, "I can't find your jacket" (my really expensive jacket, the most important thing he has of mine), he said, "it might be at my grandma's house, she won't be back in town for two weeks, so I'll have to look for it then". I said, "okay. I really do need it back though". He said, "I really will give it to you as soon as I find it". He also can't find my astrology book that I left at his apartment. God, he's had this whole time to look for these things, why must he drag this out even further??! I played it very cool though. I didn't let it rattle me visibly. He told me to hang on to his car key until he could get me my other stuff. I was suprised he was decent enough to say that.

not that it matters to you, but i kinda am proud of you 😉
for not retalliating (spell?)... good butter yo!

infidelity sucks, but you learn from it.

now find something that could make you happy (like playing music...hehe i just recently bought an electric guitar, and jaming with friends is a quite a stress release.)

good luck PR. :p

Thanks. 🙂 It's nice to know that your friendship is there for me no matter what. I like your idea about the guitar, I've always wanted an acoustic one. Wanna jam together? :p

oh weird, the tongue face didn't work 😛

there 🙂

how'd you do it?

BTW... sure why not... im learning interstate love song from STP , also big empty and plush...

learn it and we'll play. LOL

almost took up smoking cuz of work... damn those damn DM's and RM's for being such asscrackholes!!!

im just going rock n roll to forget things a bit

Let's go out of town PR! LoL

how does VEGAS sound!!! you're 21 now right? lol

vegas sounds good and scary, and yes I'm 21, will be 22 in October. And Interstate Love Song is one of my FAVORITE SONGS EVER. 🙂

p.s., no smoking. 🙂

I'd like to quit, just to prove that I can (and also because it's becoming expensive now that I have to buy my own cigarettes, being boyfriendless and all)

the theme song of my life: "you lied/goodbye" lol, great lyrics

YES... i now know "interstate love song"

yeah!!!

coo... um... BTW... didn't you tell me you were going to quit about eons ago? hmmmmm. LOL

didn't mean to give you a hard time.

also, BTW i love that song and the band, one of my fav's too

i was going to, but now i really want to (i have this habit of doing things to make other people happy that i don't really want to do...i'm over it. lol)

one of the greatest bands ever. congrats on learning it, wish you could sing it for me!

download the VH1 version.. thats the one i know how to play... too bad i can't sing and play... i suck!

i have to pull my cousin on the side and make her sing it! dammit!

what a quinkidink... the song has relations to what you feel.

dued my bad.

i will do that! regretfully i must go now, i have to get up early for work yet again tomorrow. i worked eight hours today and my feet hurt so bad i would like to simply cut them off...the pain would be less that way. lol. and my back hurts too. oh, complain complain. lol. i have to go. goodnight m-ays0n, it was good talking to you, thanks for being a friend. 🙂

SERIOUSLY! LOL.

night yo!

really nice talking to you again. dued. really. kinda missed it.

yeah me too, definitely. there's a shortage of people that stick by you in rough times so i'm glad you're one of the few, i really appreciate it and won't forget it. i'm here for you too.

goodnight, sleep well!

check your email i need some advise