To just give it all back (baby clothes and ExDH)

[Arabels]

Context: amicable co-parenting for a few years, split when DC was little. Bit fractious lately as my patience for chasing after school uniform is wearing a bit thin - now I know many have it much harder with their exes, and I really try to be philosophical, but it is a bit annoying! Anyway, on to the main bit….

I left all DC’s baby things in the loft when I moved out, it’s taken me a long time to come to terms with not having another child, but I finally felt ready to go through the things, choose a few keepsakes and pass the rest on, so messaged ExDH to that effect. I was very gentle and checked whether he felt ready for this, too. Response: er sorry I’ve already got rid of them.

Oof. I was very upset, and said so. Knowing he’d probably passed them on to friends I asked him to track down a couple of small items and get them back to me if possible. Roll on this weekend and he comes over with 3 bin bags full of baby and child clothes…many of which never belonged to us! The bits I asked for aren’t here.

(aaaaaaaaargh)

fwiw I don’t think he’s trying to wind me up, he was always a complete plank about anything with emotional significance and that’s a big part of why we’re not married any more (thank god!).

so do I
a) just give it all back to him and say thanks but no thanks
or
b) give up. Send it all to friends/charity and let the whole thing drop

obviously the grownup answer is b, as interactions like a) never get you anywhere, so please talk me round because I am frustrated!

B - give it all to charity. Hopefully you have some photos of dc wearing the clothes which will take the sting away a bit?

I think you’re completely unreasonable to expect your ex to keep old baby clothes in his house indefinitely until you feel ready to go through them and choose what you want. Your child is school age so you’ve had years to sort this out yourself. And completely absurd to expect him to chase down things he’s already passed on - it’s used baby clothes not heirloom jewellery, if I was his friend I’d have thought you were nuts and completely wasting my time asking me to find your listed items in amongst all my kids used clothes.

You are sentimental about baby things and find this difficult which is fine, everyone has things that are important to them. But he is clearly not sentimental (neither am I) and I don’t think that makes him a “complete plank”. Especially since he’s your ex I don’t really see why he has to accommodate or pander to your feelings or sentimentality, it was your responsibility to get the baby things out of his house years ago if you wanted them.

Option B. Concentrate on keeping your amicable co-parent relationship which will be far more beneficial to your child in the long term than having a few of his old baby outfits to look back on.

Seeing as half of it isn't yours just hand it back to him. Say, 'thanks for trying but I just wanted to keep those specific things. Next time you have a wife and baby ask permission before you remove the baby's things?'
He can take them to charity or whatever.

Option B. Somebody can get use of them.

I think I’d have done the same in his position tbh. As far as he was aware they were old clothes taking up loft space, and they’d been abandoned there for years.

Option B.

I can understand the feeling of losing something sentimental is never nice, but I think you have to take some responsibility for the loss. When you moved out, you moved out. If you didn’t take it at that point, I think it was fair for him to do what he did.

More than half! There are a few jumpers of ours and the rest is from who knows where…I asked for a swaddle cloth and DC’s first shoes but was prepared to not see them again….now here I am sorting through sacks of someone else’s stuff at random!

I will probably suck it up though

I know. We did have a pretty clean break, I just saw the baby stuff as shared-as is the baby (now child).

Just to be clear though, the OP isn’t about what may or may not happen with our original baby stuff- it’s ‘what am I to do with this mountain of baby stuff that has nothing to do with me’. There’s a lot of it!

Frozenasarock has replied really well.

Learn from this.

Not everyone thinks and feels the way you do. If you realise this, you’ll not be left feeling so upset going forward. What he did was not unreasonable.

You’re divorced. The house must be his. You would have had the opportunity to get things you wanted a long time ago. But you left these items and by doing so indicating you don’t want them. Items left are now his to do with as he wants.

A bag of old clothes that no longer fit was not an unreasonable thing to give away.

adjust your expectations accordingly and you’ll not be so upset going forward.

@Frozenasarock thanks, ok

@LoveAutumnColours did you actually read my post?

@Arabels he's an idiot. Even the dimmest of men should understand you'd want to choose a few bits before he gave it all away. It would have been simple enough to let know he was planning to have a clear out in the loft & ask if you wanted anything before he gave it away.

if you have photos of the bits you want, especially her first shoes send him a photo & get him to ask whoever he gave stuff to if they had them & if they still have them. Put a post on your account too.

it doesn't hurt to try.

As for school uniform, can you sort the schedule out so she's less likely to need to change out if it at his or teach her to bring it home with her. Shove it straight in a bag as she takes it off, tell her you'll wash it?

I’m trying to work out what to do with the mass of stuff that never belonged to me, not haggle over a few lost items-I was trying to give context for the scenario I’m now in. Not a major drama I agree, but I don’t have anyone else to bounce this off.

I’d ask him if he wants it back and if not I’d put it on a local Facebook group/charity donation/clothes bin etc.

Thanks @SpringSprungALeak. Yeah I’ve made a few adjustments so the school uniform is less of an issue-have said he can return it dirty, and bought more, just the schedule means there is a steady trickle of uniform from me to him so it does need to come back at some point.

Sigh. I do think in any kind of functional relationship you can expect some degree of consideration/cooperation -approximately what you’d give a friend or colleague. We’ve generally maintained that, so this has surprised me.

Give it away or pop it on vinted and use the money for your child

You’re not really asking for advice about what do do with the stuff, are you. Because the answer to that is really obvious - say to him ‘do you want it back or shall I drop it at Oxfam’.

Just hand it back. By all means you can thank him nicely for the thought if you feel inclined. Otherwise it's now your unwanted problem to deal with a bunch of stuff that wasn't what you asked for.

But who do you expect to do the work of sorting through the bags and finding stuff? Ex’s friend has obviously just still got bags of old stuff in their house and given them all to ex, which is the maximum input I’d expect from them. You surely don’t expect friend to sort through things they’ve been given in good faith, used, potentially stained etc looking for a particular cloth or identifying what came from where? And your ex has made it clear this isn’t at all important to him either.

So since it’s apparently important to you I’d absolutely expect you to deal with the bags, sort it out and then rehome the stuff as necessary. It is “to do with you” because you asked your ex to go on this ridiculous hunt for a swaddle cloth in the first place.

Commiserations on having to deal with the flow of clothes in one direction.
We eventually got to a point where I sent my boys in clothes I didn't care about and ex had a set of clothes at his place that stayed there.

In terms of your question option B, but I feel your pain.

Ex and I used to be part of a medieval reenactment group when we were together. Making our own clothes, hand sewn and embroidered etc.

When we split I left all my dresses at his as it was his hobby more than mine and I didn't want to think about them at the time.
Some years later I had an opportunity to wear one of my dresses and asked if I could have it back. He'd sold them all without asking me.

It hurt at the time, as these were items I'd spent many hours creating and it seemed callous to get rid of them without asking me. I had left them with him, though, so he could legitimately have considered I'd dropped all emotional attachment to them.

You are not unreasonable to be sad. You were unreasonable to not take them if they meant so much. In time this will pass.

Thanks @Bumply ! It’s minor, but grinding. Sorry about your clothes, that must have hurt. There’s so much to sort out in the wake of a major breakup, things without immediate relevance do get missed.

Thank you. Time really does fly-I hadn’t quite realised how long it had all been left!