When Kari broke up with me, she refused to go through any of "our" things to claim what she wanted. For months, I asked and asked and asked. If she was at the house, I'd try asking her "do you want this?"
So for 5 months I was the most evil, passive aggressive, awful person for trying get her to sort through things.
Now I'm the most evil awful person again for stealing her belonging for five months. Everything is sitting in a storage unit in Florida. And she believes I should send her my one and only copy of the key to the lock to the storage unit, so she can rummage through my belongings and take what she feels she wants.
I told her she'll have to wait till I return to Florida, then I will be happy to go through the boxes with her, and she can ask for items she wants back. There's a few things that I know that are in there that are hers, which I didn't mean to take, but wound up in a box I took. (Well she says she doesn't have XY and Z items, so I must have it). And I know there are a few items of mine are in her possession because I didn't have time to move everything into the unit.
Now she's got her new girlfriend yelling at me on the phone, saying they're gonna call the cops to have them break my unit open for all of the "stolen goods". She can't do that, right??
Everything was joint, my name on all the CC and bank account (still is), so she can't claim I stole anything right? The items were bought with equal agreement or as a gift for one another.
There's no way to get back to Florida any time soon, and I don't particularly want this looming over my head, I packed that stuff in there to be secure. And her name is not on the contract or as an approved person to be allowed in.
Just the CC and bank account were in our names.
The storage unit was opened up months after the break up. And I did not put her name on the list of authorized people to access the code. She does know where the facility is, but she's never been to my unit, so she doesn't know which one is mine.
A few of the things she wants, is the tent (bought it on clearance at Target 7 years ago for 25$), a camcorder (bought at
walmart 4 years ago for around a 125$), and some out of print board games from Disney (most of them purchased with steep discounts).
These were all things purchased while living together, on the intent that they were "ours". Ohh and the whole thing came about from her not getting any of the christmas lights, which are pretty much worth pennies now and I brought most of them into the relationship.
Right now, I'm not overly concerned with the financial part. She's not doing anything crazy with the bank account, and once I'm removed as an authorized user from the CC, the entire history is removed from my credit report.
Right now the more important part is making sure my belongings are secured. I'm debating about sending the key to a friend down there to go check on it. But I'd really prefer to not have the key out of my possession.
The other part that worries me, is we previously had a storage unit there together. I just hope that the girl at the front desk actually looks at the papers to see she's not an authorized person to access the unit. Instead of just assuming.
Thank you Bumbershoot. My questions were answered on the first page, and it's pretty much all I have to say about this.
She had an opportunity to deal with this 5 months ago. And I was also gone for a month (between Texas and California) prior to moving out. I didn't put anything into storage until the final two weeks before leaving. She had every chance to take what she wanted, go through my boxes that I had packed.
At least I didn't pack a truck and haul it all off to another state. And I'm still giving her a final chance to go through it with me when I get there. As long as she stays in touch.
There's plenty of things in there that I feel are of value enough to pay for this monthly. And make sure it stays secure the way I left it.
She's refused to give me a forwarding address, the phone number she called me from was not her number yesterday, and she has blocked me from online contact. If I get back to Florida, and I have no phone number, it's not like I'm going to spend 80$ to walk into Disney to try and find her. She's also changed departments, so I could be searching all over the Magic Kingdom to find her (who knows she might change parks). And I'm not going to stalk out in the parking lot waiting for her to get off. Who knows maybe by next year she'll move some place else, maybe get another job (she says she wants to leave Disney). So if she doesn't leave a slim line of communications open, I won't be able to tell her when I'm going back to Florida.
The one "mutual friend" she has pretty much abandoned as well. He never hears from her, she never talks to him. Glimpses here and there he'll see her. But he doesn't know anymore more information than I do, and he doesn't know where she lives.
OK sweetums - reality time. And I'm not going to get into personal judgments or finger-pointing. I'm a pragmatist and a pretty cold-blooded one at that.
Fact #1: This girl wants nothing more to do with you. Period. She's blocked you from all contact and wants only the items she feels she's paid for. Very reasonable.
Fact #2: You've packed away belongings that she feels are hers and have left the state. Because of the communication issues, she has no idea when you will return and when she can retrieve her belongings.
Fact #3: You repeatedly say you won't allow her to get her belongings until she sees you again. That you BOTH need to be there in order for her to "ask" for you to return her belongings.
Posit: Ex doesn't want to see you even to the point of letting her belongings go just so she won't have to see you. However, those belongings are rightly hers and respectfully must be returned. To put paid to the relationship you must plan accordingly and then follow the plan.
Send a certified letter to her last known address stating that you will be in Florida during a particular week (or date) to clean out the storage locker. Put "forwarding address requested" on the letter so the PO will return a forwarded address to you.
DO NOT USE THIS ADDRESS AS A REASON TO DROP BY!!! SHE DOESN'T WANT TO SEE YOU!! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!! You only need that address to prove later on (if necessary) that you used all reasonable measures to contact her for disbursal of possessions.
Follow up on your plan to be in Florida and retrieve YOUR possessions (the ones you bought with YOUR money only)
during the week you stated you'd be there. No changing your mind at the last minute, no "something came up" and you have to postpone. Treat this as a funeral and you MUST be there. If you keep your word at nothing else, keep your word on this, my friend. Don't waffle over the fact that "she's not there to go through these things with me so I don't know what's mine".
Here are the rules for taking your possessions:
If you didn't buy it with your own cash and cannot produce a receipt to prove in a court of law that you bought it with your own cash, leave it. If you're in doubt over what's yours and what's hers, leave it. This is where the brutal part comes in. If in doubt whether you should take it or leave it,
leave it. You don't need it anyway.
Make an inventory sheet of the remaining belongings. Be explicit! Open every single box and list every single item. Have an impartial third-party witness there if possible. If necessary, pay the storage facility to be present at the inventory so they can confirm what you left behind and in what condition you left it behind in. They should be bonded so worrying about their character is unnecessary.
Be sure to repackage up what's left over neatly so your ex can load those boxes onto a truck. Being spiteful and throwing everything all over the place only confirms her decision that she was right in not ever wanting to see your childish butt again. This is the time to be an adult about it, so be a freakin' adult and package everything back up respectfully.
Take your belongings home. Ship them, rent a truck or put them into a suitcase and fly home with them, but take them home. You're done.
Make a few copies of the key to the storage place. (Our storage place makes us put paddlelocks on the doors and we retain the keys. We can make copies of those keys anywhere we want to) Send a certified letter to
both the storage place and the Ex's last known address (or Ex's forwarding address if you received a copy of that from the PO) stating that you will pay rent for another 30-90 days, then you will consider the matter closed and the storage facility can do whatever it wants with the remaining posessions.
Enclose a copy of the key to BOTH the storage facility as well as your Ex. This way the Ex can't say she lost the key because the storage facility will have a copy.
This plan allows the Ex to retrieve her possessions without having to deal with you in person. It solves both of your problems in that you no longer have to pay storage fees, you both get your own possessions that each of you
alone paid for (which means you'll lose most of the stuff bought on her CC), and you both conclude the relationship in as adult a manner as possible.
Treat this as if you were closing a business and dissolving a partnership. Be pragmatic, ethical and truthful about your involvement in it. Finish the relationship and move on in as professional a manner as possible. You can't bring a free-and-clear Sandra into a new relationship until you've disconnected that old Sandra from the old one completely. That storage facility is an anchor dragging you down. Get rid of it.
Hell, if it were me I'd probably end it right now by mailing her the key and telling her to keep whatever she wants and donate or sell everything else. I wouldn't care. Anything I'd have left in that place would only remind me of a failed relationship anyway and who needs that?
Best of luck to you.
and if someone is going to such lengths to hide their location from someone, there is usually a reason.
