All the ex's furniture?

[Wwilburr]

My boyfriend and I are moving in together. Great times. We get along fantastically.

 

For a short time I moved in with him in a place we shared with others, and I had to pare down my belongings to only living out of a few boxes, and my sporting gear. While I am reasonably detached from material things, it still hurt a bit, and I had to think hard about the idea that losing my "things" doesn't mean losing my personality. Also, he takes quite large care and importance in "things" so I figured it was a sacrifice I could make for him, minimise my things so he wouldn't have to get rid of anything of his.

 

Now we have a place of our own, and I was excited about making it "ours" and being able to feel like I live in my own home again. He had a shipping container of furniture (and his life with his ex, really. They packed this container two years ago, when they were together,) delivered so we can get his stuff out and he wants to buy all his ex's furniture as well, and has set up the apartment from that.

 

While my boyfriend sees a bunch of furniture that he has already picked out and knows he likes, I see a preselected world that isn't mine at all. I have voiced my opinion that I want our home to be ours, and that I feel uneasy about the furniture, cushions, bedding, cutlery, nic knacks, art, etc. for a number of reasons:

 

1.I do not have the same sense of style expressed by these items, and I would like to come home to an environment where we both feel invigorated and relaxed.

 

2.I want to create something new with my partner.

 

3.I feel like an interchangeable peg, representing a girlfriend. We have moved to his and her old city, and will be using his and her old furniture. Only I have changed, and I feel a bit unoriginal in this context.

 

4.I am reminded frequently of the fact that I live in someone else's life. If he doesn't like something we are using, it reminds me she was the one who bought it. The scratches on the headboard may have just happened in the move, but... Etc... Etc... And those intimate things snowball... Suddenly I feel icky on the couch, or the rug, or the table.

 

We have discussed all of the above things, barring the intimate reminders. That I was trying to work through in my own head, thinking I'm just being an insane jealous girlfriend. I'm thinking that is not the case now.

 

This feeling is growing to the point where I partially just want it all gone. Start fresh. I know that is over the top, but I also know my frugality will not slow me to replace something we already have until it wears out... So basically I have 15 years of leather couches and timber bed post notches to haunt me. Unless he is with me on this, actively participates in purging the old and building the new... I don't think it will change. I have made several suggestions for statement pieces, patio furniture, pot plants etc, things not in the container... And he vetoes them, then picks out what he likes, and we get it because it "matches".

 

I was hoping to get some suggestions about how to deal with this, both avenues. I know I have some self growth opportunities here, to further let go of my personal attachment to things, acceptance of the shadows of women in my partners past and others I am missing... If you could help me with that, ideas and techniques I would appreciate the insight. And I also was hoping to get an idea of better talking to my boyfriend about it, I feel sometimes when I say it bothers me, he just tells me why shouldn't. Can you help me think of a way to better have him understand?

 

Thanks

 

Wilomena

[catfeeder]

Did you buy this place with him, or are you renting?

[Deciduous]

Hi Wil,

 

Welcome to enotalone. Compromise is needed here, it is the bedrock on which successful relationships are built. How you both deal with this issue is a strong marker on how you will both deal with relationship conflict in the future.

 

Now is the time to set up healthy patterns of negotiation in the relationship. At the moment he wants to keep all of his old furniture and you want it all gone and to start afresh.

 

However there is a middle ground.

 

And reaching an agreement in that middle ground will ensure that you both feel heard, respected and avoid resentment. He wants to keep all of his old stuff because it provides a sense of security, comfort and familiarity whilst he negotiates the emotionally intimidating job of setting up a new and secure relationship.

 

These furniture items are rather like child's blanky and as any mother knows, snatching them all away and tossing them in the rubbish, does little to engender a sense of trust and emotional security in an individual. It's not that he wants to be surrounded by memories of his ex - its that he wants to be surrounded by memories of himself and that is understandable, but if he insists on keeping everything from his past it will prevent him from psychologically building a new and fresh future with you.

 

A compromise would be that you agree to keep 10 items of his past, but replace the rest. This ensures that he feels emotionally respected and heard and is not pushed into parting with old comforts before he feels ready.

 

However one area I would not recommend compromise, is on is the bed. An emotionally truthful conversation is needed. You need to emotionally vulnerable, clear and open about the thoughts that the bed evokes in you. It reminds you that he had a previous sex life. It feels like an invasion into the most private and intimate part of your relationship with him. And it hurts you deeply.

 

If you can have an emotionally respectful and compassionate conversation with your boyfriend about this, without blame or accusation of insensitivity, you stand a much stronger chance of being truly heard. But you need to trust him with your most raw feelings about this matter so that he can truly understand where you are coming from.

 

Honesty, vulnerability and compromise is critical here at this point in this relationship - and - as I said earlier it will set the tone for all that follows.

 

Have you thought of sharing this thread with him and its responses, to open up this conversation with him

 

I do wish you both the very best

 

Deci

[chickadeedee]

OK, you did a bait and switch on him. As in, you were the girl who was perfectly willing to dump almost ALL your stuff in a rush to co-habitate with him at his place. So carefree 'i love you so much i don't need anything but you' mode when you were trying to seal the deal with him.

 

And now that you've moved into a bigger place and the rest of his stuff shows up, you suddenly can't abide any of it because he might have purchased it when living with some ghost from his past.

 

Honestly, if i moved in with someone I loved, i wouldn't give a second thought to the origin of the stuff. It is totally irrelevant, and this is a manifestation of your jealousy or desire to exterminate even the idea of him ever having been with anybody but you. That sadly just isn't realistic and you need to get over it.

 

And antiques have been owned by all kinds of people and are seen as the most valuable of furniture and nobody thinks twice about the prior owners or thinks they don't 'own' the furniture because someone else once did. So this isn't about the furniture, it is about your jealousy issues that you need to get a grip on because fighting ghosts from his past is really a pointless endeavor.

 

But you do still have the problem that you may be living with a bunch of stuff that you don't like because it is not your style. So you need to really try to be rational about this, and go thru all the items and ask yourself which of them you can live with because your beloved really likes them, and which of them you consider so horrendous in style they have to go. Then you start negotiating with him.

 

Your willingess to jettison everything you owned in a rush to live with him made him think you would be fine or the type of girl who would just let him keep his stuff and have his own sense of style and not try to impose yours on him. And he sounds like he is a really 'matchy matchy' type person with a strong sense that he wants only his one and particular style in the house.

 

So your unfortunate task now is breaking the news to him that you don't like his style, and you'd like to jettison some of his stuff now to make way for your own sense of style. But absolutely don't go down the path of you need to get rid of everything because the mysterious 'she' may have once lived in a house with that furniture, i.e., don't expect him to give up EVERYTHING because you are jealous of a ghost. That is something you need to work on.

 

So you have to be honest. Tell him you want to have your own style reflected somewhere in the house. People handle this in various ways. If your styles are extremely divergent, then choose rooms. As in, you get to furnish the bedroom, but he gets to have the living room. You do one bathroom, he does another. You do the kitchen, he does the study. So respect his right to have his particular style in some rooms, and he has to respect your right to have your style in others.

 

So if you really really hate the idea of sleeping in 'her' bed, then you claim the bedroom. Perhaps you could banish that bed to a guest room and let him claim that guest room to furnish. But honestly, put your behind on that leather couch with a smile and live with it. It's just a leather couch. One of 20 million other leather couches that men love. So find a way to let him have his most treasured pieces somewhere in the house and get a grip on your excessive jealousy/desire to control his past life/ghosts of GFs past. Let it go, and learn to live in the present and negotiate with him on which rooms you'll furnish and which he will furnish.

 

And don't expect that in every room you'll each have pieces if your sense of style is totally divergent and it ends up being an ugly hodge podge. Better to split rooms if your styles are really different.

 

But he also could be quite angry if he is a person who is really attached to a sense of style and can't tolerate living in a space with a style he doesn't like, and he thought you were the type to let him do that becuase you so willingly tossed everything you owned to go live with him, and now suddenly you can't abide his stuff. He may feel deceived and manipulated by a bait and swtich attitude, and now not only don't you want to have his stuff around, you want to exterminate every darn piece of it in a quest to obliterate any residual traces you sniff of the ex-GF who is long gone and may have herself had very little desire to care about this furniture (or even chose it) either if she let him have it all when they broke up.

 

So decide how much this battle is worth it to you. People can and do break up over things like this if you let it become a power struggle as to who 'owns' the right to control things or you are on a never ending quest to even control his past and thoughts about ex-GFs long gone.

[pippy longstocking]

I agree with you op ....

 

If you have the funds then I think it would be nice to start this part of your book with a new page and not the exes !!!

 

however ..please remember that some of it might mean something to him ..not because of memories of his ex ..but just because he also likes it .

 

Be diplomatic and aware of his feelings and try and put your feelings accross with love and not any bitterness towards living from his exes story and not your own .

 

I can see both sides ..but I really do understand what you are saying ...

 

remember , above all ....you love each other and that is the most important thing here , I wish you many blessings for a beautiful life together in your new home xx

[Willywagtail]

I can actually identify with how you feel. My physical surroundings and the objects in it are important to me, and I like them to reflect my taste and my experiences. I also think that it's a bonding process to create a new environment together.

 

Maybe there is a compromise. Some things need to and must be replaced. I would suggest the bed is one of them. I got a new bed when my marriage broke up because it was a way of letting go of the relationship. The second thing should be the couch. I couldn't afford to get a new couch, but I bought some really nice throws and put them over it. It completely changed the feel of it. Cushions shouldn't be a problem, because you can just get new covers.

 

I would start with the major things. These things hopefully, will make sense to your BF as well. I suspect you both will naturally replace the nic nacs over time and maybe you can begin to replace kitchen ware with things more to your taste.

 

You don't need to overhaul it all at once. Start with a couple of things and over time introduce your own taste.

[chickadeedee]

>>And he vetoes them, then picks out what he likes, and we get it because it "matches".

 

Here's another problem. Stop giving in and letting him have his way if you really object to it. You talk about how 'great' you get along, but is that because you have been giving in to letting him always have his way in everything in the first eager flush of new love? And now that your settling in, you may be realizing you don't get along so great after all unless you just let him have his way. So you may have set a bad precedent, and now need to try to turn this around if you ever want to have any hope of having an identity of your own that doesn't involve caving in to everything he wants.

 

So start standing up for what you want and negotiating with him. And if he won't negotiate, and you two can't come to agreement on things that don't involve you always giving in to him, then you're not such a great match after all and may need to re-think how quickly you've leaped into a live-in situation with him.

[Deciduous]

remember , above all ....you love each other and that is the most important thing here , I wish you many blessings for a beautiful life together in your new home xx

 

What a beautiful sentiment, shooting - wish I had also said that

[Wwilburr]

Thank you everyone. I think I needed all of you. Of course, there is a compromise here, and I need to stand a little stronger for the compromise to happen. Sometimes I need other people's words to solidify what's swirling around in mine. Thank you thank you thank you!

 

Especially you first two. My head and heart were saying what both of you said. One hand: it's ok to feel like this, just be open and honest without being judgemental. Two hand: You haven't stood up for anything yet, it's kinda unfair to start now. Just deal with your petty jealousy and get over it.

 

And... I think there is a compromise here too. I hope to be able to maintain a compromise we have reached to keep 10-12 things, and have some rooms/areas be mostly his, or mostly mine. That way, no one feels formally excluded from a place, and there is some continuity through the house. It's funny, as soon as I feel like we are building something together, the old furniture is just furniture again. Building blocks we use to create something our own. and the jealousy business melts away.

 

Oh, and the bed is going. As soon as I mentioned it he was like, "yeah, I thought it was a little weird too..." But the funny thing is, she's making us buy it because we've been sleeping on it. I can totally see her point, but it's still amusing to me. I have slept on my share of used beds, strangers don't mind, so we will sell to strangers, or paint it and guest room it.

 

 

Jealousy is unseemly but it happens. I was very happy for him to remain amiable with his ex, we have met, and I have met others. I am happy that he was able to grow and learn and enjoy life with these women, who thankfully helped him become the kindhearted man I love now.

 

My jealousy grew when I felt the spectre of his past girlfriend beginning to move into my life in the form of more and more furniture, and when I realised the sheer VOLUME of the stuff that he and she kept. The jealously grew when I felt invisible... The Stuff! Stuff! It was a little stuffocating! I realise this was my shortcoming in becoming emotionally attached to the idea of setting up something with him, beginning with the bones of a place... Clothes washer, gym set, couch, table... A good place to start. It got scarier when more and more stuff was being brought in... And he was setting up offers to buy it from her.

 

Now the compromise has been made, she gets to keep whatever she wants that's hers, he keeps most of what's his and we start freshish... Like we had planned to in the beginning.

 

Again, thank you, everyone.

[Wwilburr]

And yes, we do love each other dearly, and that is the most important thing.

[catfeeder]

[...]

Now the compromise has been made, she gets to keep whatever she wants that's hers, he keeps most of what's his and we start freshish... Like we had planned to in the beginning.

 

Again, thank you, everyone.

 

Glad to hear this, WW, you're a great writer and a great thinker. I'd bet that your jealousy is limited to this valid physical territory thing, because beyond that, I'm sure he's crazy about you.

 

Best wishes in your new home.

[Deciduous]

Hi Wil,

 

Thank you so much for coming back to us. So many times OPs disappear off the face of the earth and we never find out if they were able to tackle their concerns or not - or whether our posts were of the slightest use or not.

 

So pleased you were able to approach things in such a positive, open manner with your partner.

 

All the best to you both

 

Deci

[Ms Darcy]

Glad things worked out for you! I'm not ever an advocate for living together before marriage, but at least I think you will do well no matter the outcome.