分手後該不該扔掉舊情人的信物

When Pamela Seow broke up with her boyfriend a few years ago, she cut up his photos, shredded his love letters and threw away almost every gift and piece of clothing he had given her, including 'a bag that looked like a dead rooster.'

幾年前帕梅拉•蕭(Pamela Seow)和男友分手時，她剪碎了男友的照片，撕碎了男友給她寫的情書，幾乎扔掉了男友送給她的所有禮物和衣服，包括一個看起來像只死公雞的手袋。

'If it's over, it's over,' says the 28-year-old marketing representative. 'I don't believe in holding on to a lost cause.'

28歲的蕭是個營銷代表。她說，結束了就是結束了，我認爲註定無果的事就不要再去堅持了。

Still, Ms. Seow made one exception to her purge: She hung on to Doggy, a stuffed animal given to her by her former partner that she likes to cuddle when she sleeps. 'It's really more out of habit than for sentimental reasons,' she says.

不過，有一樣東西蕭沒有扔掉：她留下了“狗狗”──她的前男友送的毛絨玩具，她喜歡睡覺時抱着它。蕭說，這真的更多的是出於習慣，而不是感情上的原因。

What do you do with the detritus of a former relationship? Torch everything? Sell the diamonds? Squirrel away the love letters and photos in the attic?

你會怎樣處理上次感情經歷留下的東西？把一切付之一炬？把鑽石賣掉？把情書和照片藏到閣樓裏？

The decision can be complicated, depending not just on the amount of hurt and anger you have coming out of the relationship, but also on how practical and forward-thinking you are.

可能很難做出決定，這不僅取決於你分手後受到的傷害和感到的憤怒，還取決於你有多實際、多麼能向前看。

Take Ms. Seow, who lives in Singapore. She tossed out the physical remnants of her last relationship because she doesn't want to have to explain to a future boyfriend why she kept mementos from a previous one. 'And a woman needs all the closet space she can get,' she says.

　　以住在新加坡的蕭爲例。她扔掉了上次感情經歷留下的東西，因爲她不想今後必須向未來的男友解釋她爲什麼要保存前男友的紀念物。她說，而且女人需要任何可以騰出來的壁櫥空間。

Go ahead and ask your friends what they get rid of when a relationship ends. You'll learn a lot about them, I promise. I asked, and one of my close pals told me of a favorite chair he and his ex spent a fair amount of time in -- together, if you know what I mean. After the breakup, he carted it to the curb. 'You can't keep flipping the cushions every time a new person comes along,' he says.

問問你的朋友，他們在分手後會扔掉什麼東西。我敢說，你能從中瞭解到朋友的很多方面。我問了朋友，我最親密的朋友之一告訴我說，他丟掉了一把自己非常喜歡的沙發椅，他和前女友曾在這張椅子上共度了很多時光。分手後，他用推車把椅子推到了路邊。他說，你總不能在每次來新人的時候都把椅墊翻過來。

I've since talked to people who have sent sheets, pillows and mattresses off to Goodwill, tossed spices that reminded them of favorite recipes cooked with an ex and burned the plants a former lover left behind.

通過和朋友的談話，我知道有人把牀單、枕頭和牀墊送給了慈善機構，扔掉調味料，因爲這會讓他們回想起和前男（女）友一起做的喜歡的菜色，燒掉前男（女）友留下的綠色植物。

Some people even make a ritual of the eradication. 'It's a physical or magical way of trying to get rid of bad feelings and bad memories,' says Elyse Goldstein, a psychologist with a private practice in Manhattan. 'It's minimizing the importance of the person, as if to say, 'I'm throwing you in the trash.'

有些人甚至會爲此舉行一個儀式。曼哈頓一傢俬人診所的心理醫生愛麗舍•戈爾茨坦(Elyse Goldstein)說，這是一種試圖抹去不好感覺和記憶的實際方法，甚至可以說是神奇的方法，這樣做會把那個人的重要性降到最小，就好像是在說，“我把你扔進了垃圾箱”。

After Liz Garcia caught her live-in boyfriend cheating on her a year ago, she kicked him out, invited her friends over and built a bonfire, she said in an email interview.

莉斯•加西亞(Liz Garcia)通過電子郵件接受採訪時說，一年前，當她發現同居男友劈腿後，她把他趕了出去，把朋友請過來，在外面點了堆火。

Into the flames, she tossed everything that reminded her of her ex -- the golf bag and Xbox he'd left behind, the CDs, DVDs and books they'd bought together, and all of the stuffed animals and clothes he'd given to her. As a final offering, she threw the framed San Diego Chargers jersey her ex had cherished into the fire. 'It was therapeutic,' says Ms. Garcia, 30, a waitress in Los Angeles.

她把能讓她想起前男友的東西都扔到了火裏，有前男友留下的高爾夫球袋和Xbox遊戲機，還有他們一起買的CD、DVD和書，以及他送的所有毛絨玩具和衣服。最後一樣扔進火堆的東西是前男友最寶貝的、鑲在鏡框裏的“聖地亞哥電光隊”的球衣。30歲的加西亞在洛杉磯當女侍應。她說，這樣做有療傷作用。

Laura Haushalter got her short-haired pointer, Briar, to help her dispose of a teddy bear that played a recording of her ex-boyfriend saying, 'I love you.' She played tug-of-war with the dog until the stuffed animal started falling apart.

　　勞拉•豪沙爾特(Laura Haushalter)的短毛獵犬布賴爾(Briar)幫她處理掉了前男友送的泰迪熊，這個泰迪熊可以播放前男友錄下來的“我愛你”的話。她和布賴爾玩拔河，直到毛絨玩具開始四分五裂。

Then she pulled out the bear's voice box, attempted to crush it with her shoe and ultimately ran it over with her car. 'The voice was gone and with it, resolution achieved,' says Ms. Haushalter, 27, an analyst for the federal government in Washington.

然後，她把泰迪熊裏的發聲盒拔了出來，想用鞋子把盒子踩爛，不過最後還是開車碾過去纔算了事。27歲的豪沙爾特是華盛頓聯邦政府的一位分析人員。她說，錄音沒了，我的決心也隨之達成了。

Even as some people go to extremes to rid themselves of anything that reminds them of their exes, others stubbornly cling to items, sometimes despite the associations.

就在有些人不遺餘力地把任何能讓他們回憶起前男（女）友的東西都處理掉時，卻有人固執地抓住不放，有時甚至不顧東西引發的聯想。

A friend of mine still carries the leather wallet his ex-girlfriend gave him several years ago. 'Why spend money on something when you already have a perfectly good one?' he says.

我的一個朋友仍在用前女友幾年前送給他的皮夾子。他說，當你已經有一個很好的東西時，爲什麼還要再花錢去買呢？

Allison Soltani, 31, of Great Neck, N.Y., kept the Louis Vuitton bag an ex bought her. Val Valentine, 65, of Huntington Beach, Calif., hung on to a photo of his ex-wife taken with the actor Telly Savalas in the early 1980s. Stephen Doty, 48, of Salem, Mass., left his ex-girlfriend's birth control on a shelf in the bathroom. And Kindra Hall, 29, of Phoenix, saved the black-lace panties with a hot-pink bow she bought to impress her college boyfriend.

31歲的艾莉森•蘇坦尼(Allison Soltani)住在紐約州格雷特內克，她仍保留着前男友送的LV包。加州杭廷頓灘的瓦爾•瓦倫丁(Val Valentine)今年65歲，他仍留着80年代初前妻和男影星特利•薩瓦拉斯(Telly Savalas)的合影。48歲的史蒂芬•托蒂(Stephen Doty)住在馬薩諸塞州塞勒姆，在浴室的架子上仍放着前女友的避孕藥。鳳凰城的金德拉•霍爾(Kindra Hall)今年29歲，仍留着從前買來誘惑大學男友的帶粉紅色蝴蝶結的黑色蕾絲內褲。

This, of course, begs the question: Should you keep the lingerie? It seems creepy to me.

這當然讓人不禁會問：是否應該保留內衣？我覺得這有些怪怪的。

And what about all that other stuff? OK, the bed may be too unwieldy or expensive to replace. But why do we keep so many other objects that remind us of something that is painful, bittersweet or, at the very least, simply over?

其他東西呢？好吧，換張牀可能太費事或太貴了。但是爲什麼要保留其他那麼多讓我們回想起象徵着痛苦經歷、酸甜苦辣或僅僅已經結束的關係的物品。

Here's why:

有以下幾個原因：

-- We're trying to hang on to our personal narrative. Like Dennis Martinez, who keeps a box of photos of previous girlfriends, as well as all the cards and letters they sent him.

--我們試圖保留自己的個人故事。就象丹尼斯•馬丁內斯(Dennis Martinez)一樣，他保留了一箱子歷任女友的照片，還有她們送的全部卡片和信。

　　'One day my grandchildren might think their granddad is old and lame, until I bust out the dusty box of old flings,' says Mr. Martinez, 28, who works at an insurer in New York.

28歲的馬丁內斯是紐約一家保險公司職員。他說，有一天，我的孫子可能會想，他們的祖父又老又平庸，直到我把滿是灰塵的、顯示我“當年勇”的東西拿出來給他們看。

-- The item is actually worth something. A friend of mine has kept nude photos of an ex taken by a well-known photographer for more than a decade, hoping they will increase in value. And Jackie Gray, 45, who runs a department for a consulting firm in Arlington Heights, Ill., has been hanging on to a painting by an up-and-coming artist that her ex-husband gave her, despite hating it. 'Who knows, it might pay a semester of my daughter's college one day,' she says.

--東西實際上有些價值。我的一個朋友已經把一位知名攝影師給他前女友拍攝的裸照保留了十多年了，希望它們能升值。45歲的傑姬•格雷(Jackie Gray)是伊利諾伊州阿靈頓高地一家諮詢公司的部門主管。她保留了前夫送她的、一位嶄露頭角的畫家的畫，儘管她討厭這幅畫。她說，誰知道呢，說不定有一天我女兒上大學時，這畫能幫她繳一學期的學費。

-- The object looks good in your house -- and your ex wants it back. More than a decade ago, Robert Pillitteri's then-girlfriend gave him an antique print of Italy's Mt. Etna. Then she changed her mind, asked for it back and offered up a print of a Chinese water wheel instead.

--東西放在你房子裏看起來不錯，而且你的前男（女）友想把東西要回去。十多年前，羅伯特•皮列特里(Robert Pillitteri)的女友送了一幅意大利埃特納火山的古董畫給他。之後她後悔了，想把畫要回去，並且給了他一幅中國水車的畫想把古董換回去。

Mr. Pillitteri, 61, an investor and actor in Seattle, now has both hanging in his den. 'The artistic value of the first piece grew significantly for me as the entreaties to return it continued,' he says.

61歲的皮列特里是西雅圖的一位投資者和演員。如今，他把兩幅畫都掛在了家裏。他說，她不斷要求拿回第一幅畫，對我來說這幅畫的藝術價值隨之大增。

-- You just want it. That's why Jen Campsey, 40, a human-resources consultant in San Francisco, has kept the 'Rock Band' videogame her ex-boyfriend gave her for Christmas one year, even though he took the Xbox with him. 'I loved playing it,' she says. 'And how hard is it to find another guy with an Xbox?'

--你就是想要那件東西。正因爲如此，詹•坎姆普斯(Jen Campsey)留下了某年聖誕節前男友送的“搖滾樂團”(Rock Band)遊戲盤，儘管他把Xbox遊戲機拿走了。40歲的坎姆普斯是舊金山的一名人力資源顧問。她說，我曾經很喜歡玩這款遊戲，要再找一個有Xbox遊戲機的男人多難呀？

-- It makes you feel better. When Angela Mancinelli's husband left her after 25 years, she says, she kept the two toy pig statues that her Korean mother-in-law gave the couple for good luck while they were married. One, dressed as a doctor, was meant to represent her husband; the other, dressed as a nurse, represents Ms. Mancinelli, 51, who lives in Hershey, Pa.

--這讓你感覺好些。當安吉拉•曼奇內裏(Angela Mancinelli)的丈夫在婚後25年離開她的時候，她說，她留下了韓國婆婆以前送他們的兩個祝好運的玩具豬雕塑。一個穿着醫生的衣服，代表的是她丈夫，另外一個穿護士服的代表的是她。曼奇內裏現在51歲，住在賓夕法尼亞州。

'The doctor doll is now a functional pin cushion,' she says.

她說，現在，這個穿醫生裝的玩具豬被用來當針墊了。