My Ex Returned My Gifts-What To Do? (Best Ways To Deal With Gifts After A Breakup)

It’s normal to give your partner gifts while in a relationship. But what happens when you break up? Do you keep or return gifts after the relationship ends? Some people get back gifts that they may have gifted their partners while in the relationship, and you may be wondering what’s the best thing to do with the gifts. If your ex returns your presents, it may show that the relationship was unnecessary to them or have other reasons. Therefore, you should take the gifts and throw them away or give them to people who value them more than your ex did.

What Do You Do If An Ex Returns A Gift?

What Do You Do If An Ex Returns A Gift

When someone decides to give back your gifts, there is nothing much you can do about it but accept the return without confronting them or making a scene. Although your emotions might rise and you may feel slightly shocked and put off, keep everything in check and accept your items back with complete grace.

In a calm tone, you may ask your ex why they are giving the gifts back, and if they insist that they want to do it because the relationship is over, accept and move on. It’s okay for your ex to give back your gifts, and you do not have to worry about it since you gave in the spirit of true and unconditional love.

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Which Is The Best Way Of Dealing With Gifts After A Breakup?

If you want to understand why an ex would return your gifts, you should know that gifts can bring a lot of emotional setbacks. Some presents can be detrimental to a person’s health, while others may not. Therefore, if you have broken up with your partner, it’s essential to understand why they chose to give back your gifts or why they kept the presents. 

People give small, medium, and large presents, which could mean little or a lot to the other person. If your relationship has lasted many years, you probably may have given a lot of gifts to your partner during special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc.

After a breakup, a couple is left with different gifts and may wonder what to do with them. If the gift brings back memories, the first thought would be to get rid of the reminder and move on as fast as you can. Fortunately, you do not have to do this because you should see gifts as items to benefit from. Nonetheless, some gifts may need to be gotten rid of due to their effect on a person’s emotional health.

Although your ex may be angry with you for whatever reasons, destroying gifts won’t make things easier for them but will only provide temporary satisfaction. Before deciding what to do with a gift after a breakup, first discern between harmful and unharmful gifts.

Harmful Gifts

A harmful gift is a kind of gift that brings back memories of you and creates powerful emotions later on. When your ex looks at the presents, they may give them a nostalgic and bitter-sweet feeling in the stomach or chest. After examining the presents, they may feel some powerful emotions and start to remember all the positive memories associated with that exact gift. Once nostalgia kicks in, they will begin feeling sad and depressed and start missing your good qualities and feel the need to want to get back with you.

It is common for your ex to feel down when looking at old gifts. But anxiety and depression will make them overvalue some memories, and they will feel sad. The thought of the breakup with you will take them back at square one, and the feeling will continue recurring every time they look at the gifts.

When they are sad, their thoughts race through the mind to get into a happier state. Since they will do anything to soothe the anxiety, they may believe that looking at the gifts will help them feel better. Such thoughts are driven by concern and can be harmful to them. The gifts act like a drug that their body constantly craves, and all they need to do is look at them to feel better.

Resurrecting nostalgia from the past will make your ex reach a depressed state rather quickly. The gifts will act as a medium of helping their body feel better, while in the real sense, they hurt them more and make them feel weak. If they had already made progress in forgetting about you, looking at your gifts would only destroy their progress, and they will have to embrace the pain.

Some of the harmful gifts that one should get rid of include photos, letters, old messages, recordings, and anything that upsets and makes you feel depressed. You can choose to throw away these gifts or delete them because keeping them will only slow down your progress. Looking at the gifts will reopen old wounds and set your ex back emotionally, closer to your breakup. That is why removing them from their site is the best option for their wellbeing, hence why they return your gifts.

Unharmful Gifts

An unharmful gift is an item given by an ex that doesn’t hold any sentimental value or create any emotion when you look at it. These gifts are safe to keep as they won’t mess with your state of mind. Any gift that does not cause your ex any emotional pain is safe to keep, and they may not give it back after a breakup. 

Some unharmful gifts include accessories, clothes, wearables, everyday tools, electronics, money, animals, etc. Some people may not feel any pain when they look at these gifts and therefore choose to keep them. However, if your ex returns such gifts, it means that they have a reason for doing it, and probably the presents may be causing them sentimental responses.

Deciding Where To Take The Gifts

What your ex-partner chooses to do with your gifts after a breakup depends on how they make them feel. If the gifts remind them of you and drag them down whenever they look at them, it may be good to return the gifts or put them away. However, if the gifts can be used as if they were from someone your ex didn’t care about, they might feel the need to keep and use them. Just because a romantic relationship has ended doesn’t mean that everyone should get rid of the reminders. But \if the reminders hurt you, by all means, you should protect yourself.

Other Ways To Get Rid Of Harmful Gifts

Other Ways To Get Rid Of Harmful Gifts

If your ex does not want to make you feel offended about returning gifts, they should consider other ways of getting rid of harmful gifts. These ways include:

Donating 

Giving back is a noble way of putting a positive spin on a relationship that may have ended badly. Instead of giving back a gift, you can donate it to someone else who will feel joy in having it. If the gift is in good condition, you do not need to destroy it because of anger, but you could head to a donation bin and put a smile on another person’s face.

Selling 

You may feel good making money out of your ex by selling unwanted gifts. Some items may be too expensive for donation, and you may need some extra cash. Jewelry and clothing may bring in some dollars on online sites such as eBay and Poshmark. You can also sell the gifts at second-hand shops or consignment stores.

Regifting

Your trash might be someone else’s treasure. Although it might feel a little weird to regift something you have already used, you can regift if an item is still new and you’d like to get rid of it. The only rule in regifting is ensuring that the giver does not find out that you regifted their gifts as they will be upset.

Tossing The Gifts

The easiest way to forget about a gift from an ex is by tossing it. If the gift can’t be resold, donated, or regifted, you should probably throw it in the bin and forget about it. You will even feel more gratified tossing those items away than you will feel giving the ex-back the gifts. 

After a breakup, it may be necessary to eliminate anything that will remind you of your ex. Therefore, you shouldn’t feel bad about getting rid of all the presents you’ve collected from them each year. Moreover, you will get the time to heal faster and easier since there’s nothing to remind you of them.

Conclusion

When your ex returns your gifts, you should accept them with grace and avoid confrontation because people have different reasons for returning a gift. Perhaps, the item may be harmful to your ex, and the only way they see fit to move on is by giving back your presents. Therefore, you shouldn’t feel offended, although your feelings may get hurt, mainly if you had put a lot of thought into giving the gifts.

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