Since it began as a pop-up museum in Croatia in 2006, the Museum of Broken Relationships has grown into an internationally touring exhibit of breakup-related objects — the bizarre, the everyday, the devastating. The one thing that unites them is their connection to failed relationships. But why would anyone want to visit a museum full of objects from relationships that no longer exist? Well, it's really about the stories behind the objects. Before couples go their separate ways, they often invest meaning in seemingly banal items simply because they're connected to their lost love. Sometimes, this requires a lengthy explanation — how could a few used emery boards mean that much to a four-year marriage? At other times, the object itself is the story.
Now, for the first time, the museum will set up shop stateside, in Los Angeles. So, we spoke with Alexis Hyde and Amanda Vandenberg, the director and assistant director of the museum's first L.A. exhibition, about what's in store for visitors — and why breakup stories matter.
Hyde wants to make one thing clear about the museum: "It’s not necessarily sad or heartbreaking." Instead, she says, for the people donating items, it can be "cathartic" and "brave" to share these experiences with others, partly because breakup stories signal the end of something and the start of something new. They remind us that life will go on for the newly separated people.
Of course, the objects in the exhibit vary wildly. Past objects have included teddy bears, furry handcuffs, and even an axe. But Vandenberg says that this makes total sense: "When you think about your own past relationships, it’s the odd objects that carry the specificity... of why that relationship was different, why it went a certain way."
As of now, the L.A. exhibit is still taking donations for objects, in case any recently single readers are interested in sharing a piece of a lost love. As a rule, the museum accepts any and all submissions, as long as the objects don't violate anyone's anonymity. But the curators also want to avoid some of the, um, extrapersonal items, like bodily fluids (yes, that has come up).
"Give us your heartbreak," Hyde says. "Send us your objects."
Click through to view a selection of items from the exhibit and the stories from the people who donated them.
Item: A palm-sized sailboat
Relationship origin: Los Angeles, CA
Relationship length: January 17, 2013 to January 17, 2015
"We had our own secret emoji language. We sent each other different emojis to mean different things. For example, the panda meant 'happy,' the pig meant 'I love you,' the cheeseburger meant 'thinking about you,' the turtle meant 'I miss you.' The sailboat meant 'everything is perfect' — perfectly imperfect; all is well. We bought this sailboat while we were on Catalina Island for Christmas. Even though our relationship has been over for even longer than the official expiration date, it still sits on the nightstand next to my bed as I type this. I would like to let go of it, knowing that everything is perfect, and all is well. Besides, I've got the sailboat tattoo on my ribs to live with for the rest of my dang life."
Item: Four used black emery boards
Relationship origin: Austin, TX
Relationship length: December 11, 2011 to December 3, 2015
"My late husband Chad was a genius, creative, spirited soul. He was also very self-destructive in some ways. He used to bite and gnaw on his cuticles until they ached and bled, and then would file them down further with emery boards. It was a true compulsion and he would do it everywhere: in public, while watching TV, even while riding in my car. It drove me crazy, and I was always asking him to stop it. Some of his self-destructive habits lead indirectly to his early death at 42, and I miss him so much, every day. I would give anything to have him back, even if it meant listening to him using the damn emery boards again."
Item: Moroccan cedar pen case
Relationship origin: Arlington, Virginia
Relationship length: September 2014 to July 2015
"This was the last gift. I was [at the] bar working a brunch shift when he came in. He told me he wanted to return a glass Tupperware bowl I had left at his house. I didn't remember leaving it or even owning a Tupperware bowl, but he was determined to return it, so I conceded. I was wearing a black velvet t-shirt and bright red lipstick. I stepped out from behind the bar to greet him. I felt my face flush hot. He looked saturnine, as always. He kissed both of my cheeks, greeting me in his distinguished Moroccan manner. It felt intimately distant. He opened the brown paper grocery bag he was carrying so that I could see the bowl he was certain belonged to me. It didn't. I took it back anyway. And then he said, there's something else in there, I got it for you in Morocco. He went to Morocco to visit his mother the week after he broke up with me. I reached into the bag and pulled out this little wooden pen case. He was always telling me to write, ordering me to just write. And then I would be happy.
"I held the case in my hand; the cedar was smooth. Then work got busy and I had drinks to make. I don't remember if I thanked him: I was nonplussed. I took the brown paper bag with the bowl and the pen case into the employee room in the back. I thought about running after him, and saying thank you or I hate you. I was ready to cry. I opened the case, and it was empty. The final token of his affection.
"He wanted to get the last word. He wanted to be the champion of my unborn art. A patron saint: emblazoned in my memory as the one who made me write again. I brought the case home and found my favorite neon Lamy fountain pen on my desk. I unclasped the wooden case and set the neon yellow pen inside. It didn't fit."
Item:"Danger" spoon
Relationship origin: Los Angeles, CA
Relationship length: December 6, 2014 to July 12th, 2015
"On the night we met, he told me his nickname was Danger. Since he loved to cook with a wooden spoon, I bought him this custom left-handed spoon that says 'Danger Est. 1.7.1987' (his birthday). He cheated and left long before it was finished and shipped to me. Never used. Still dangerous."
Item: Belly button lint
Relationship origin: Montreal, Quebec
Relationship length: November 2013 to April 2015
"D's stomach had a particular arrangement of body hair that made his belly button prone to collecting lint. Occasionally, he'd extract a piece and stick it to my body, sweaty after sex. One day, angry, he'd disrupted the heavy charge that lingered in the wake of an orgasm, I met his oddity with my own; I put the lint in a small baggie and concealed it away in the drawer of my bedside table. Our relationship was tumultuous; as off-again as it was ever on. From time to time, he would remind me that he wasn't really in love, but I blithely ignored the warning: He gave me his lint, after all."
Item: Vintage Stratton compact
Relationship origin: Durham, North Carolina
Relationship length: September 1999 to May 2002
"My high school boyfriend stole this vintage compact for me from a vintage store along the North Carolina coast. It was less than a year into our tumultuous relationship. I wasn't living at his house yet; we hadn't yet figured out how to drive each other crazy. He had just gotten his driver's license, so we did what troubled 16-year-olds do: skipped school and drove two hours to the beach. It was early spring and colder than we had anticipated, so rather than get high and make out on the sand, we hot-boxed his Ford Taurus then wandered around the cute shops downtown. I saw the compact on a shelf and commented that it was lovely. I didn't see him pocket it and was surprised when he gave it to me a few hours later, wrapped up in wrinkled notebook paper.
"I left him right before high school graduation, after he threw a chopping knife at me while fighting and making dinner, and after I was accepted into college and knew that I'd have a place to live without him.
"For the past 13 years, I have wrapped the compact in paper every time I've moved. I don't use foundation (or powder, whatever is meant to go in there), so the compact has gone empty ever since he gave it to me. Which seems fitting — our relationship was a failed attempt at filling the holes we had inside us."
Item: Texas license plate
Relationship origin: Dallas, Texas
Relationship length: 2007 to 2010
"I followed a boy to Texas. Texas! The middle of the country. I have only ever lived by the ocean — I detest that state and the state it put me in. Finally, one day I drove west on I-10 until I hit the sand again.
I left with a license plate."
Item: Tiny piece of paper
Relationship origin: Los Angeles, CA
Relationship length: 2001-2009
"I am an artist and when my girlfriend and I lived together, she would get antsy for my attention when I was working in the other room. One day when I was painting in our room, she came in and slid a tiny piece of paper that said pay attention to me. I found it maybe two years after we broke up, and it's been in the change compartment of my car ever since."
Item: Leaves don’t fall in San Diego
Relationship origin: Sweden, San Diego, Canada
Relationship length: July 2014 to January 2015
"I fell in love with a guy at a swing dance exchange in Sweden. We met on a Friday, and the next Friday, we slept together on a Swedish beach at 5 a.m. The next day, we parted ways — he lived in Canada and I lived in California — and didn’t stop talking until the day we broke up. Our long-distance relationship made us angry, and we fought about the tone of each other’s texts. I became jealous of his success in the passions we shared, convinced that he was leaving me in the dust. He was ready to be with me forever, and I was afraid. It hurt because I knew I had found the person I wanted to be with, but it just wasn’t the right time. We broke up the first of January, and two weeks later, he told me he was in love with someone else. They are still together. I am still alone.
"These are leaves he sent me from Canada so that I could have seasons in California. They smell like fall and like him."
Item: Brush with matted dog fur
Relationship origin: Goleta, California
Relationship length: February 2015 to October 2015
"We knew it wouldn't work out, but we were all each other had at the moment, and convinced ourselves it would. When I had to break the lease for my apartment and hadn't yet found another place to live, I crashed at his studio apartment for four months. In order to help my bipolar disorder, and hoping it would keep us together when our relationship was already quickly starting to fall apart, I got us a dog. He was a rescue dog, and very difficult to care for. Once we broke up, I was only able to keep the dog for a few more months before I could no longer handle the amount of emotional attention he required, and my friends took him in instead. I kept my ex on social media so that he could see the dog still, and blocked him once the dog moved in with my friends. This was the dog's hairbrush."
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