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Ask a Literary Lady: Dividing Books After a Breakup?
Dear Literary Lady,
My significant other and I are parting ways. I know, ugh. We’re trying to divide up all our books but we’re having trouble deciding how to do it fairly, and without hating each other. Any suggestions?
– M.C., Austin, TX
Dear M.C.,
Dividing up property in the aftermath of a breakup is the worst! It’s one of the most difficult and uncomfortable rites of passage you’ll ever experience in your love life. I hate it even more than breaking up. Breaking up is dramatic and heartrending and has a deliciously self-indulgent air of tragedy. Dividing up stuff is just depressing logistical work. It’s salt in a brand new wound—you’re overcome with emotion, you’re pretty sure that you’re going to die alone, but you have to get it together and negotiate who is taking the coffee-maker.
Ships in 1-2 days.
If you were both avid readers and book lovers, it’s sometimes impossible to remember how you came to own your books. All you know is that you both read and loved certain books, and now one if you is going to be moving on without a treasured copy.
Although splitting up your book collection is not going to be easy, there’s no reason it has to be a hurtful or argumentative process. If you both agree upfront on how you’re going to divide up the books, it could preclude a later argument about what books you each actually get.
Stay calm, be the bigger person, and see if you can try the following:
- You each take turns choosing one book until they’re all gone.
- Claim the books you each know are yours, either because you brought them into the relationship, or you got them as gifts, etc. Agree to donate whichever books are still unclaimed, or whichever books you can’t agree on.
- Offer to buy out your ex’s share of all the books. If you feel weird offering your ex cash for all the books, offer to let them take the TV, or all the kitchenware, or the couch.
- Or, let your ex buy out your share of the books. Now you can buy all new books, start your own personal book collection anew, and never worry about this co-mingling problem again!
- If your ex is playing hardball or if the situation starts to get unbearably contentious, let it go. You can always buy more books in the future. It’s more important to make your current situation as painless as possible.
- If a friend gifted you both with the book, figure out who is more likely to continue seeing that friend post-breakup. Whichever one of you will see that friend more often should probably keep the book.
- Divide up your book collection by having one person separate the books into two piles, and the other person choose the pile. This works well if your entire collection contains lots of smaller curated collections – i.e. books by particular authors, collector’s edition of books, or books of a certain genre etc. One person can put entire collections into two different piles, and the other chooses which collections they want.
- Think about your respective living situations pending the breakup. You may want to keep a ton of books, but if you’re moving across the country, that might be more hassle than it’s worth. It might be prudent to let your ex keep most of them.
- Go through all your books and assign each book a number that indicates its importance. For example, “0” means “I don’t care at all,” “1” means “I’ll take it but I’m ok without it,” “2” means “I want it but I won’t fight about it,” and “3” means “If I don’t get to keep this book I will curse you forever.” Compare lists and divide accordingly.
You should acknowledge beforehand that neither of you is going to be 100% happy about the outcome or feel like they came out ahead. And that’s ok, because dividing up your books post-breakup isn’t about winning, it’s about a fair, respectful compromise.
Remember that there are still plenty of books to read, just as there are plenty of fish in the sea.
Love and paperbacks,
Literary Lady