No one gets married planning to get a divorce. That is, unless you’re Catherine Zeta-Jones’ character in “Intolerable Cruelty,” but that movie is a PG-13 and I’m only allowed to mention PG movies so forget I said that.
The point is, when you get married, you expect it to last, and together you build up a beautiful collection of books. What do you do when you find your heart broken, your dreams shattered, and you have to decide – who gets the books? Things like this just aren’t covered in prenuptial agreements.
May I offer the following suggestions that might ease the transition at this difficult time?
1. Keep all the books by the same author together. Perhaps your spouse bought half the Mitford series and you bought the other half. It would be cruel to split them apart; make a deal with your spouse. They can take the entire Elm Creek Quilt series and you get the whole Mitford series, or vice versa.
2. If you must separate the books, arrange frequent visits. Nothing is sadder than a book, sitting in a windowsill, staring out into the rain, missing its sequel.
3. If you can’t decide who gets what book, try dividing them alphabetically. Your spouse gets all the books by authors whose last names begin with A-M, and you get the rest of the alphabet. Or go ahead and determine who bought what book. Again, though, don’t separate books by the same author unless you really can afford the therapy that will entail.
4. Whichever spouse leaves the house, that spouse should try to buy bookshelves that are as similar as possible to the bookshelves in the old house. This way, when the books are unpacked at the other end, they will feel more at home in familiar surroundings.
It is my hope that these tips will make things a little bit easier for you. Studies have shown, however, that 45.6% of divorcing couples argue over who gets the books. If you find that you can’t find a way to reconcile who gets to keep the Dick Francis books, you may want to reconsider the whole divorce thing – if you both love the books that much, you obviously have a lot in common and can probably work things out. I do not advocate staying together just for the books’ sake, though.
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