Museum of Broken Relationships...Is Your Divorce the Next Exhibit?

                  One of my favorite “Sunday” things to do is read the travel section of the paper.  Perhaps sitting on my patio enjoying a cup of American coffee and reading about Paris is the next best thing to croissants on the Champs Elysees.

                  This past Sunday I came across Rick Steve’s weekly column about “odd” museums in Europe.  The one particular museum mentioned that caught my eye was The Museum of Broken Relationships, located in Zagreb, Croatia.  According to Steves, (the famous travel guru who I long to come back as in my next life) the museum features “stories from failed couples from around the world, together with items representing their relationships.”  Included in the museum’s collection are “discarded wedding albums, sex toys with stories about unreasonable requests and plenty of items broken with vengeful wrath.”  Interesting to note is that the collection is “ever-changing” according to Steves.

                  As a family law and divorce attorney, I could not help but wonder if a similar museum would succeed in South Florida.  My mind began to work overtime as I created displays of various relics in my overactive imagination.   Broken crystal glasses, broken dishes, broken vases (hey, broken ANYTHING…think I’ve seen it all)  keys used to scratch cars, piles of empty wine bottles (perhaps we could turn them into some sort of free-form sculpture), ripped articles of clothing,  photos of storage units warehousing all the missing marital property, an iphone (or Android- I am politically correct) display where patrons could scroll through select text messages between parties and/or the cheating spouse and his/her paramour, videos of (fill in the blank) recorded by the private investigator, and so much more.  Come to think of it, I am sure I could truly have an ever changing collection that might even eclipse that of the Zagreb museum.   After all, doesn’t it always seem that the whacky news stories have at least some connection to South Florida?

                  Notwithstanding that I now revealed two alternate careers I might have enjoyed, to wit: museum curator and travel expert,   I suspect I will be in back in my office tomorrow, and the day after and, quite candidly, for the foreseeable future.  Still, I can always dream that in spite of imagining myself engaging in a new occupation, what I would really enjoy is not being able to think of more items to add to the “Broken Relationship Museum.”

                  True, whenever a marriage or relationship ends, usually there are remnants of what used to be.  Why expend so much energy in destroying these vestiges of the past? Maybe if people going through a divorce or breakup thought the results of their irrational actions would end up in some Broward County divorce attorney’s hypothetical museum they’d think before they sink. (Did I mentioned the sunken yacht?)    In all truthfulness, if couples going through these difficult times could focus on the good that previously existed in the relationship instead of dwelling on the bad, then they would spend much less time and a lot less money on attorneys and be ready to move on.  They might even save enough to go have those croissants in Paris.