"Something odd seems to happen to people when they split up. They forget their own responsibility for what they contributed not only to the relationship, but also to its end. If he was a calculating bastard, she had chosen to be with him. Besides, not every broken relationship is a failure. The connection between how long a love lasts and whether it can be deemed a success is a miserable hangover from the days when divorce was seen as a matter of shame. It is unimaginative, the idea that, to be worthwhile, a relationship should endure.
Some good things do not last. Their short, intense lifespan might be a matter of days, or even a night. They may end up broken, but they are only failures in the eyes of dreary puritans. Often they were, while they lasted, small triumphs of romantic life."
The Museum of Broken Relationships grew from a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins. Whatever the motivation for donating personal belongings – be it sheer exhibitionism, therapeutic relief, or simple curiosity – people embraced the idea of exhibiting their love legacy as a sort of a ritual, a solemn ceremony. In the words of Roland Barthes in A Lover's Discourse: "Every passion, ultimately, has its spectator... (there is) no amorous oblation without a final theater."
