Broke up with my co-author after manuscript was submitted... now what?

[authorshipissuesssss]

I'm a postdoctoral fellow who graduated from my PhD program a year ago. A couple of months after I graduated, I became close to one of the faculty in my former program, and we unintentionally fell in love. We submitted a manuscript together about two weeks ago, and she broke up with me out of nowhere last week and cut off all contact (truly, nothing happened in terms of any sort of altercation--she just sort of... left. Crushing for me, but that's not the point of this post). When she broke up with me, she actually mentioned the manuscript specifically and said how great it was and that I could either leave her on or take her off, but that she wouldn't be helping with any revisions (she said she knew that I would "do an amazing job" with them).

Issues, as I see them are:
-She wrote about a third of the manuscript--ethically, I wouldn't feel comfortable claiming solo authorship and she said specifically that leaving her on or not was my call (I'm first author).
-The manuscript is a combination of our areas of expertise. I don't think I can well address revisions that address those areas because I don't know that much about them.
-It seems borderline unethical to just abandon a manuscript that's already been submitted. I don't want to have to give up the manuscript because we broke up.

Any thoughts, advice, etc., on how to handle this?

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[MCParent]

Edit: nevermind....

 

[affectiveH3art]

Hmmm. This is a tricky one. Was she married? Sorry that was my own curiosity. In regards to your question- maybe she deserves her name on the pub then ask her who you can refer to for content since she doesn't want involvement? They may want their name in their too though. I'm wondering what other folks think? That kind of sucks. Reminds me of my situation. Dating the stats guy is not smart when you have many projects you need him to analyze. I didn't think that one through. Good luck!


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[deleted343839]

It seems borderline unethical to just abandon a manuscript that's already been submitted.

Leaving your co-author hanging in the middle of the publication process is a form of author misconduct. But most co-author situations do not involve ex-lovers who were faculty in the co-author's training program, so practically speaking I think you need to do a gut check and decide how far you really want to take this to see the thing published.

One acceptable solution, and probably the one I would choose, would be to write to the journal editor to withdraw the manuscript and copy your co-author. Then don't look back.

 

[erg923]

 

[AppsAintNoThang]

Leaving your co-author hanging in the middle of the publication process is a form of author misconduct. But most co-author situations do not involve ex-lovers who were faculty in the co-author's training program, so practically speaking I think you need to do a gut check and decide how far you really want to take this to see the thing published.

One acceptable solution, and probably the one I would choose, would be to write to the journal editor to withdraw the manuscript and copy your co-author. Then don't look back.

As unpleasant as it is, I agree with the above. You've gotten yourself in a sticky ethical dilemma here. I would pull it and see if I can salvage the pieces that I am expert in to create a new manuscript in the future.

 

[WisNeuro]

As they say, don't poop where you eat.

 

[dpmd]

As far as I see you are anticipating a problem that doesn't exist yet. Why not just wait and see what is said about the manuscript before abandoning it or bothering her about it. With time and you respecting her wishes not to see you things may that enough that if some revisions are required that you really don't feel capable of handling it might be possible to get her to participate in revisions in a way that doesn't require much interaction. However, it is possible that none of the revisions will require her input. Taking her name off would be a petty thing to do.

 

[PsychDreams]

As far as I see you are anticipating a problem that doesn't exist yet. Why not just wait and see what is said about the manuscript before abandoning it or bothering her about it. With time and you respecting her wishes not to see you things may that enough that if some revisions are required that you really don't feel capable of handling it might be possible to get her to participate in revisions in a way that doesn't require much interaction. However, it is possible that none of the revisions will require her input. Taking her name off would be a petty thing to do.

I bolded the above for emphasis. Would it actually be petty considering that she said she could be removed? I'm asking honestly, as I've seen some authorship shenanigans in my grad school career. I would say it's unethical to publish it as sole author if she still wanted to be involved (doesn't she have the right to remove her name from publications?), but that if she gave permission to publish without her you're in the clear (although it's clearly not ideal).

In my graduate department an advisor asked another graduate student to remove her name from a publication she was working on with a different professor (to which she had contributed greatly) due to office politics (really sketchy, I know). This same advisor has also removed their name from at least one publications that I've been aware of after the manuscript was already written, but not submitted. Based on this individual's behavior, I assumed "pulling authorship" happened a bit more in academia. Guess this post is highlighting how skewed my experiences have been...

 

[madeincanada]

As they say, don't poop where you eat.

This is a problem for me since my office (where I eat my lunch) is so close to the bathroom.

Any suggestions?

 

[dpmd]

I bolded the above for emphasis. Would it actually be petty considering that she said she could be removed? I'm asking honestly, as I've seen some authorship shenanigans in my grad school career. I would say it's unethical to publish it as sole author if she still wanted to be involved (doesn't she have the right to remove her name from publications?), but that if she gave permission to publish without her you're in the clear (although it's clearly not ideal).

In my graduate department an advisor asked another graduate student to remove her name from a publication she was working on with a different professor (to which she had contributed greatly) due to office politics (really sketchy, I know). This same advisor has also removed their name from at least one publications that I've been aware of after the manuscript was already written, but not submitted. Based on this individual's behavior, I assumed "pulling authorship" happened a bit more in academia. Guess this post is highlighting how skewed my experiences have been...

She didn't ask you to remove her name. You said she left the decision to you. You acknowledge she had heavy participation thus far. Removing her name just because she doesn't want to interact with you anymore would be petty to me. Doesn't mean you can't do it or that others wouldn't do it, just means that I think it reflects poorly on you to do so unless something in the situation changes (she asks to remove her name, you significantly rework the paper to remove her contributions, something similar)

 

[WisNeuro]

Well, you can poop close to where you eat, I'd just make sure there are some walls and/or doors separating the two.

 

[Pragma]

I would just leave her on. Seems silly to take her off at this point. Take the high road.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Most/all journals have you sign a statement that addresses the distribution of work and contributions. This would give me pause to remove her name. See what the reviewers say and if you can make the changes yourself. THEN cross the bridge if it is outside of your knowledge. Asking for outside assistance and mentioning them in the acknowledgment could work too.

 

[CheetahGirl]

Gosh...and all I think about is salvaging that first-authored manuscript (all judgments about the relationship aside). Since it was already submitted, can you just see where the chips may fall (perhaps the only sections needing editing involve things you can take care of your own), and just hope for the best (publication and perhaps finding someone new who doesn't engage in 'ghosting'). If you care to, let us know what you finally decide.

Good luck!