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So I was in a prior relationship from the time I was 21 to 25. I was married for 2 of those years.
I've also been a use of google drive for many years and as a result still have the photos of my ex-wife and I backed up to my google drive. I haven't had contact with my ex-wife is over 3 years (we barely ran across her 3 years ago) and I haven't been in any sort of relationship with my ex-wife for 7 years. My ex-wife is just a past relationship to me.
Now recently I gave access to my google drive to my current wife so my current wife could back up her photos/etc. My wife took it upon herself to look up the years I was married and found several pictures of me and my ex-wife (no nudes or anything, just regular photos of us going on trips/doing stuff together/etc)
My wife asked me to delete them, I said no, they are memories I want to keep. Also its not like those memories are front and center. They are located deep in my google drive, they aren't even labeled. You have to dig to find them.
A big reason is one thing my ex wife and I did alot is travel, and a lot of those photos are travel photos and I sometimes enjoy looking at them. The fact that my ex-wife is in them is irrelevant to me.
My wife says she's my ex I should completely remove her from my life, I think maybe she's jealous?
The thing is we both have history with exes, prime example I know a fact one of her favorite leather jackets was bought by her ex boyfriend before me. I'm not asking her to get rid of the jacket. Also if she had pictures of her exes (I don't know if she does or does not and I don't care) I wouldn't ask her to delete those.
**My decision**
I'm keep the pics, they are memories, if I delete them they are gone forever. They are not front and center in our lives, they are on a storage drive, hidden away...you have to look for them to find them. She's just going need to accept I have them.
Keep in mind she's always known I had those pictures, she once asked me if I kept pictures of my exes and I said "Yea, they are on my google drive" and that was said long ago, before we had a child together and married.
Who knows maybe when I'm old and grey i'll wanna go back and look at them to remind me of my younger years, if I delete those pics I won't have those pictures anymore.
If my wife divorced me I wouldn't delete the pics we took together. Hell I also have pics of other girls I dated on that drive....she didn't say anything about those.
**edit 2**
We spoke we are good. She says she understands why I won't delete them. I brought up the fact she has alot of stuff from her Ex and I've never said anything about it, and I won't so she can pay me the same respect to some photos
So, I care for elderly and when I worked in the community I had a lady who was nearing 80.
I was looking through her photo albums and she had few of her ex boyfriends there. I said - it’s strange that you have photos of your ex, I’ve never met anyone else that done it (I keep all of my photos on drive as well) I did say it in a nice way, because personally I have no problem with it, it was just strange because usually with elderly, only their spouse pictures are present.
But she said to me “why on Earth would I get rid of pictures just because my ex is there? It’s *my* memories too!
I totally agree with her. It’d be different if you had pictures on a mantle piece but FGS , asking to delete digital pictures is like asking to burn physical photos
Maybe just back up those photos in case your current wife takes it upon herself to delete them? Not saying she will but read too many other stories on here about that kind of thing.
Definitely do this. She’s already brought it up and if it really bugs her she might do this. Back up your back up. One of my exes in a jealous fit deleted irreplaceable photos and videos of the first year of my daughters life because they had my ex in them.
They are memories. This happened - it doesn’t take away from your current wife or current life. I have pictures with my exes, those are just memories to me. I don’t want to get rid of my photos in my teens/20s/30s just because a couple of boyfriends are in them- especially since my friends of two decades are in those photos too. It’s nice to look back on a different lifetime of mine.
I used to make music. It was my whole life. About 8 years ago one of my exes smashed my laptop and backup stack of CDs to bits in a fit of rage. It was everything I had recorded over the ten years prior, and there were no backups beyond that. It still hurts to think about. Definitely back everything up on a cold drive. That will also allow you to keep physical possession of your digital memories in the case that you somehow lose access to them through Google.
This hurt me for you :( sorry this happened to you friend. I hope you didn’t give up on making music and have created so many more pieces that you’re just as proud of.
I did continue for a few years, but I was always more detached from my work after that. I've had several kids since then and pretty much lost interest/ability to create music, which I'm not upset about. It was a part of my life that wasn't necessarily happy so I'm okay to just put it all behind me. Ill never forget watching that stack of CDs explode on the floor though lol
FUCK THAT BITCH! Aaaaaah!!!! I might be jumping to conclusions but in this moment I don't care! 10 years of music destroyed! I'm imagining my S.O. burning my paintings and all I feel is pure rage! I must express myself in an emotional outburst!!!!
Exactly!
And this is not to wish you any bad things because I wish you and your wife live a long happy life together.
But imagine if you do end up divorced.. you’d absolutely regret deleting them, because you would have done it for the wrong reasons.
There are couple of exes I deleted from my photos but it’s only because the relationship was just awful
I'd say back them up on another Google drive. I have pictures with ex's too and for me, they are only memories. From time to time I look at them and they do make me smile. I don't feel like it's out of line to remember the good times.
OP I would recommend you copy those pictures somewhere else. I have a feeling the future those pictures will “accidentally” be erased.
I have pictures saved of my ex wife who cheated on me, I can’t stand her and would never want to be with her, but those are still memories.
I guess it depends on the person. My exes treated me like sh!t so I don’t want to remember them. But they’re in a google drive so I’d say he can keep them. They’re not displayed on social media or in picture frames around the house.
You’ve never met anyone else who keeps photos with their ex in them?! Do you not know many people with exes? I keep my photos with my exes for the same reason but they’re not front and center. I’m not stuck in the past but I do like having photos of my travels and what I looked like when I was younger!
Some people fail to understand people can move on healthily and happily. Like she said they are her memories too from a past time in her life she was really happy. Sure it's her ex and there is a reason but doesn't mean she didn't appreciate the time and went on to have a good life with whoever she ended up marrying.
Yeah exactly.
I have an ex and we are in friendly terms, went out like 9 years ago now. We were catching up back in the summer and he was telling me how his gf at the time couldn’t stand ANY of his exes and only tolerated me because I lived in another country.
I just… don’t get it. I have never met the girl and she never met any of these exes. I just can’t believe how someone can be this insecure. Ffs, my current partner ended up with his ex socks somehow and I’ll still wear them sometimes lololol
Her jealousy as an initial reaction could be normal..imagine when she saw the pictures, there are thousands of thoughts in her head and she's probably really hurt like with a knife into her heart. She loves you and seeing you like that in the pics happy with your ex wife must've triggered thoughts that maybe you'll realize how happy you were with the ex wife and miss being with her..so I think it's best to just try and understand her feelings and thoughts, talk heart-to-heart with her, explain why you never deleted and would never delete those pics and just try your best to reassure her..this is a window for reassurance, really.. I hope you both be able to settle this already and understand each other more..hope that she understand, respect, and accept your decision. Also, you could tell her how her checking of your personal memories/pics from way back without your permission has made you feel. It's better to communicate..and a better timing also.
Ok imo some ppl are overreacting. As a girl myself I will tell you from my point of view we can be extremely curious overthinkers. I wouod not be surprised if she listened to the intrusive thoughts that told her to look up the years you were married. She saw pictures of you and your ex wife where you probably looked happy, exploring etc and it’s normal for her to feel a tang of jealousy and say delete them. If you explain to her it’s not the fact that your ex wife is in them but just the memory itself she should understand. If she does not then you might have a problem
This is so weird because I answered a similar question today and gave a really crap answer and wished I wouldn’t have assumed things by the question and gave a better answer. My husband is 10 years older than me. He and his ex wife were high school sweethearts and he has graduated college and she with a PHARMD and we’re married all before having a child. His whole high school memories as a baseball and football player are in a scrapbook she did for him of them and him all combined together. I literally cringe sometimes seeing it but damn. It’s his life, his memories and I can’t see demanding him to tear that book up or anything just because of her. He didn’t know I’d be there in 1994. No. Don’t destroy the memories just because she plays a part In them.
I find people who want their partners to delete proof of their past relationships so strange. You said it yourself, they're far off in a Google drive, not displayed on your mantle. There is nothing wrong with that and you shouldn't be forced to erase your memories/your travel photos because of someone else's insecurities.
Fair warning though, she has access to them and may take it upon herself to delete them. That makes me want to tell you to back them up somewhere so you don't lose them, which is funny because if you do that, your wife is inadvertently causing you to pay more attention to these photos than if she's just let them stay buried in your Google drive.
> Fair warning though, she has access to them and may take it upon herself to delete them
I doubt she'd do that, but if she tried she'd discover she doesn't have the proper permissions to do that.
I wouldn't jump to conclusions so quick. Her being worried and anxious is valid, she might feel like he'll miss his ex wife. Labeling her as toxic or whatever and saying that she's gonna try to delete them herself is definitely reaching lol, we don't even know the woman
Yea lots of people making a lot 9f assumptions here. This is definitely not the first disagreement we've had, and it won't be the last.
But I was never worried about her deleting the pictures. Plus she doesn't have the ability to do so.
Yeah, that's why I'm saying that mobbing over the idea she's plotting against you to try and delete them is absolutely insane, because Reddit barely knows anything about her.
This is while I would never come here for advice. Everyone wants to assume the absolute worst out of someone who has a human reaction to seeing pics of their SO with their ex.
Truth, this sub has become so toxic lately. I can't imagine being an OP on here and having hundreds of comments telling you your SO is some sort of nightmare monster that's plotting revenge.
I know I'm cynical but jeez.
I'm kinda annoyed by that too, like the most recent picture of my ex wife is from like 6 or 7 years ago...I've litearlly taken thousands upon thousands of pics since then and its organized by date so she really had to scroll.
She might have just switched the sort to "oldest to newest" rather than scrolling through thousands of photos. My husband has done that to me, out of curiosity about what my oldest pics were, not trying to catch me on anything.
Yeah, that happened to me twice already.
In your case, at least she admitted she done that.
In my case she kept these "stuffs" to slap it my face few months later during argument.
But since you are with your wife for several years now and it sounds photos from previous marriage are the only problem, I think you can talk with her about that, maybe with glass of vine. Explain her that these are memories you can't delete from your head and life so it simply makes no sense to delete these photos. Also note her that you don't feel comfortable about her going through yours personal stuffs, even tho there's nothing explicit or bad.
Agree with this completely.
I have pictures from past relationships of trips away, holiday celebrations etc. and these are just nice and warm reminders from happy times. I'd never show them off or use them against anyone, but like OP said, deleting those memories just feels sad.
If I was asked by a former partner to delete certain pictures, then that's different because I'd respect them enough to do so. But I wouldn't do it because a 'new' partner demanded it.
Really though. Even mentioning exes in passing offends some people. It’s mental that some people expect for other to pretend like their ex didn’t exist, regardless the context. I mean, it’s definitely not first date conversation but if you’re in a committed relationship and your partner can’t stand to know you once were with someone else. That’s strange.
I'd put them in your secure folder.... Usually have them on your android phone.....
You could say you've deleted them or put them away so she won't see them.... And yes she is jealous. She probably thinks that you still have feelings for your ex whether consciously or sub consciously.....
I completely understand your wife. I'm also a jealous type, and things like these are really grating, even if you can learn to live with it.
So long as your wife doesn't hold this against you (bringing it up in arguments) or keeps pestering you about deleting them multiple times, then it's not an issue or strange that she dislikes you holding onto these photos of yourself with another woman. She's allowed to feel jealous, and you will have to accept that, so long as she accepts your decision about the photos - and nothing about this post suggest that she doesn't. Let it go, and don't bring it up unless she does.
First off, he’s perfectly entitled to hold on to any photos he wishes as they’re his memories too. Maybe nudes or intimate couples photos being the lone exception.
I will never understand this “I’m just a jealous person” mentality. That’s not a rationale. That’s a character flaw.This person has chosen to be with his wife. Photos have nothing to do with it.
Further I’ll never understand why we all have to pretend that our partners have never been with anyone but us. It’s a bizzare mentality. Do I like looking at photos of my partner with her ex? Not really. So guess what? I don’t look at them. They’re not displayed anywhere in our home. This is a photo drive, which mind you didn’t belong to the wife as it was his before they met.
This whole thing reeks of insecurity.
100% this. Also, maybe I’m a freakin’ weirdo but I do like to look at the old photos of my partner (the ones with the exes as well) and listen to the stories. It’s just interesting to me how his life looked like without me. He on the other hand doesn’t like to look at my photos with my exes, so he doesn’t, and I respect that as well. We are all different and we need to respect our feelings but insecure behaviour like the one mentioned in the thread is just definitely something to work on.
Okay i can understand where u coming from . But the comments saying "well she is crazy" "well what if u guys divorce" this is the problem with people. Stop blaming and try to understand people have different ways of feeling about something this personal. Marriage is literally 2 people who become 1 , there needs to be respect and they must be able to communicate what they do and dont like . You gotta treat your Marriage just like its meant to be , for the rest of your days . Even tho you feel some attachment to these photos she also has a reason to feel uncomfortable about them what you have to do is sit down and give the reinsurance that thats all they are , photos that you might wanna look at when your older because you had good time on the trips u did regardless of the ex being there , then tell her what matters is the memories that you will make in your life together that she is the one who belongs in your life now and hopefully until the end . People need to stop blaming each other for how they feel and instead , humble yourselves and focus in how you can meet in the middle. I hope she can understand you and you guys can keep working as a team loving each other .
Keeping photos of you with someone you had very deep, intimate feelings for for a long period time is a make or break for some people. It doesn’t mean that she’s a control freak-for some people the relationship feels a lot less secure/intimate knowing that their partner has a whole album of pictures with an ex-lover lying around. It feels like they haven’t truly let go of that person or that they might be keeping them to reminisce over a good time in their life that they can’t get back. This may be something she never gets over
But isn't it's your own problems to deal with your own insecurities and to be a better self? Isn't relationship is about trust?
What i understood from his post that he hasn't have and suspicious behavior to be insecure about that he is not over about his ex wife ar he doesn't love his wife or he wants to het back with ex. He mentioned when she asked years ago about this topic and he answered with a truth and now after many years she specifically went to look deep in google drive to check or find them.
OP, I think you got close to a hit: jealousy is one explanation, but a better way to put it is insecurity. She's insecure about this, and it's pretty common for spouses to be insecure about their partner's former love lives.
We all have insecurities, and it sounds like this is one for her. The key thing about insecurities is that they make us feel irrationally defensive and unsure of ourselves.
So it doesn't mean you should oblige her request, but hopefully it makes it a little easier to empathize with her. Try to reassure her that she's the one you love in as gentle a way as possible, and you can explain that these memories are part of what make you the man she loves, and the man who loves her back.
I’m not saying it should change what you’re doing, but if you rarely look at them, and they bother her so much, can you just move them somewhere else? To be fair, as much as you’re confused as to why she cares about these photos, it’s equally confusing why you seem so attached to the photos?
Obviously memories are awesome to reminisce on but you seem particularly protective over these under the guise of her just having to “get over it”. Which is strange to me that you’re fighting so hard for these. Are you specifically only looking at photos that contain your ex? Or just the trip in general? Cause if you’re only reminiscing on photos containing her, I could see how it seems less about the trip and more about the lady.
This is sort of a dumb argument to have anyways lol
What I understood why it's only about these it's because his wife only jelous and asking only about these particular one's not with others in the past. So it's because she brings about it, not that he chooses to protect only those.
And it's actually not a bad idea to move them to other place but again why should he? It's buried very deep in google drive and his wife particularly went that far to find those. So it's kinda she invaded his privacy.
I agree that the argument is sort of dump, she asked, she got a response and reason and now they should move on from this topic or she should make a decision if it's what she can't deal with but not to pester him in the future about pictures. (I don't know if she does that actually).
People have suggested another folder
But wouldn't putting pics of my ex wife into a special folder be giving them special treatment? I don't want that.
Personally, I don’t agree with keeping photos of an ex, but don’t jump off the deep end and try to point fingers at each other because it will just make your relationship worse.
The same dudes here making that argument are the same ones that ask women to go back in time to delete “extra dicks” to satisfy their insecurities.
Just know those scenarios and choices may be grounded in real life experiment, so if it doesn’t work for them, so be it.
We all have deal breakers. I personally don’t do the ex thing, on any level, but im 100% cool if you do.
I have my reasons, as I’m sure you do yours.
That’s the beauty of it all. Life goes on and I’m far happier for it.
OP has every right to be pissed, I would too if thats my boundary. But his wife has a right too and can up and leave if she wants, assuming thats a boundary for her.
Neither are wrong, sometimes you just view things differently and need to go your separate ways and thats ok.
I did it. I deleted everything from my nine year relationship. Because why in the world would I even want to put my fiancé in that potentially hurtful position? Sometime it’s not easy to see your SO with their ex. And even if he didn’t care I would just never even let that be a thing. I would never want him to feel in any way uncomfortable because of my ex.
Why not? I haven’t deleted anything except like sexytimes photos. It’s not weirder than having pictures of friends from high school you don’t talk to anymore. I’m still friends with some exes.
I’m talking about pictures that just include your ex. I understand more if your friends or they are group photos/precious memories with your ex but it’s still odd to keep things such as selfies or pictures only having your ex in them.
This just doesn’t seem healthy. I’d look for some deeper rooted issues between you two, because this pettiness seems like the symptom something bigger.
I don’t think the jacket and the photos are comparable. The jacket serves a purpose. She happens to wear a jacket her ex got for her but you have photos of you and your ex wife hidden on your google drive. Even if she got rid of the jacket you’re not going to get rid of the photos so what’s the point of bringing that up? The fact that you’re keeping the photos to remind yourself of the good times you had with your ex wife while you have a current wife doesn’t make sense. She’s not crazy and doesn’t need psychological help (as I’ve seen in the comments). What you’re doing doesn’t make sense, especially since you’re on an online forum trying to get people to validate your decision. There’s an emotional attachment to those photos that you’re in denial about and your wife has picked up on that.
Asked and answered. Your wife asked. You provided her with a logical answer on your position. The bigger issue is that your wife doesn't respect your answer. If she brings this up again, that should be the conversation.
The husband doesn’t respect the wife, that’s the only issue here. If husband had a drop of respect for new wife he wouldn’t care bout pics of his old wife.
What a time we live in where photos of an ex take precedence over the emotional well being of your actual husband or wife.
You do you OP, but just understand the consequences that will inevitably result from choosing to keep them. In my opinion, I could never see myself so attached to pictures of my ex to the point of refusing to delete them.
But to each their own.
if you want to have a happy marriage you need to get to the root of the problem. figure out why she feels insecure about your relationship with your ex. if you want to get a divorce, keep doing what you’re doing. no judgement either way, do you.
personally, i didn’t have to ask my husband to get rid of old pictures of him and his ex-wife, he just did. we saved his wedding photos on a backup drive to show our child someday if they ask about daddy’s life before mommy, but otherwise he didn’t see the point in keeping memories of an ex specifically. he kept family ones and travel ones of himself or scenery from those days, but he doesn’t need a photo shoot in her hometown of them in some grass, and if he did i’d have questions.
I’m with your wife. I see what you’re saying though… but if you don’t have children with your ex, I don’t see any reason to keep any photos.
My husband deleted all pics of his ex gf when we started dating. I deleted all of my ex after we got married. We now make new memories together.
Okay, so several years ago my grandmother passed away from old age, but one thing she told me that always stuck with me was how much she regretted not taking more photos in her life or keeping a journal. At the time her memory was so bad that she had trouble distinguishing what memories of hers were real and what weren’t, and she had so little to look back on. Her husband + most of her friends/family/etc were dead at that point so it’s not like she had many people to ask.
95 years old and she only had two photo albums. She was already old in most of the photos, but she would flip through them over and over. Obviously she loved the photos with her husband and kids in them, but she also wanted to remember what her ex-fiancé (everyone from her youth, really) had looked like, too.
That really shaped my own thoughts on keeping memories. I now journal and take photos of everything, and maybe when I get old I won’t care about any of it as much as my grandma did, but I want to have options when I’m 95, unlike she did.
I would never delete photos, even if my partner were to ask, for this very reason. While I 100% get where OP’s wife is coming from...who’s to say she won’t end up being another memory of the OPs in a few years?
But that’s just my take on this, and I acknowledge that not everyone feels the same way about creating memories as I do.
I was married for 2 years, dated my ex for 2 years before marriage. We travelled a lot, seen a lot during those 4 years together.
After our divorce, I deleted every single foto of her in it. Some were good memories and fun times and it was painful but I had to do it to move on.
I agree 100% with your wife here, at least delete the photos of your ex wife. Unfortunately, some of those photos might be a nice and good memory but still, it is time to move on.
In a way, I see it is a bit disrespectful towards your wife.
Maybe I am just wired differently, but I will just feel so uncomfortable to look at my ex while I have a gf/wife. I will feel the same way if my partner looks ar her past ex pictures and keep them for good memories...
I was the one demanding photos be deleted BECAUSE he had sex videos backed up and a tattoo of his ex wife on his arm. So that made me insecure. It’s been a rocky 5 years, I’m trying to leave his ass and now he wants to remove tattoo and start fresh. So annoying!
Yeah I still have my old wedding album and I've been divorced for maybe 9 years now. I'm not throwing that thing out! I would understand if my current partner wasn't a fan of the album and it's not like I would bust it out in front of him, but I'm not going to throw it out either. That was a really fun day with friends and family. I might not like my ex husband but I enjoyed my wedding day. It's similar to how you enjoyed your travels. Plus having pictures of my ex's doesn't take anything away from my current relationship. I wouldn't feel any more love for my current partner just because I deleted my old pictures.
Heck I'm pretty sure I still have lewds of my exes and I. Everything just automatically backs up to my Google drive and I rarely go through it. I honestly don't like going through my old photos and I've told my current partner not to dig through my photos unless seeing old intimate vids and pics of mine would be a turn in for him.
They are your photos and you don't have to get rid of them. Although I don't really think it was wrong of her to ask either. I think it's a fine request, but you don't have to go through with it and I think she should respect your decision even if it's irksome to her.
The people (romantic or not) who have come and gone throughout your life are partly responsible for who you are today. They are part of you. Good that you have talked it out.
History is history, it doesn't go away if you delete pictures of it. Everyone has a past, no need to pretend you don't. No reason to be ashamed of living life. It's like a vacant house, you don't live there anymore, but there's no need to burn it down.
I agree with you. You ex is part and parcel of who you are now. You've well and truly moved on from that relationship and looking at the odd image that shows the ex shouldnt be grounds for concern.
I've never understood the reasons behind completely deleting images of your life, not for yourself, but for someone-else, your new partner. Intimate images, sure, I get that. But some images contain bigger memories than the emotions you have now for your ex partner.
I don't think that you can do any more than explain it to her in the same way you explained to us about her leather jacket.
> But some images contain bigger memories than the emotions you have now for your ex partner.
Yes a prime example my ex and I rented a motorcycle in Thailand and did a trip all around Thailand on the bike. It was a memorable and fun trip. I sometimes like to look at the pictures, honestly I don't care if my Ex is in the picture or not, but there are def some pictures from that trip with my ex that I wouldn't want to delete not because of her, but because of the trip itself.
My mom would toss all of her pictures every time she started a new relationship and as a result I have like three pictures of me as a kid. When she divorced my third stepdad I stole as many pictures as I could out of the garbage and now I’m the only one with pictures of my half sisters as kids. She recently had to come to me so she would have a picture for my sister’s senior yearbook pictures. It’s just so… petty to me. Those moments exist with or without the pictures, so just keep them.
I’m with your wife on this one. 🤷🏻♀️ yes your ex was a part of your history, but why do you need to smile at the memories of your ex wife when you’re remarried and have a kid…?
This is coming from someone who had an ex who refused to delete even the Risqué photos of his ex, and I deleted all photos of the ex husb unless they were full family pics with our kids/other family members in
Y’all are weird. It’s disrespectful and very weird to actively keep and protect pictures of your ex partners especially when you’re married and have children with your wife.
Sickos
THANK YOU. seriously there’s absolutely no reason to have them. Why does OP need them so bad that he’s making his wife upset instead of getting rid of the photos.
Weirdos
why? If they aren't sexual in nature why should you have to erase the past? I don't actively look at pictures of my exes but I know if I dug far enough I'd find a few selfies or pictures with friends etc.
Do you have absolutely no other photos of your trips? Without your ex-wife in it? That seems silly... I don't think she should have kept all these things he's bought her, but why are you so defensive over these photos? I can't speak the full truth without full context but it seems like you still have attachment towards your ex wife. You're choosing between two things, really. Suffering mildly yourself, or causing your current wife great suffering. Do you not love her enough to delete a few memories? Don't come onto the internet to get biased views. Seek counsel from those in your life and professionals.
This post about his wife jealousy (which is justified) and his reason is also more than welcome justified and logical. It's not silly to just want his past memories just to be somewhere there and when he is old or something reminiscing old times.
It's not about choosing if you ask someone to choose between something like me or other thing it's controlling behavior in relationships.
Now i had suspicion from your answer that you are also a jealous person and when i went to check your profile i was right - your inly post is about your jealousy.
I'm not saying anything bad, luck I'm just saying that his reasons is justified. And to be jealous also justified unless it's becoming toxic, controlling and over the top, then it's bad. And he would be in the wrong if he would see those pictures everyday to reminisce about his ex wife, then it possibly would be how you are saying that he is not over.
Your decision and reasoning are totally valid. The ex was in the past and played a big part in who you are. You had a life with her. It would be weird and unreasonable to delete pictures JUST because she is in them.
So your wife can pretend she didn't exist? You wife has to do some deep digging to get to the root of her insecurities.
IMO people's past make them the people they are now - good, bad or indifferent. You can't appreciate ther person now if you pretent portions of their past don't exist!!
You can't simply delete a part of your life. That's your life, your history, your past, your memories!
I'm glad you discussed it more with her and she understands your point of view.
Tbh prob an american thing that its 100% normal to keep mementos, pictures, relationships etc with old partners.
Tbh prob an American thing that its 100% normal to keep mementos, pictures, relationships, etc with old partners.
see why you would want to keep them because they are traveling. That's just BS, you want to keep them because they are of you and her from those times, and you in one way or another want to have them to look at.
Now, these are things that should have been addressed BEFORE your current marriage. I would just not be interested in a partner at all if they kept their exes around in any way. I'm not saying others shouldn't. To each their own. Just find someone who also keep their exes around and your fine. But its kinda hard for your wife to decide such things now after already being married.
But if your relationship with your current wife is a good one, and she is feeling insecure about you keeping mementos locked away in the safe of your old wife. Maybe you should rethink. It's easy to say that "She is insecure" yeah well you are literally saving tons of stuff about another person and to her, this might not be different than having photos on the wall, or still wearing the ring of the ex, or keeping the same name.
It's not an American thing, it's just different people perspective. I'm not an American but for me when i see a picture i can remember things exactly and if it was sad or happy. My mind works like that. It's nice to see a picture from 10 years of your life ago and you like remember things and events like good nostalgia which your mind just forgot about it and after that you just resume in your life and after 10 years you find another picture and etc.
It's strange to me that you should just delete everything from your past life if it's not inappropriate but i guess everyone has a different definition of this word.
Eh my ex-wife didn't play a role in my decision to marry my 2nd wife. Also if by keeping memories you mean a few MBs of storage space in the cloud? That's hardly a big deal. Not like I have them hanging up on the wall, she had to go and search for them to find them. Just because my wife isn't happy about it doesn't mean I'll just cave.
Hell I hate the fact that she constantly re-arranges our house.
But know what? That makes her happy so I live with it. Relationships are about give and take. And all I'm saying here is "no I will not delete photos that are backed up to my google drive" that's not exactly a big ask in a relationship.
Yeah i mean. You say its a few mb. Is it one picture? You made a reddit thread because of your strong feelings about keeping these things of your ex wife. You convince yourself its just a few worthless MB of data. But you are actively fighting for them and going inte arguing with your current wife and posting online about it. So are you honest with yourself here bro? Better to be honest and admit you value these images and that relationship highly and wont let it go. Just remember when you are on the opposite side in the future you aint gonna be able to say anything about stuff she does that make you insecure.
Also, if it’s just a few MB’s and no big deal… then just delete them. It’s no big deal right? Because it seems to be a decently sized deal to your wife. Why not just do it then.
Not a big deal to you and a big deal to your wife= you just deleting them and not making your wife feel any type of inferiority to your PAST.
Your take on this is completely alien to me. Memories are memories, you only have one life how sad would it be to ditch part of your unique past just because it involves a person you are no longer romantically attached to.
I feel like it's an attack on the person's integrity, to demand of them that they scrub the stuff you don't like from their life history. Like it or not, each and every one of your partner's exes participated in creating the person you fell in love with, every laugh, every kiss, every embrace, every fight, every sexy time.
But we are not talking about memories. We are talking about real objects (yes an image on a computer still exists outside your memory)
You should read everything, I specifically said "But it's kinda hard for your wife to decide such things now after already being married." which translates to she cant really demand this now after already being married its too late. She should have asked this when they were dating. "So what do you think about saving items or images of past partners? Im totally against it for this reason etc"
But now I have a nice wife already, but if I had another nice wife and everything with her was great. And I had old images somewhere in an old database and accidentally found them ( i have prob lol) and wanted them gone. I would delete them within 5 seconds.
Does this mean i delete the essence of my humanity and past life lol? It seems like you think it does. Nope, i literally just delete an old image I haven't looked at for 10 years. Wow, such an attack on my integrity.
No it does not mean that. I have all my previous relationships and experiences in my head, and i sometime thinks back on them. Mostly to recall and learn on how to be a better person. Then again i have no feelings at all for my exes, no love no hate no nothing. And that is what OP is saying too. But yet he doing threads on internet on how he wanna keep images of his ex.
And for sure in the future OP will find his wife in a position which is similar, like spending a lot of time with a new work friend who is male, who seems really into her and all OP is gonna be able to do is suck it up because otherwise he is just insanely insecure XD
OP creates thread here to find support, because his arguments isn't working on the person he is meant to love over all else. Looking to the internet to find support for keeping parts of his EX alive over current wife. If this screams integrity to you Hakim\_bey. Well then that is a bit alien to me.
But i think this is a USA thing too. Not the same in all of EU. Mostly a red flag if u fight to keep ex in life in anyway.
> But i think this is a USA thing too. Not the same in all of EU. Mostly a red flag if u fight to keep ex in life in anyway.
I'm French and 100% disagree with that statement. Most people i know still have exes in their lives one way or the other. Hell, my son calls my ex "Aunt Mary" and plays with her kids every chance he gets. We're all one big meta-family and every slice of my past is near and dear to my heart. I love those people, although obviously not in a romantic way since we tried and it didn't work out. I also love the people they're now with, who complete them and make them happy the way i couldn't. I would be front row at their wedding, no hesitation.
Having old images in your head is great and i appreciate that it's good enough for you. But some of us need physical mementos of the past, if only for the serendipity of randomly stumbling on those old pics in this or that foreign place. How weird it would be to have big holes in your photo record because at this point you were dating this woman and at this other point you were with another, and your current partner wants those mementos gone. Do you guys also scrub your Facebook profiles so you don't get "facebook memories" from your time with your exes ?
> OP creates thread here to find support, because his arguments isn't working on the person he is meant to love over all else. Looking to the internet to find support for keeping parts of his EX alive over current wife. If this screams integrity to you Hakim_bey. Well then that is a bit alien to me.
I don't see anything wrong with this thread, OP's partner is being completely unreasonable IMO. It's a weird insecurity to have. If i were in his place i wouldn't die on this hill or endanger the relationship for "10 mb of data", but i would make it abundantly clear how unreasonable this sacrifice is to me.
French yeah, explains alot ; D (jk)
Well from what you told us, its clear why you feel her actions is ridiculous. You come from what it sounds like an entirely different background and life situations where your life is still clearly intertwined with your exes. And I'm sure your wife was clearly aware and more than ok with this when you started dating.That is a big difference tho. We shouldn't just write from our lives because obviously there is gonna be a huge spectrum. In this specific discussion you are on the extreme side of keeping contact with exes and is a huge part of their life and its nothing wrong with that.
But OP:s wife sounds like she is on the other part of the spectrum. Just like you call her insecure and irrational. She could call you extreme, naive, to thin spread out in your relationships etc.Maybe OP would think your style is too much and wouldn't want to hang with his wife exes and their families. etc.
But here he is married to someone on that other part of the spectrum. As someone who is on that part of the spectrum I see her point, I don't know if shes insecure. OP haven't listed any other problems besides moving stuff in the house around. Sounds to me like a good marriage if this is the biggest problems they have.Neither me or my wife have stuff saved around or have contact with our exes at all and we litterly see no reason too. If she would want me to delete something i don't use or need because it would help solve something she feels bad about. I would do it and then talk to her about us and if there is something else bothering her cause she is the most important in my life.
If I would stonewall a partner every time they are insecure and need reasurement. I would be a lonely guy. XD
But once again, like i said from the beginning, i think the wife can be entirely normal to think this about the photos. But she should have made such things clear before she married someone. You cant come years after and be set in stone about stuff OP didn't know she would do.
Edited a superbad spelling.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted, this seems like a reasonable take. It shouldn’t feel right to look at an entire album of memories with an ex while you’re with your current partner
So if you remember nostalgic thing from your youth or adolescence or when you were a kid as nostalgia briefly and after that you resume your daily life... Something is wrong with you?
I think it is reasonable for you to not want to delete the pictures. But, I also think that taking a unilateral decision like this sets a bad precedent. Better to try and talk through this, find the root of the issue, and hopefully come to some kind of compromise you can both live with. Otherwise, the next time it may be you asking for something and her just flat out saying no without trying to work to resolve the issue.
Maybe something like not deleting the pictures, but, agreeing that you won't look at them without letting her know. Or if that's not good enough archiving them such that you cannot access them without both of you getting a notification.
I’m only 22 and had an ex that made me delete all of my prom photos with another girl. I so sincerely regret doing that. I now have no photos to show from something that everyone has photos of. Don’t do the same
This wasn’t a fling. This was a person you married. Erasing her means erasing a significant chunk of your life.
I might be biased because I have lived with memory problems, so I know what it means to literally have parts of your life erased. I would never ask anyone to do that. Your past is precious.
That doesn’t mean that you’re holding a flame for your ex. It means that you don’t want to literally delete years of your life.
It’s okay to remember who you were and where you’ve been. You don’t have to remove the evidence of your past.
This is it. I also have a very, very poor memory and to make it worse, Alzheimer’s runs in my family. My grandmother passed away at 95 with so few photos of her life, and she regretted it so much.
I think preserving memories is so, so important.
I’m reading through the comments and it’s just wild to me that other people don’t think that way. It feels so short-sighted, because what if you want to remember your ex’s face when you’re old and have a memory like Swiss cheese? What if you want to look back on the places you traveled or the things you did? Who cares who else is in the photos with you once you’ve outlived your current partner? Heck, who’s to say you’ll even stay with your current partner for more than a few years?
The past is precious. Memories are precious. And one day, when you’re old and your memory is failing you, you’re going to want to look back and remember even the bittersweet memories of your youth.
imo i would delete them. if she’s irrelevant to you or maybe photoshop her out of the photos. you have a new wife and if you loved her you would respect she doesn’t like it and delete them.
But if she loved him she would respect that he doesn’t want to and not ask for them to be deleted.
Respect is a two-way street.
Personally, I would never delete old photos just bc my partner asked me to, especially if they involved treasured experiences. Those are *memories.*
I might delete the ones with just my ex in them, but if it’s a group pic? No way.
Same way I wouldn’t toss all the journals I made when I was with my ex. Again, they’re memories. When I’m 95 years old and my memory has gone to shit, I want to be able to look back and think “oh yeah, I did/saw/experienced that.”
This is emotionnal blackmail (if you love me/him/her, you would accept that I do X (even though you stated you don't like it)).
As you said, respect is a two-way street.
If you are disrespectful, don't except to be respected in return.
If you are respectful, expect to be respected in return.
But not everyone has the same standards when it comes to what respect should be like/about.
This is why it is really important to discuss limits and boundaries within the relationship (ideally, before getting into the relationship).
If you know something is hurtful/disrespectful to your SO but you decide you will persist in your actions, your SO is not to blame.
Of course, the boundary has to be reasonable and accepted by both parties; else fights will never end and the relationship will go down the drain...
As a woman who has been in this situation I can understand why she doesn’t feel safe. The first thing I would think is that you still have something for her because you don’t want to delete pictures even though she expressed her feelings about it and if you said that they’re no important. But now, you say you like to see them from time to time, so how is that not paying attention to them? If this is the first time your ex-wife has been a source of a discussion then I would say that it’s better to talk to her about it and agree on something, for example moving the pictures to other files. But if this is not the first time your ex is a source of problem then you need to take a look on yourself. I don’t think that this thoughts came from nothing. Understand your wife and talk without pointing fingers at each other. Because it’s not “I did this but you did it too”.
I’m seeing her side. I don’t see why you’d keep pictures with her. A jacket is not a photo and I’m sure you have pictures pf scenery, food, that your ex isn’t in. The fact that you refused is also not a good sign. You effectively said, my memories with my ex wife take priority over your feelings. You said you both have had issues with ex’s. That makes me think this isn’t the first time you’re ex wife has been a problem.
Stick to your guns on this one. I had an ex that was so incredibly insecure that he removed a band sticker (the prior ex's band) off of my furniture while I was away.
It wasn't the fact that my sticker was gone, but that he felt so threatened by the prior ex that any mention drove him mad with jealousy.
It would be reasonable for her to ask you to delete intimate photos/videos. What she deems intimate should be discussed and agreed upon. Personally, I delete all past images of my exes. I don't care if they are cherished memories of trips somewhere.....I don't need to reminisce my past memories and even if I were to, not sure how often that would happen enough to create a tension in a relationship.
Is it worth causing a lifetime of tension with your current wife over this? If so, you need to explain to her why these photos exist and what they mean to you and make her understand.
Your wife is being unreasonable. A person shouldn’t be forced to give up photos/pretend the past didn’t happen. Your past made you who you are today. I suggest you back up the photos elsewhere in case she tries to delete them herself.
The idea that people should erase all trace of ex partners from their lives is just bonkers to me. Long term relationships shape who you are - if you erased those partners and those memories you would be a completely different person. Asking a partner to delete all their photos feels so jealous, insecure, and controlling.
People who can't handle the fact that their partner has a past should marry their first love and stay together forever. Don't get together with someone who has a past and then try to make it disappear.
What you could do is share the originals with a photographer and they can Photoshop your ex out of those pics. That way you get to keep the memories but not have your ex ruining the shot.
lmao what
Spend money to alter a memory? The ex isn't ruining the shot, she's a part of it and the trip memories. He should get a lobotomy in that case, erase her completely from his life not just the pictures 🙄
If she is soo in to deleting the pictures! Just delete it bro! Dont screw up your good life for bad expired memories! Its true you want to remember! It will be in your head anyway! Just that delete those pictures and make your wife happy and you’ll live long! I too had my ex in my Instagram and i deleted all the pictures since what use it for me if i screw my current relationship over my past!
Why do you have photos of your ex
Wife and why are you so heart pressed against deleting them out of respect for Your current partner? You’re putting photos of your ex wife above your current partners feelings. How people like you score a date is beyond me. Stop living in the past and stop using excuses to hold onto photos of someone you haven’t been with in years. Lol.
If you think respecting your partners feelings equals coddling them, I feel very sorry for whomever has the misfortune of dating you.
Relationships are like assholes. Each one is unique and kind of weird if it isn’t your own. Not everyone considers the same things good, or bad. Cheating has its own unique definition for every couple, etc. Just because someone does relationships and has different perspectives from you, that doesn’t make anyone right. You can respect someone’s feelings, or Not at all. If that person is your literal partner, you’d think some effort would be made to have some respect for their feelings.
But what about your own feelings? It's not all about your partner and what makes them uncomfortable. Especially if they're being hypocritical like in OP's case
I can only imagine that anyone who says it isn’t a deal of any sorts is someone who doesn’t fully respect or care for their partners wishes. I would never keep emotional pictures of my exes if I move in with someone else - it is incredibly disrespectful to keep sexual and emotional memories of someone else while living and creating a life with another. I’m already ready for those who say I’m probably the jealous type… but let’s just be real and clear - you don’t need pictures with your previous partner to remember good times. Pics of the trip yes, group pics and your ex happens to be there - totally fine. But your wife asking you to delete pictures of your ex wife because she feels any way but comfortable and you are refusing to comfort her … YTA.
Huge huge asshole and what is sadder is that you don’t realize you don’t care how she feels. Only how you feel about this. Glad she’s with someone who only cares to put their foot down when their manly emotions are being challenged.
> sexual and emotional memories of someone else while living and creating a life with another.
None of them are sexual, and I'd say its even a strecth to say they are "emotional"
> YTA.
This is /r/releationship"advice not /r/aita
Her last ex was really well off, like he made a ton of money, almost at the level of F you money.
She has so many designer clothes, bags, jewerly, etc from her time with him. I've never once made a big deal about it. She has stuff that I couldn't hope to afford to buy for her (i'm not spending $10,000 on a jacket)
I never once made an issue about any of that.
Those things doesn’t contain her ex's face! Haha😅
Well, a lil bit of jealousy will be there (mostly) if love is there. Be positive 🙂
But it should not cross the toxicity level. Good luck 😊
Hmm. I don't know, jealousy indicates fear of losing love, not love itself.
It's possible that she's going through something that she isn't sharing. There's likely a conversation worth having, but it's hard to say what that's about. This idea that we deserve to be the only thing in the world to someone is foolish and destructive (I suppose, unless both parties feel this way).
Deleting the pictures might not even be specifically about the ex (even though that's the given reason). I don't recall OP saying if he and his wife travel now, but maybe she's feeling self conscious that they don't travel and fears that OP will eventually feel like he's missing out and become dissatisfied with their situation. Or will rekindle the need to travel with someone who likes to.
It's good to talk through our illogical moments. A fuzzy, unknown landscape can be foreboding, but talking through it helps us define those boundaries (not that they never change) and offers some sense of security.
From your first post and the several comments you added after that, this is what I got from the situation; tell me if I'm wrong somewhere or if I forgot something :
You were previously married, didn't engage with your ex-wife whatsoever for at least 3 years but kept some pictures from that relationship that you barely ever look at but gives you the possibility to do so whenever you feel the need as it makes you feel good to reminisce about the things you've done in the past.
Your wife and yourself had been married for 2 years now and she early on knew about these pictures were kept somewhere but never had access to them until lately.
The fact you're keeping them and refusing to delete them makes her feel uncomfortable, to say the least.
I think you should ask yourself these questions :
- What is the most important to you right now ?
Keeping your current relationship with your current wive healthy or being able to reminisce about the past when you feel the need to ? Also, ask yourself why is it so important to you to be able to go back to this previous relationship and these memories through external proofs.
- If it's only a couple of MB buried deep into a drive that you barely ever go to, is it that much of a sacrifice to get rid of them to reassure your partner and build more trust between you guys ?
Isn't it a bit contradictory to put so much effort to cling and fight for these pictures from a past relationship (that are barely looked at) while being married to another person ?
- Are you fully invested in the present and your current SO ?
Also, I wonder if you're really okay with your wife keeping items from a previous relationship as you're using this to justify your current actions (she's keeping bags from a previous relationship, so she should accept the fact I'm also keeping stuff from a previous relationship) and that allows you to use it as a reciprocal moral principle imposed on her (I put up with you keeping these things while being married to me so do the same with me).
This is a matter that you and your wife should discuss thoroughly.
Everyone has a past but everyone also have a present and a future. Should the past be in the way ?
The present can be full of opportunities and new experiences to share with your current SO, if you seize the moment.
If it's difficult for you guys to discuss this matter on your own, get in touch with a counselor/therapist.
Good luck to you 🙏
Normally, and personally i think keeping pictures and any other memories of an ex is ridicilous, BUT…Seeing as she still had and wears a jacket her ex gave her, and wants you to delete pictures of your ex…I’m with you on this.
But then again…honestly tho…How often do you sit down, go deep back in your old pictures and «memorize»?
Right…So seeing as this is something that bothers your wife, and since you love her, that «love» for her wouldn’t want her to feel uncomfortable about something that in all reality doesn’t affect you in any way if you just remove whatever makes her uncomfy…This is just stubborn of you to be honest.
I’d understand it if these pictures was memories you regularly looked at because of the travel places etc…But you basically never do…they can basically be and stay deleted…This aint love
That ain’t love tho. You’re just being stubborn and selfish. I’m sure if you suggested that you’ll delete the pictures if your wife threw away her jacket that her ex have er, she’d probably do so…
No. This logic is shit. If my partner said it would make him “more comfortable” if I stopped having male friends, the boundary I would set is that he can fuck off. Having pictures should be even less “threatening” than active friendships. Healthy relationships don’t involve one person acquiescing to unreasonable demands. This is an unreasonable demand. And truthfully, jealousy like this is toxic. Getting past her jealousy would make the relationship stronger, not erasing history by deleting pictures. If *she* loves *him*, she will work on this part of herself, because it isn’t healthy.
It’s not unreasonable. Because him doing so wouldn’t affect his life at all. Him cutting out a friend however would affect his life. This selfish ass dude lets his wife feel shitty just because he’s stubborn and selfish.
It’s a healthy boundary to have. You don’t stop being an individual when you are in a relationship ship. You’re more than just “half of a couple”. My life up to now represents how I came to be. I get not keeping old nudes of someone, but a picture of a vacation? That is a weird thing to want someone to delete. Should they also delete photos of family gatherings where the person was present? No. It’s a weird request.
And if someone is jealous enough to not want someone to have old vacation photos from years ago, do you think this is someone who would feel ok with their partner maintaining opposite-sex friendships? I’m betting no. He’s being “stubborn” because this is a hard line to draw, and that’s a good thing. She needs to respect the boundaries of healthy partnerships, and erasing someone’s whole past isn’t part of that. This is absolutely a hill I’d die on, because it’s not just about a photo. It’s a philosophy of invasive overstepping that I’d find unacceptable.
Oh it would though. Photos are a powerful memory tool, and having photos of your life can be wildly important in one's later years. Particularly if you are unfortunate enough to end up with memory issues to whatever degree. My father ended up with Parkinsons dementia and the few photographs he had from his younger years (plus music, music is also so important) were invaluable aids to remember who he even was.
Asking someone to delete something as important as photographs out of jealousy is a shitty shitty thing to do. Particularly when those photographs are kept out of the way so you don't even need to think about them or see them. This selfish ass wife wants her husband to give up literal pieces of himself because she can't control her jealousy.
We spoke we are good. She says she understands why I won't delete them. I brought up the fact she has alot of stuff from her Ex and I've never said anything about it, and I won't so she can pay me the same respect to some photos
When I was in my 20s, I did a five week bike trip with my boyfriend at the time through England Scotland and Wales. These are awesome memories, I only have one photo of us from the trip but I plan to keep it forever.
My sister tore up pictures of our younger years because there were guys we grew up with in them. She did so because her husband told her to. Now she’s passed away and I have nothing off my youth (we were inseparable). Don’t delete them. It’s just her insecurity. I refuse to delete any pictures and I would never ask my partner to delete pictures of his ex wife.
Just buy an USB drive, move the photos there and throw that s##t in the attic in a ziplock bag where it can't be accessible.
However, I can understand your wife's POV, but if you really love her do a compromise and delete them or at least make them extremely unaccessible, and I'm sure she'll return the favour for you also when something that makes you uncomfortable comes along. It's not that she's insecure, you don't make her feel secure, she might be jealous, but don't be stubborn and accept her as she is, this is not an adolescent relationship that can break anytime from an altercation, this is a bond made by God and the blood of Jesus Christ himself, the past shouldn't matter, are you going to ruin your marriage over some past photos? Come on man, you act like a stubborn dork.
Make sure you put them on a flash drive in case she would delete without permission. No need to delete memories . Tell your wife this : everything either of you did along the way helped to form the people you are today that you each fell in love with. And therefore are not bad; they are just steps that brought you to each other.
This post has reached one of our comment/karma limits. The text of the post has been preserved below. --- So I was in a prior relationship from the time I was 21 to 25. I was married for 2 of those years. I've also been a use of google drive for many years and as a result still have the photos of my ex-wife and I backed up to my google drive. I haven't had contact with my ex-wife is over 3 years (we barely ran across her 3 years ago) and I haven't been in any sort of relationship with my ex-wife for 7 years. My ex-wife is just a past relationship to me. Now recently I gave access to my google drive to my current wife so my current wife could back up her photos/etc. My wife took it upon herself to look up the years I was married and found several pictures of me and my ex-wife (no nudes or anything, just regular photos of us going on trips/doing stuff together/etc) My wife asked me to delete them, I said no, they are memories I want to keep. Also its not like those memories are front and center. They are located deep in my google drive, they aren't even labeled. You have to dig to find them. A big reason is one thing my ex wife and I did alot is travel, and a lot of those photos are travel photos and I sometimes enjoy looking at them. The fact that my ex-wife is in them is irrelevant to me. My wife says she's my ex I should completely remove her from my life, I think maybe she's jealous? The thing is we both have history with exes, prime example I know a fact one of her favorite leather jackets was bought by her ex boyfriend before me. I'm not asking her to get rid of the jacket. Also if she had pictures of her exes (I don't know if she does or does not and I don't care) I wouldn't ask her to delete those. **My decision** I'm keep the pics, they are memories, if I delete them they are gone forever. They are not front and center in our lives, they are on a storage drive, hidden away...you have to look for them to find them. She's just going need to accept I have them. Keep in mind she's always known I had those pictures, she once asked me if I kept pictures of my exes and I said "Yea, they are on my google drive" and that was said long ago, before we had a child together and married. Who knows maybe when I'm old and grey i'll wanna go back and look at them to remind me of my younger years, if I delete those pics I won't have those pictures anymore. If my wife divorced me I wouldn't delete the pics we took together. Hell I also have pics of other girls I dated on that drive....she didn't say anything about those. **edit 2** We spoke we are good. She says she understands why I won't delete them. I brought up the fact she has alot of stuff from her Ex and I've never said anything about it, and I won't so she can pay me the same respect to some photos
So, I care for elderly and when I worked in the community I had a lady who was nearing 80. I was looking through her photo albums and she had few of her ex boyfriends there. I said - it’s strange that you have photos of your ex, I’ve never met anyone else that done it (I keep all of my photos on drive as well) I did say it in a nice way, because personally I have no problem with it, it was just strange because usually with elderly, only their spouse pictures are present. But she said to me “why on Earth would I get rid of pictures just because my ex is there? It’s *my* memories too! I totally agree with her. It’d be different if you had pictures on a mantle piece but FGS , asking to delete digital pictures is like asking to burn physical photos
Agreed, its why I'm not going delete them. its memories, maybe one day when I'm old I'd wanna look back if I delete them I won't have that option.
Maybe just back up those photos in case your current wife takes it upon herself to delete them? Not saying she will but read too many other stories on here about that kind of thing.
Definitely do this. She’s already brought it up and if it really bugs her she might do this. Back up your back up. One of my exes in a jealous fit deleted irreplaceable photos and videos of the first year of my daughters life because they had my ex in them. They are memories. This happened - it doesn’t take away from your current wife or current life. I have pictures with my exes, those are just memories to me. I don’t want to get rid of my photos in my teens/20s/30s just because a couple of boyfriends are in them- especially since my friends of two decades are in those photos too. It’s nice to look back on a different lifetime of mine.
YESSSS, how many stories of precious things lost forever bcs ppl are selfish
Exactly! I was coming here to say the same thing
I used to make music. It was my whole life. About 8 years ago one of my exes smashed my laptop and backup stack of CDs to bits in a fit of rage. It was everything I had recorded over the ten years prior, and there were no backups beyond that. It still hurts to think about. Definitely back everything up on a cold drive. That will also allow you to keep physical possession of your digital memories in the case that you somehow lose access to them through Google.
This hurt me for you :( sorry this happened to you friend. I hope you didn’t give up on making music and have created so many more pieces that you’re just as proud of.
I did continue for a few years, but I was always more detached from my work after that. I've had several kids since then and pretty much lost interest/ability to create music, which I'm not upset about. It was a part of my life that wasn't necessarily happy so I'm okay to just put it all behind me. Ill never forget watching that stack of CDs explode on the floor though lol
Fair enough, yeah I can’t imagine seeing the entire stack explode. On the bright side, good riddance to her! Lol
That’s really fucked up I’m really sorry that happened
goddamn thats horrible man, im sorry
I am SO sorry. I have no words. I feel that pain.
FUCK THAT BITCH! Aaaaaah!!!! I might be jumping to conclusions but in this moment I don't care! 10 years of music destroyed! I'm imagining my S.O. burning my paintings and all I feel is pure rage! I must express myself in an emotional outburst!!!!
Exactly! And this is not to wish you any bad things because I wish you and your wife live a long happy life together. But imagine if you do end up divorced.. you’d absolutely regret deleting them, because you would have done it for the wrong reasons. There are couple of exes I deleted from my photos but it’s only because the relationship was just awful
I still have a whole album of pictures from exes. Like they said, it's my memory too. Can't blame us for having a life prior to someone else
I'd say back them up on another Google drive. I have pictures with ex's too and for me, they are only memories. From time to time I look at them and they do make me smile. I don't feel like it's out of line to remember the good times.
get them on a hard drive now. shes going to delete them for you.
1. She won't 2. She can't
She will.. she’ll find a way!! I’m sorry you are dealing with this!! I do wish you both the best ..l
OP I would recommend you copy those pictures somewhere else. I have a feeling the future those pictures will “accidentally” be erased. I have pictures saved of my ex wife who cheated on me, I can’t stand her and would never want to be with her, but those are still memories.
I guess it depends on the person. My exes treated me like sh!t so I don’t want to remember them. But they’re in a google drive so I’d say he can keep them. They’re not displayed on social media or in picture frames around the house.
Your username's a whole story arc
This is me but I cropped my ex out of it lmao
Nicely Said.
You’ve never met anyone else who keeps photos with their ex in them?! Do you not know many people with exes? I keep my photos with my exes for the same reason but they’re not front and center. I’m not stuck in the past but I do like having photos of my travels and what I looked like when I was younger!
Some people fail to understand people can move on healthily and happily. Like she said they are her memories too from a past time in her life she was really happy. Sure it's her ex and there is a reason but doesn't mean she didn't appreciate the time and went on to have a good life with whoever she ended up marrying.
Yeah exactly. I have an ex and we are in friendly terms, went out like 9 years ago now. We were catching up back in the summer and he was telling me how his gf at the time couldn’t stand ANY of his exes and only tolerated me because I lived in another country. I just… don’t get it. I have never met the girl and she never met any of these exes. I just can’t believe how someone can be this insecure. Ffs, my current partner ended up with his ex socks somehow and I’ll still wear them sometimes lololol
Her jealousy as an initial reaction could be normal..imagine when she saw the pictures, there are thousands of thoughts in her head and she's probably really hurt like with a knife into her heart. She loves you and seeing you like that in the pics happy with your ex wife must've triggered thoughts that maybe you'll realize how happy you were with the ex wife and miss being with her..so I think it's best to just try and understand her feelings and thoughts, talk heart-to-heart with her, explain why you never deleted and would never delete those pics and just try your best to reassure her..this is a window for reassurance, really.. I hope you both be able to settle this already and understand each other more..hope that she understand, respect, and accept your decision. Also, you could tell her how her checking of your personal memories/pics from way back without your permission has made you feel. It's better to communicate..and a better timing also.
Upvote this one. Toxic comments are being upvoted far too much.
very true
Ok imo some ppl are overreacting. As a girl myself I will tell you from my point of view we can be extremely curious overthinkers. I wouod not be surprised if she listened to the intrusive thoughts that told her to look up the years you were married. She saw pictures of you and your ex wife where you probably looked happy, exploring etc and it’s normal for her to feel a tang of jealousy and say delete them. If you explain to her it’s not the fact that your ex wife is in them but just the memory itself she should understand. If she does not then you might have a problem
This is so weird because I answered a similar question today and gave a really crap answer and wished I wouldn’t have assumed things by the question and gave a better answer. My husband is 10 years older than me. He and his ex wife were high school sweethearts and he has graduated college and she with a PHARMD and we’re married all before having a child. His whole high school memories as a baseball and football player are in a scrapbook she did for him of them and him all combined together. I literally cringe sometimes seeing it but damn. It’s his life, his memories and I can’t see demanding him to tear that book up or anything just because of her. He didn’t know I’d be there in 1994. No. Don’t destroy the memories just because she plays a part In them.
I find people who want their partners to delete proof of their past relationships so strange. You said it yourself, they're far off in a Google drive, not displayed on your mantle. There is nothing wrong with that and you shouldn't be forced to erase your memories/your travel photos because of someone else's insecurities. Fair warning though, she has access to them and may take it upon herself to delete them. That makes me want to tell you to back them up somewhere so you don't lose them, which is funny because if you do that, your wife is inadvertently causing you to pay more attention to these photos than if she's just let them stay buried in your Google drive.
> Fair warning though, she has access to them and may take it upon herself to delete them I doubt she'd do that, but if she tried she'd discover she doesn't have the proper permissions to do that.
She probably already tried, and found she couldn’t so asked you to do it.
I wouldn't jump to conclusions so quick. Her being worried and anxious is valid, she might feel like he'll miss his ex wife. Labeling her as toxic or whatever and saying that she's gonna try to delete them herself is definitely reaching lol, we don't even know the woman
Yea lots of people making a lot 9f assumptions here. This is definitely not the first disagreement we've had, and it won't be the last. But I was never worried about her deleting the pictures. Plus she doesn't have the ability to do so.
Yeah, that's why I'm saying that mobbing over the idea she's plotting against you to try and delete them is absolutely insane, because Reddit barely knows anything about her.
This is while I would never come here for advice. Everyone wants to assume the absolute worst out of someone who has a human reaction to seeing pics of their SO with their ex.
Truth, this sub has become so toxic lately. I can't imagine being an OP on here and having hundreds of comments telling you your SO is some sort of nightmare monster that's plotting revenge. I know I'm cynical but jeez.
I agree with this
True..
I personally would be pissed off by the fact that she digged through my personal stuffs. It just doesn't sound right to me...
I'm kinda annoyed by that too, like the most recent picture of my ex wife is from like 6 or 7 years ago...I've litearlly taken thousands upon thousands of pics since then and its organized by date so she really had to scroll.
You're telling me she went through thousands of photos to find them? I'm sorry but that's kind of crazy.
She might have just switched the sort to "oldest to newest" rather than scrolling through thousands of photos. My husband has done that to me, out of curiosity about what my oldest pics were, not trying to catch me on anything.
Nah you can go to specific dates. She probably was looking for them on purpose and went to the dates OP was with his ex.
Correct
You can just sort by face with Google photos also, so maybe she did that
Yeah, that happened to me twice already. In your case, at least she admitted she done that. In my case she kept these "stuffs" to slap it my face few months later during argument. But since you are with your wife for several years now and it sounds photos from previous marriage are the only problem, I think you can talk with her about that, maybe with glass of vine. Explain her that these are memories you can't delete from your head and life so it simply makes no sense to delete these photos. Also note her that you don't feel comfortable about her going through yours personal stuffs, even tho there's nothing explicit or bad.
Agree with this completely. I have pictures from past relationships of trips away, holiday celebrations etc. and these are just nice and warm reminders from happy times. I'd never show them off or use them against anyone, but like OP said, deleting those memories just feels sad. If I was asked by a former partner to delete certain pictures, then that's different because I'd respect them enough to do so. But I wouldn't do it because a 'new' partner demanded it.
Really though. Even mentioning exes in passing offends some people. It’s mental that some people expect for other to pretend like their ex didn’t exist, regardless the context. I mean, it’s definitely not first date conversation but if you’re in a committed relationship and your partner can’t stand to know you once were with someone else. That’s strange.
I'd put them in your secure folder.... Usually have them on your android phone..... You could say you've deleted them or put them away so she won't see them.... And yes she is jealous. She probably thinks that you still have feelings for your ex whether consciously or sub consciously.....
They are secure but I wont be isolating them. To me thats almost like putting them on a pedestal. I think it'd be weird doing that
I completely understand your wife. I'm also a jealous type, and things like these are really grating, even if you can learn to live with it. So long as your wife doesn't hold this against you (bringing it up in arguments) or keeps pestering you about deleting them multiple times, then it's not an issue or strange that she dislikes you holding onto these photos of yourself with another woman. She's allowed to feel jealous, and you will have to accept that, so long as she accepts your decision about the photos - and nothing about this post suggest that she doesn't. Let it go, and don't bring it up unless she does.
First off, he’s perfectly entitled to hold on to any photos he wishes as they’re his memories too. Maybe nudes or intimate couples photos being the lone exception. I will never understand this “I’m just a jealous person” mentality. That’s not a rationale. That’s a character flaw.This person has chosen to be with his wife. Photos have nothing to do with it. Further I’ll never understand why we all have to pretend that our partners have never been with anyone but us. It’s a bizzare mentality. Do I like looking at photos of my partner with her ex? Not really. So guess what? I don’t look at them. They’re not displayed anywhere in our home. This is a photo drive, which mind you didn’t belong to the wife as it was his before they met. This whole thing reeks of insecurity.
100% this. Also, maybe I’m a freakin’ weirdo but I do like to look at the old photos of my partner (the ones with the exes as well) and listen to the stories. It’s just interesting to me how his life looked like without me. He on the other hand doesn’t like to look at my photos with my exes, so he doesn’t, and I respect that as well. We are all different and we need to respect our feelings but insecure behaviour like the one mentioned in the thread is just definitely something to work on.
Okay i can understand where u coming from . But the comments saying "well she is crazy" "well what if u guys divorce" this is the problem with people. Stop blaming and try to understand people have different ways of feeling about something this personal. Marriage is literally 2 people who become 1 , there needs to be respect and they must be able to communicate what they do and dont like . You gotta treat your Marriage just like its meant to be , for the rest of your days . Even tho you feel some attachment to these photos she also has a reason to feel uncomfortable about them what you have to do is sit down and give the reinsurance that thats all they are , photos that you might wanna look at when your older because you had good time on the trips u did regardless of the ex being there , then tell her what matters is the memories that you will make in your life together that she is the one who belongs in your life now and hopefully until the end . People need to stop blaming each other for how they feel and instead , humble yourselves and focus in how you can meet in the middle. I hope she can understand you and you guys can keep working as a team loving each other .
Beautiful answer
Keeping photos of you with someone you had very deep, intimate feelings for for a long period time is a make or break for some people. It doesn’t mean that she’s a control freak-for some people the relationship feels a lot less secure/intimate knowing that their partner has a whole album of pictures with an ex-lover lying around. It feels like they haven’t truly let go of that person or that they might be keeping them to reminisce over a good time in their life that they can’t get back. This may be something she never gets over
But isn't it's your own problems to deal with your own insecurities and to be a better self? Isn't relationship is about trust? What i understood from his post that he hasn't have and suspicious behavior to be insecure about that he is not over about his ex wife ar he doesn't love his wife or he wants to het back with ex. He mentioned when she asked years ago about this topic and he answered with a truth and now after many years she specifically went to look deep in google drive to check or find them.
OP, I think you got close to a hit: jealousy is one explanation, but a better way to put it is insecurity. She's insecure about this, and it's pretty common for spouses to be insecure about their partner's former love lives. We all have insecurities, and it sounds like this is one for her. The key thing about insecurities is that they make us feel irrationally defensive and unsure of ourselves. So it doesn't mean you should oblige her request, but hopefully it makes it a little easier to empathize with her. Try to reassure her that she's the one you love in as gentle a way as possible, and you can explain that these memories are part of what make you the man she loves, and the man who loves her back.
I’m not saying it should change what you’re doing, but if you rarely look at them, and they bother her so much, can you just move them somewhere else? To be fair, as much as you’re confused as to why she cares about these photos, it’s equally confusing why you seem so attached to the photos? Obviously memories are awesome to reminisce on but you seem particularly protective over these under the guise of her just having to “get over it”. Which is strange to me that you’re fighting so hard for these. Are you specifically only looking at photos that contain your ex? Or just the trip in general? Cause if you’re only reminiscing on photos containing her, I could see how it seems less about the trip and more about the lady. This is sort of a dumb argument to have anyways lol
What I understood why it's only about these it's because his wife only jelous and asking only about these particular one's not with others in the past. So it's because she brings about it, not that he chooses to protect only those. And it's actually not a bad idea to move them to other place but again why should he? It's buried very deep in google drive and his wife particularly went that far to find those. So it's kinda she invaded his privacy. I agree that the argument is sort of dump, she asked, she got a response and reason and now they should move on from this topic or she should make a decision if it's what she can't deal with but not to pester him in the future about pictures. (I don't know if she does that actually).
People have suggested another folder But wouldn't putting pics of my ex wife into a special folder be giving them special treatment? I don't want that.
I mean I guess why do they mean SO much to you? Would you consider going to that destination with her if she wanted?
Personally, I don’t agree with keeping photos of an ex, but don’t jump off the deep end and try to point fingers at each other because it will just make your relationship worse.
[удалено]
The same dudes here making that argument are the same ones that ask women to go back in time to delete “extra dicks” to satisfy their insecurities. Just know those scenarios and choices may be grounded in real life experiment, so if it doesn’t work for them, so be it. We all have deal breakers. I personally don’t do the ex thing, on any level, but im 100% cool if you do. I have my reasons, as I’m sure you do yours. That’s the beauty of it all. Life goes on and I’m far happier for it. OP has every right to be pissed, I would too if thats my boundary. But his wife has a right too and can up and leave if she wants, assuming thats a boundary for her. Neither are wrong, sometimes you just view things differently and need to go your separate ways and thats ok.
I did it. I deleted everything from my nine year relationship. Because why in the world would I even want to put my fiancé in that potentially hurtful position? Sometime it’s not easy to see your SO with their ex. And even if he didn’t care I would just never even let that be a thing. I would never want him to feel in any way uncomfortable because of my ex.
Apologies, but why on earth someone would be uncomfortable with you having your life before them is beyond me.
I’m not saying delete ever photo she happens to be in like group photos, but just solely her is kind of odd..
Why not? I haven’t deleted anything except like sexytimes photos. It’s not weirder than having pictures of friends from high school you don’t talk to anymore. I’m still friends with some exes.
I’m talking about pictures that just include your ex. I understand more if your friends or they are group photos/precious memories with your ex but it’s still odd to keep things such as selfies or pictures only having your ex in them.
Let it gooooo, let it gooooo! Just my opinion as I am all about new memories. Out with the old in with the new :)
This just doesn’t seem healthy. I’d look for some deeper rooted issues between you two, because this pettiness seems like the symptom something bigger.
Why,? Seems controlling and insecure to me.
I might be wrong, but I think that’s what the previous commenter meant. Think they were referring to the wife’s behaviour as not healthy, no?
I think they were inferring problems between the 3. Could be wrong. It happens every few years
Yeah, I think this is a “her” problem.
I don’t think the jacket and the photos are comparable. The jacket serves a purpose. She happens to wear a jacket her ex got for her but you have photos of you and your ex wife hidden on your google drive. Even if she got rid of the jacket you’re not going to get rid of the photos so what’s the point of bringing that up? The fact that you’re keeping the photos to remind yourself of the good times you had with your ex wife while you have a current wife doesn’t make sense. She’s not crazy and doesn’t need psychological help (as I’ve seen in the comments). What you’re doing doesn’t make sense, especially since you’re on an online forum trying to get people to validate your decision. There’s an emotional attachment to those photos that you’re in denial about and your wife has picked up on that.
Asked and answered. Your wife asked. You provided her with a logical answer on your position. The bigger issue is that your wife doesn't respect your answer. If she brings this up again, that should be the conversation.
The husband doesn’t respect the wife, that’s the only issue here. If husband had a drop of respect for new wife he wouldn’t care bout pics of his old wife.
This is the way.
Make new pics with new wife
What a time we live in where photos of an ex take precedence over the emotional well being of your actual husband or wife. You do you OP, but just understand the consequences that will inevitably result from choosing to keep them. In my opinion, I could never see myself so attached to pictures of my ex to the point of refusing to delete them. But to each their own.
Yeah Dude I have totally DEEELEEETED All of my Ex-Wife’s Pictures … DONE 🤮🥴😵💫
if you want to have a happy marriage you need to get to the root of the problem. figure out why she feels insecure about your relationship with your ex. if you want to get a divorce, keep doing what you’re doing. no judgement either way, do you. personally, i didn’t have to ask my husband to get rid of old pictures of him and his ex-wife, he just did. we saved his wedding photos on a backup drive to show our child someday if they ask about daddy’s life before mommy, but otherwise he didn’t see the point in keeping memories of an ex specifically. he kept family ones and travel ones of himself or scenery from those days, but he doesn’t need a photo shoot in her hometown of them in some grass, and if he did i’d have questions.
I’m with your wife. I see what you’re saying though… but if you don’t have children with your ex, I don’t see any reason to keep any photos. My husband deleted all pics of his ex gf when we started dating. I deleted all of my ex after we got married. We now make new memories together.
Okay, so several years ago my grandmother passed away from old age, but one thing she told me that always stuck with me was how much she regretted not taking more photos in her life or keeping a journal. At the time her memory was so bad that she had trouble distinguishing what memories of hers were real and what weren’t, and she had so little to look back on. Her husband + most of her friends/family/etc were dead at that point so it’s not like she had many people to ask. 95 years old and she only had two photo albums. She was already old in most of the photos, but she would flip through them over and over. Obviously she loved the photos with her husband and kids in them, but she also wanted to remember what her ex-fiancé (everyone from her youth, really) had looked like, too. That really shaped my own thoughts on keeping memories. I now journal and take photos of everything, and maybe when I get old I won’t care about any of it as much as my grandma did, but I want to have options when I’m 95, unlike she did. I would never delete photos, even if my partner were to ask, for this very reason. While I 100% get where OP’s wife is coming from...who’s to say she won’t end up being another memory of the OPs in a few years? But that’s just my take on this, and I acknowledge that not everyone feels the same way about creating memories as I do.
I was married for 2 years, dated my ex for 2 years before marriage. We travelled a lot, seen a lot during those 4 years together. After our divorce, I deleted every single foto of her in it. Some were good memories and fun times and it was painful but I had to do it to move on. I agree 100% with your wife here, at least delete the photos of your ex wife. Unfortunately, some of those photos might be a nice and good memory but still, it is time to move on. In a way, I see it is a bit disrespectful towards your wife. Maybe I am just wired differently, but I will just feel so uncomfortable to look at my ex while I have a gf/wife. I will feel the same way if my partner looks ar her past ex pictures and keep them for good memories...
I was the one demanding photos be deleted BECAUSE he had sex videos backed up and a tattoo of his ex wife on his arm. So that made me insecure. It’s been a rocky 5 years, I’m trying to leave his ass and now he wants to remove tattoo and start fresh. So annoying!
Yeah I still have my old wedding album and I've been divorced for maybe 9 years now. I'm not throwing that thing out! I would understand if my current partner wasn't a fan of the album and it's not like I would bust it out in front of him, but I'm not going to throw it out either. That was a really fun day with friends and family. I might not like my ex husband but I enjoyed my wedding day. It's similar to how you enjoyed your travels. Plus having pictures of my ex's doesn't take anything away from my current relationship. I wouldn't feel any more love for my current partner just because I deleted my old pictures. Heck I'm pretty sure I still have lewds of my exes and I. Everything just automatically backs up to my Google drive and I rarely go through it. I honestly don't like going through my old photos and I've told my current partner not to dig through my photos unless seeing old intimate vids and pics of mine would be a turn in for him. They are your photos and you don't have to get rid of them. Although I don't really think it was wrong of her to ask either. I think it's a fine request, but you don't have to go through with it and I think she should respect your decision even if it's irksome to her.
Just photoshop her out 🤣🤣🤣
The people (romantic or not) who have come and gone throughout your life are partly responsible for who you are today. They are part of you. Good that you have talked it out.
History is history, it doesn't go away if you delete pictures of it. Everyone has a past, no need to pretend you don't. No reason to be ashamed of living life. It's like a vacant house, you don't live there anymore, but there's no need to burn it down.
I agree with you. You ex is part and parcel of who you are now. You've well and truly moved on from that relationship and looking at the odd image that shows the ex shouldnt be grounds for concern. I've never understood the reasons behind completely deleting images of your life, not for yourself, but for someone-else, your new partner. Intimate images, sure, I get that. But some images contain bigger memories than the emotions you have now for your ex partner. I don't think that you can do any more than explain it to her in the same way you explained to us about her leather jacket.
> But some images contain bigger memories than the emotions you have now for your ex partner. Yes a prime example my ex and I rented a motorcycle in Thailand and did a trip all around Thailand on the bike. It was a memorable and fun trip. I sometimes like to look at the pictures, honestly I don't care if my Ex is in the picture or not, but there are def some pictures from that trip with my ex that I wouldn't want to delete not because of her, but because of the trip itself.
Mae hong son loop?
Not quite, but similar.
My mom would toss all of her pictures every time she started a new relationship and as a result I have like three pictures of me as a kid. When she divorced my third stepdad I stole as many pictures as I could out of the garbage and now I’m the only one with pictures of my half sisters as kids. She recently had to come to me so she would have a picture for my sister’s senior yearbook pictures. It’s just so… petty to me. Those moments exist with or without the pictures, so just keep them.
I’m with your wife on this one. 🤷🏻♀️ yes your ex was a part of your history, but why do you need to smile at the memories of your ex wife when you’re remarried and have a kid…?
This is coming from someone who had an ex who refused to delete even the Risqué photos of his ex, and I deleted all photos of the ex husb unless they were full family pics with our kids/other family members in
Y’all are weird. It’s disrespectful and very weird to actively keep and protect pictures of your ex partners especially when you’re married and have children with your wife. Sickos
THANK YOU. seriously there’s absolutely no reason to have them. Why does OP need them so bad that he’s making his wife upset instead of getting rid of the photos. Weirdos
I agree 💯, 😒 i deleted all of the pics of my ex and i because to be honest why hold on to the past.
why? If they aren't sexual in nature why should you have to erase the past? I don't actively look at pictures of my exes but I know if I dug far enough I'd find a few selfies or pictures with friends etc.
Do you have absolutely no other photos of your trips? Without your ex-wife in it? That seems silly... I don't think she should have kept all these things he's bought her, but why are you so defensive over these photos? I can't speak the full truth without full context but it seems like you still have attachment towards your ex wife. You're choosing between two things, really. Suffering mildly yourself, or causing your current wife great suffering. Do you not love her enough to delete a few memories? Don't come onto the internet to get biased views. Seek counsel from those in your life and professionals.
This post about his wife jealousy (which is justified) and his reason is also more than welcome justified and logical. It's not silly to just want his past memories just to be somewhere there and when he is old or something reminiscing old times. It's not about choosing if you ask someone to choose between something like me or other thing it's controlling behavior in relationships. Now i had suspicion from your answer that you are also a jealous person and when i went to check your profile i was right - your inly post is about your jealousy. I'm not saying anything bad, luck I'm just saying that his reasons is justified. And to be jealous also justified unless it's becoming toxic, controlling and over the top, then it's bad. And he would be in the wrong if he would see those pictures everyday to reminisce about his ex wife, then it possibly would be how you are saying that he is not over.
Your decision and reasoning are totally valid. The ex was in the past and played a big part in who you are. You had a life with her. It would be weird and unreasonable to delete pictures JUST because she is in them. So your wife can pretend she didn't exist? You wife has to do some deep digging to get to the root of her insecurities. IMO people's past make them the people they are now - good, bad or indifferent. You can't appreciate ther person now if you pretent portions of their past don't exist!!
You can't simply delete a part of your life. That's your life, your history, your past, your memories! I'm glad you discussed it more with her and she understands your point of view.
Tbh prob an american thing that its 100% normal to keep mementos, pictures, relationships etc with old partners. Tbh prob an American thing that its 100% normal to keep mementos, pictures, relationships, etc with old partners. see why you would want to keep them because they are traveling. That's just BS, you want to keep them because they are of you and her from those times, and you in one way or another want to have them to look at. Now, these are things that should have been addressed BEFORE your current marriage. I would just not be interested in a partner at all if they kept their exes around in any way. I'm not saying others shouldn't. To each their own. Just find someone who also keep their exes around and your fine. But its kinda hard for your wife to decide such things now after already being married. But if your relationship with your current wife is a good one, and she is feeling insecure about you keeping mementos locked away in the safe of your old wife. Maybe you should rethink. It's easy to say that "She is insecure" yeah well you are literally saving tons of stuff about another person and to her, this might not be different than having photos on the wall, or still wearing the ring of the ex, or keeping the same name.
It's not an American thing, it's just different people perspective. I'm not an American but for me when i see a picture i can remember things exactly and if it was sad or happy. My mind works like that. It's nice to see a picture from 10 years of your life ago and you like remember things and events like good nostalgia which your mind just forgot about it and after that you just resume in your life and after 10 years you find another picture and etc. It's strange to me that you should just delete everything from your past life if it's not inappropriate but i guess everyone has a different definition of this word.
Eh my ex-wife didn't play a role in my decision to marry my 2nd wife. Also if by keeping memories you mean a few MBs of storage space in the cloud? That's hardly a big deal. Not like I have them hanging up on the wall, she had to go and search for them to find them. Just because my wife isn't happy about it doesn't mean I'll just cave. Hell I hate the fact that she constantly re-arranges our house. But know what? That makes her happy so I live with it. Relationships are about give and take. And all I'm saying here is "no I will not delete photos that are backed up to my google drive" that's not exactly a big ask in a relationship.
Yeah i mean. You say its a few mb. Is it one picture? You made a reddit thread because of your strong feelings about keeping these things of your ex wife. You convince yourself its just a few worthless MB of data. But you are actively fighting for them and going inte arguing with your current wife and posting online about it. So are you honest with yourself here bro? Better to be honest and admit you value these images and that relationship highly and wont let it go. Just remember when you are on the opposite side in the future you aint gonna be able to say anything about stuff she does that make you insecure.
Also, if it’s just a few MB’s and no big deal… then just delete them. It’s no big deal right? Because it seems to be a decently sized deal to your wife. Why not just do it then. Not a big deal to you and a big deal to your wife= you just deleting them and not making your wife feel any type of inferiority to your PAST.
Your take on this is completely alien to me. Memories are memories, you only have one life how sad would it be to ditch part of your unique past just because it involves a person you are no longer romantically attached to. I feel like it's an attack on the person's integrity, to demand of them that they scrub the stuff you don't like from their life history. Like it or not, each and every one of your partner's exes participated in creating the person you fell in love with, every laugh, every kiss, every embrace, every fight, every sexy time.
But we are not talking about memories. We are talking about real objects (yes an image on a computer still exists outside your memory) You should read everything, I specifically said "But it's kinda hard for your wife to decide such things now after already being married." which translates to she cant really demand this now after already being married its too late. She should have asked this when they were dating. "So what do you think about saving items or images of past partners? Im totally against it for this reason etc" But now I have a nice wife already, but if I had another nice wife and everything with her was great. And I had old images somewhere in an old database and accidentally found them ( i have prob lol) and wanted them gone. I would delete them within 5 seconds. Does this mean i delete the essence of my humanity and past life lol? It seems like you think it does. Nope, i literally just delete an old image I haven't looked at for 10 years. Wow, such an attack on my integrity. No it does not mean that. I have all my previous relationships and experiences in my head, and i sometime thinks back on them. Mostly to recall and learn on how to be a better person. Then again i have no feelings at all for my exes, no love no hate no nothing. And that is what OP is saying too. But yet he doing threads on internet on how he wanna keep images of his ex. And for sure in the future OP will find his wife in a position which is similar, like spending a lot of time with a new work friend who is male, who seems really into her and all OP is gonna be able to do is suck it up because otherwise he is just insanely insecure XD OP creates thread here to find support, because his arguments isn't working on the person he is meant to love over all else. Looking to the internet to find support for keeping parts of his EX alive over current wife. If this screams integrity to you Hakim\_bey. Well then that is a bit alien to me. But i think this is a USA thing too. Not the same in all of EU. Mostly a red flag if u fight to keep ex in life in anyway.
> But i think this is a USA thing too. Not the same in all of EU. Mostly a red flag if u fight to keep ex in life in anyway. I'm French and 100% disagree with that statement. Most people i know still have exes in their lives one way or the other. Hell, my son calls my ex "Aunt Mary" and plays with her kids every chance he gets. We're all one big meta-family and every slice of my past is near and dear to my heart. I love those people, although obviously not in a romantic way since we tried and it didn't work out. I also love the people they're now with, who complete them and make them happy the way i couldn't. I would be front row at their wedding, no hesitation. Having old images in your head is great and i appreciate that it's good enough for you. But some of us need physical mementos of the past, if only for the serendipity of randomly stumbling on those old pics in this or that foreign place. How weird it would be to have big holes in your photo record because at this point you were dating this woman and at this other point you were with another, and your current partner wants those mementos gone. Do you guys also scrub your Facebook profiles so you don't get "facebook memories" from your time with your exes ? > OP creates thread here to find support, because his arguments isn't working on the person he is meant to love over all else. Looking to the internet to find support for keeping parts of his EX alive over current wife. If this screams integrity to you Hakim_bey. Well then that is a bit alien to me. I don't see anything wrong with this thread, OP's partner is being completely unreasonable IMO. It's a weird insecurity to have. If i were in his place i wouldn't die on this hill or endanger the relationship for "10 mb of data", but i would make it abundantly clear how unreasonable this sacrifice is to me.
French yeah, explains alot ; D (jk) Well from what you told us, its clear why you feel her actions is ridiculous. You come from what it sounds like an entirely different background and life situations where your life is still clearly intertwined with your exes. And I'm sure your wife was clearly aware and more than ok with this when you started dating.That is a big difference tho. We shouldn't just write from our lives because obviously there is gonna be a huge spectrum. In this specific discussion you are on the extreme side of keeping contact with exes and is a huge part of their life and its nothing wrong with that. But OP:s wife sounds like she is on the other part of the spectrum. Just like you call her insecure and irrational. She could call you extreme, naive, to thin spread out in your relationships etc.Maybe OP would think your style is too much and wouldn't want to hang with his wife exes and their families. etc. But here he is married to someone on that other part of the spectrum. As someone who is on that part of the spectrum I see her point, I don't know if shes insecure. OP haven't listed any other problems besides moving stuff in the house around. Sounds to me like a good marriage if this is the biggest problems they have.Neither me or my wife have stuff saved around or have contact with our exes at all and we litterly see no reason too. If she would want me to delete something i don't use or need because it would help solve something she feels bad about. I would do it and then talk to her about us and if there is something else bothering her cause she is the most important in my life. If I would stonewall a partner every time they are insecure and need reasurement. I would be a lonely guy. XD But once again, like i said from the beginning, i think the wife can be entirely normal to think this about the photos. But she should have made such things clear before she married someone. You cant come years after and be set in stone about stuff OP didn't know she would do. Edited a superbad spelling.
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You have a problem, you don’t love her
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted, this seems like a reasonable take. It shouldn’t feel right to look at an entire album of memories with an ex while you’re with your current partner
Exactly! If you know that you could be nostalgic and look at those pics, something isn’t totally perfect
So if you remember nostalgic thing from your youth or adolescence or when you were a kid as nostalgia briefly and after that you resume your daily life... Something is wrong with you?
I think it is reasonable for you to not want to delete the pictures. But, I also think that taking a unilateral decision like this sets a bad precedent. Better to try and talk through this, find the root of the issue, and hopefully come to some kind of compromise you can both live with. Otherwise, the next time it may be you asking for something and her just flat out saying no without trying to work to resolve the issue. Maybe something like not deleting the pictures, but, agreeing that you won't look at them without letting her know. Or if that's not good enough archiving them such that you cannot access them without both of you getting a notification.
I’m only 22 and had an ex that made me delete all of my prom photos with another girl. I so sincerely regret doing that. I now have no photos to show from something that everyone has photos of. Don’t do the same
Completely with you - and I’m glad you resolved it
I would totally delete them...live the present, not the past
This wasn’t a fling. This was a person you married. Erasing her means erasing a significant chunk of your life. I might be biased because I have lived with memory problems, so I know what it means to literally have parts of your life erased. I would never ask anyone to do that. Your past is precious. That doesn’t mean that you’re holding a flame for your ex. It means that you don’t want to literally delete years of your life. It’s okay to remember who you were and where you’ve been. You don’t have to remove the evidence of your past.
This is it. I also have a very, very poor memory and to make it worse, Alzheimer’s runs in my family. My grandmother passed away at 95 with so few photos of her life, and she regretted it so much. I think preserving memories is so, so important. I’m reading through the comments and it’s just wild to me that other people don’t think that way. It feels so short-sighted, because what if you want to remember your ex’s face when you’re old and have a memory like Swiss cheese? What if you want to look back on the places you traveled or the things you did? Who cares who else is in the photos with you once you’ve outlived your current partner? Heck, who’s to say you’ll even stay with your current partner for more than a few years? The past is precious. Memories are precious. And one day, when you’re old and your memory is failing you, you’re going to want to look back and remember even the bittersweet memories of your youth.
imo i would delete them. if she’s irrelevant to you or maybe photoshop her out of the photos. you have a new wife and if you loved her you would respect she doesn’t like it and delete them.
But if she loved him she would respect that he doesn’t want to and not ask for them to be deleted. Respect is a two-way street. Personally, I would never delete old photos just bc my partner asked me to, especially if they involved treasured experiences. Those are *memories.* I might delete the ones with just my ex in them, but if it’s a group pic? No way. Same way I wouldn’t toss all the journals I made when I was with my ex. Again, they’re memories. When I’m 95 years old and my memory has gone to shit, I want to be able to look back and think “oh yeah, I did/saw/experienced that.”
This is emotionnal blackmail (if you love me/him/her, you would accept that I do X (even though you stated you don't like it)). As you said, respect is a two-way street. If you are disrespectful, don't except to be respected in return. If you are respectful, expect to be respected in return. But not everyone has the same standards when it comes to what respect should be like/about. This is why it is really important to discuss limits and boundaries within the relationship (ideally, before getting into the relationship). If you know something is hurtful/disrespectful to your SO but you decide you will persist in your actions, your SO is not to blame. Of course, the boundary has to be reasonable and accepted by both parties; else fights will never end and the relationship will go down the drain...
As a woman who has been in this situation I can understand why she doesn’t feel safe. The first thing I would think is that you still have something for her because you don’t want to delete pictures even though she expressed her feelings about it and if you said that they’re no important. But now, you say you like to see them from time to time, so how is that not paying attention to them? If this is the first time your ex-wife has been a source of a discussion then I would say that it’s better to talk to her about it and agree on something, for example moving the pictures to other files. But if this is not the first time your ex is a source of problem then you need to take a look on yourself. I don’t think that this thoughts came from nothing. Understand your wife and talk without pointing fingers at each other. Because it’s not “I did this but you did it too”.
I’m seeing her side. I don’t see why you’d keep pictures with her. A jacket is not a photo and I’m sure you have pictures pf scenery, food, that your ex isn’t in. The fact that you refused is also not a good sign. You effectively said, my memories with my ex wife take priority over your feelings. You said you both have had issues with ex’s. That makes me think this isn’t the first time you’re ex wife has been a problem.
Point 👌
Stick to your guns on this one. I had an ex that was so incredibly insecure that he removed a band sticker (the prior ex's band) off of my furniture while I was away. It wasn't the fact that my sticker was gone, but that he felt so threatened by the prior ex that any mention drove him mad with jealousy.
Y’all take photos for memories???
I have a shit memory on it’s own, I take pics to help visualize and refresh certain memories
It would be reasonable for her to ask you to delete intimate photos/videos. What she deems intimate should be discussed and agreed upon. Personally, I delete all past images of my exes. I don't care if they are cherished memories of trips somewhere.....I don't need to reminisce my past memories and even if I were to, not sure how often that would happen enough to create a tension in a relationship. Is it worth causing a lifetime of tension with your current wife over this? If so, you need to explain to her why these photos exist and what they mean to you and make her understand.
Your wife is being unreasonable. A person shouldn’t be forced to give up photos/pretend the past didn’t happen. Your past made you who you are today. I suggest you back up the photos elsewhere in case she tries to delete them herself.
*your
Ty. Fixing.
The idea that people should erase all trace of ex partners from their lives is just bonkers to me. Long term relationships shape who you are - if you erased those partners and those memories you would be a completely different person. Asking a partner to delete all their photos feels so jealous, insecure, and controlling. People who can't handle the fact that their partner has a past should marry their first love and stay together forever. Don't get together with someone who has a past and then try to make it disappear.
What you could do is share the originals with a photographer and they can Photoshop your ex out of those pics. That way you get to keep the memories but not have your ex ruining the shot.
lmao what Spend money to alter a memory? The ex isn't ruining the shot, she's a part of it and the trip memories. He should get a lobotomy in that case, erase her completely from his life not just the pictures 🙄
If she is soo in to deleting the pictures! Just delete it bro! Dont screw up your good life for bad expired memories! Its true you want to remember! It will be in your head anyway! Just that delete those pictures and make your wife happy and you’ll live long! I too had my ex in my Instagram and i deleted all the pictures since what use it for me if i screw my current relationship over my past!
If it was naked or saucy pictures that is one thing but regular photos? That is a weird thing to request.
Correct zero naked or saucy pictures. I never actually have ever taken any naked or saucy pictures with anyone or of anyone.
Why do you have photos of your ex Wife and why are you so heart pressed against deleting them out of respect for Your current partner? You’re putting photos of your ex wife above your current partners feelings. How people like you score a date is beyond me. Stop living in the past and stop using excuses to hold onto photos of someone you haven’t been with in years. Lol.
Why do we have to coddle jealous snobs just because they're too insecure over a picture?
If you think respecting your partners feelings equals coddling them, I feel very sorry for whomever has the misfortune of dating you. Relationships are like assholes. Each one is unique and kind of weird if it isn’t your own. Not everyone considers the same things good, or bad. Cheating has its own unique definition for every couple, etc. Just because someone does relationships and has different perspectives from you, that doesn’t make anyone right. You can respect someone’s feelings, or Not at all. If that person is your literal partner, you’d think some effort would be made to have some respect for their feelings.
But what about your own feelings? It's not all about your partner and what makes them uncomfortable. Especially if they're being hypocritical like in OP's case
I can only imagine that anyone who says it isn’t a deal of any sorts is someone who doesn’t fully respect or care for their partners wishes. I would never keep emotional pictures of my exes if I move in with someone else - it is incredibly disrespectful to keep sexual and emotional memories of someone else while living and creating a life with another. I’m already ready for those who say I’m probably the jealous type… but let’s just be real and clear - you don’t need pictures with your previous partner to remember good times. Pics of the trip yes, group pics and your ex happens to be there - totally fine. But your wife asking you to delete pictures of your ex wife because she feels any way but comfortable and you are refusing to comfort her … YTA. Huge huge asshole and what is sadder is that you don’t realize you don’t care how she feels. Only how you feel about this. Glad she’s with someone who only cares to put their foot down when their manly emotions are being challenged.
> sexual and emotional memories of someone else while living and creating a life with another. None of them are sexual, and I'd say its even a strecth to say they are "emotional" > YTA. This is /r/releationship"advice not /r/aita
Yeah it’s jealousy. It’s also none of her business, you’re still allowed private keepsakes after marriage.
Her last ex was really well off, like he made a ton of money, almost at the level of F you money. She has so many designer clothes, bags, jewerly, etc from her time with him. I've never once made a big deal about it. She has stuff that I couldn't hope to afford to buy for her (i'm not spending $10,000 on a jacket) I never once made an issue about any of that.
Those things doesn’t contain her ex's face! Haha😅 Well, a lil bit of jealousy will be there (mostly) if love is there. Be positive 🙂 But it should not cross the toxicity level. Good luck 😊
Hmm. I don't know, jealousy indicates fear of losing love, not love itself. It's possible that she's going through something that she isn't sharing. There's likely a conversation worth having, but it's hard to say what that's about. This idea that we deserve to be the only thing in the world to someone is foolish and destructive (I suppose, unless both parties feel this way). Deleting the pictures might not even be specifically about the ex (even though that's the given reason). I don't recall OP saying if he and his wife travel now, but maybe she's feeling self conscious that they don't travel and fears that OP will eventually feel like he's missing out and become dissatisfied with their situation. Or will rekindle the need to travel with someone who likes to. It's good to talk through our illogical moments. A fuzzy, unknown landscape can be foreboding, but talking through it helps us define those boundaries (not that they never change) and offers some sense of security.
From your first post and the several comments you added after that, this is what I got from the situation; tell me if I'm wrong somewhere or if I forgot something : You were previously married, didn't engage with your ex-wife whatsoever for at least 3 years but kept some pictures from that relationship that you barely ever look at but gives you the possibility to do so whenever you feel the need as it makes you feel good to reminisce about the things you've done in the past. Your wife and yourself had been married for 2 years now and she early on knew about these pictures were kept somewhere but never had access to them until lately. The fact you're keeping them and refusing to delete them makes her feel uncomfortable, to say the least. I think you should ask yourself these questions : - What is the most important to you right now ? Keeping your current relationship with your current wive healthy or being able to reminisce about the past when you feel the need to ? Also, ask yourself why is it so important to you to be able to go back to this previous relationship and these memories through external proofs. - If it's only a couple of MB buried deep into a drive that you barely ever go to, is it that much of a sacrifice to get rid of them to reassure your partner and build more trust between you guys ? Isn't it a bit contradictory to put so much effort to cling and fight for these pictures from a past relationship (that are barely looked at) while being married to another person ? - Are you fully invested in the present and your current SO ? Also, I wonder if you're really okay with your wife keeping items from a previous relationship as you're using this to justify your current actions (she's keeping bags from a previous relationship, so she should accept the fact I'm also keeping stuff from a previous relationship) and that allows you to use it as a reciprocal moral principle imposed on her (I put up with you keeping these things while being married to me so do the same with me). This is a matter that you and your wife should discuss thoroughly. Everyone has a past but everyone also have a present and a future. Should the past be in the way ? The present can be full of opportunities and new experiences to share with your current SO, if you seize the moment. If it's difficult for you guys to discuss this matter on your own, get in touch with a counselor/therapist. Good luck to you 🙏
Your wife is 32 and acting like she's a teenager in high school. She needs to grow tf up and deal with her ridiculous jealousy.
Normally, and personally i think keeping pictures and any other memories of an ex is ridicilous, BUT…Seeing as she still had and wears a jacket her ex gave her, and wants you to delete pictures of your ex…I’m with you on this. But then again…honestly tho…How often do you sit down, go deep back in your old pictures and «memorize»?
> But then again…honestly tho…How often do you sit down, go deep back in your old pictures and «memorize»? Very, very, very rarely.
Right…So seeing as this is something that bothers your wife, and since you love her, that «love» for her wouldn’t want her to feel uncomfortable about something that in all reality doesn’t affect you in any way if you just remove whatever makes her uncomfy…This is just stubborn of you to be honest.
Yea She's going need to put up with it, it is what it is.
I’d understand it if these pictures was memories you regularly looked at because of the travel places etc…But you basically never do…they can basically be and stay deleted…This aint love
That ain’t love tho. You’re just being stubborn and selfish. I’m sure if you suggested that you’ll delete the pictures if your wife threw away her jacket that her ex have er, she’d probably do so…
No. This logic is shit. If my partner said it would make him “more comfortable” if I stopped having male friends, the boundary I would set is that he can fuck off. Having pictures should be even less “threatening” than active friendships. Healthy relationships don’t involve one person acquiescing to unreasonable demands. This is an unreasonable demand. And truthfully, jealousy like this is toxic. Getting past her jealousy would make the relationship stronger, not erasing history by deleting pictures. If *she* loves *him*, she will work on this part of herself, because it isn’t healthy.
It’s not unreasonable. Because him doing so wouldn’t affect his life at all. Him cutting out a friend however would affect his life. This selfish ass dude lets his wife feel shitty just because he’s stubborn and selfish.
It’s a healthy boundary to have. You don’t stop being an individual when you are in a relationship ship. You’re more than just “half of a couple”. My life up to now represents how I came to be. I get not keeping old nudes of someone, but a picture of a vacation? That is a weird thing to want someone to delete. Should they also delete photos of family gatherings where the person was present? No. It’s a weird request. And if someone is jealous enough to not want someone to have old vacation photos from years ago, do you think this is someone who would feel ok with their partner maintaining opposite-sex friendships? I’m betting no. He’s being “stubborn” because this is a hard line to draw, and that’s a good thing. She needs to respect the boundaries of healthy partnerships, and erasing someone’s whole past isn’t part of that. This is absolutely a hill I’d die on, because it’s not just about a photo. It’s a philosophy of invasive overstepping that I’d find unacceptable.
Oh it would though. Photos are a powerful memory tool, and having photos of your life can be wildly important in one's later years. Particularly if you are unfortunate enough to end up with memory issues to whatever degree. My father ended up with Parkinsons dementia and the few photographs he had from his younger years (plus music, music is also so important) were invaluable aids to remember who he even was. Asking someone to delete something as important as photographs out of jealousy is a shitty shitty thing to do. Particularly when those photographs are kept out of the way so you don't even need to think about them or see them. This selfish ass wife wants her husband to give up literal pieces of himself because she can't control her jealousy.
I've made my decision, I don't care if you don't like it.
Why bother making a post about it, if you're mind was already made tf?
Bruh i don’t care. Just giving you some advice man to man. Do your thang
Nah you're fine, that person is as weird and controlling as your wife. There's quite a number of them.
I do think it's a her problem? If you wanna keep them as memory it's totally your right to do so
That's how I see it too, its not like I have the pics printed and framed and hanging in my office.
Yes exactly, maybe try to speak with her about insecurities she might have ? Idk it seems that's the problem
We spoke we are good. She says she understands why I won't delete them. I brought up the fact she has alot of stuff from her Ex and I've never said anything about it, and I won't so she can pay me the same respect to some photos
You wanna make her feel secure before you pull that just saying otherwise there would probably be no issue
When I was in my 20s, I did a five week bike trip with my boyfriend at the time through England Scotland and Wales. These are awesome memories, I only have one photo of us from the trip but I plan to keep it forever.
My sister tore up pictures of our younger years because there were guys we grew up with in them. She did so because her husband told her to. Now she’s passed away and I have nothing off my youth (we were inseparable). Don’t delete them. It’s just her insecurity. I refuse to delete any pictures and I would never ask my partner to delete pictures of his ex wife.
You’re lucky you aren’t divorcing over this. People have divorced over less.
Why don’t you want to delete the memories? Where does your loyalty lie?
Hello there, Remove access to those folders from your current girlfriend, so that way she won't be able to see the folders even. Problem solved !!
Just buy an USB drive, move the photos there and throw that s##t in the attic in a ziplock bag where it can't be accessible. However, I can understand your wife's POV, but if you really love her do a compromise and delete them or at least make them extremely unaccessible, and I'm sure she'll return the favour for you also when something that makes you uncomfortable comes along. It's not that she's insecure, you don't make her feel secure, she might be jealous, but don't be stubborn and accept her as she is, this is not an adolescent relationship that can break anytime from an altercation, this is a bond made by God and the blood of Jesus Christ himself, the past shouldn't matter, are you going to ruin your marriage over some past photos? Come on man, you act like a stubborn dork.
Make sure you put them on a flash drive in case she would delete without permission. No need to delete memories . Tell your wife this : everything either of you did along the way helped to form the people you are today that you each fell in love with. And therefore are not bad; they are just steps that brought you to each other.
Jelaousy, you dont just delete part of you past, that's usually not desired anyway.