Dh saw old images of my ex ex and I

And once again, it wasn’t his phone, or his content. And it was from several years ago before they met. How would he know what was important or sentimental ? I don’t think this was a case of malicious snooping. I think his curiosity got the better of him and he saw something he wasn’t meant to. That’s not on OP, so he needs to get past it and stop treating her as though she’s cheated. We all have our past and we all need to use our judgement when presented with the elements of that past brought to us through technology.

But how would you know what was required if it wasn't your phone, and from a time before you even knew the person?

Exactly that. The normal thing to do would be to ask the owner of the phone to go through it before it was restored to factory settings.

OP you can either take an understanding approach and allow DH time and space to heal.

Or you can take the defensive aggressive apporoah of other posters by shifting the focus of blame onto DH, demand he give you an apologise and tell him to get over himself.

I would take the first option and would advice that to my closest friends, relatives, anyone on online. Those advocating for the latter approach are hypocritical in expecting you to take their advice when I 100% guarantee they would not give that same advice to their close friends of family. They're attempting to appear loyal to women at any cost and to the betrayal of good advice and preservation of an otherwise strong relationship.

I feel sorry for you but I think it is important that this is not presented as a 'normal' or typical reaction - especially for OP, who says she suffers from anxiety and so is prone to catastrophising. This level of reaction is really unhealthy and should have been addressed through therapy, not through expecting your partner to endlessly atone and reassure you (which I think, in your own description, approaches emotional abuse). It sounds like OP's partner is having a much more healthy response, that he knows she's done nothing wrong, and that they will recover from this quickly. She doesn't need to expect that this will take years to repair.

But how would you know what was required if it wasn't your phone, and from a time before you even knew the person?

Who even goes into a file folder? If he was truly concerned the only image ever captured of a Unicorn or whatever other increasingly dramatic example that may be given was contained within this iPhone 2 then he'd have opened the gallery or camera roll, saw a few pics, then gone "actually love theres pics on here do you want to double check them?"

Literally no one would go straight to a file folder and check there unless you were sniffing about.

It’s human nature to try and block out the fact that your spouse/partner has a past (I know I do with my DH) However, I accept that he does and just try not to think about it 🤷‍♀️ Let your DH just have some time to process it and I’m sure he’ll be fine.

This.

As usual, posters are applying black and white thinking, which is unrealistic and unhelpful.

Most people would be jarred by this and take some time to process. I know I would.

Exactly otherwise there would be an AIBU on here going:

"I asked my DH to clear my old phone so it could be recycled and after he did it he casually mentioned that he thought there were some photos of my late mum and dad's golden wedding anniversary saved on it but he didn't open them as it would be "snooping" so he just deleted everything without checking them. I'm really upset..."

Maybe OP can clarify, but l don’t think it’s something that can be assumed, as OP says she’s careful about that sort of thing. I suppose it’s possible that it’s crossed her DH’s mind so clearly a conversation is needed.

He charged up the phone to wipe it before getting rid of it which is the right thing to do. No blame should be attached to him for that.
You don’t need to look through the photos to do that.

To be honest, I would have done the same as Dh to make sure I wasn't throwing away something sentimental but forgotten about, such as a few pictures of nan and grandad before they died or of a happy time on holiday with a friend. I wouldn't have thought about coming across sex photos.

I would have done it because I'm always 'acussed' of throwing stuff out without checking if they were still needed.

I cant think of anything that we have as being 'private' and not being able to look at so if dh had done it to me i wouldn't see it as an invasion of privacy.

Do you only think about yourself? There could be something sentimental to OP on the phone.

Most of us have photos of loved one's scattered across many tablets/phones/laptops. Life usually means we never make the time to compile them into one place but that doesn't mean they're not important and we might not want to retain them.

If they were taking photos of each other on her phone he'd be bound to have some I'd have thought ? Either these ones or ones he's got on his own phone.

He was being nosey and it's bitten him on the arse. He'll get over it. You didn't do anything wrong.

How would he know what was required and what was not if the device and content weren’t his own and was from a time before he and OP even met ? I don’t think he was snooping in a malicious way, but l certainly think his curiosity got the better of him and he got more than he bargained for. That’s not on OP.

I agree with this. You will both need to talk about it together so that you can put it behind you.

I really feel for you.. Happily going about your business, growing a new baby and suddenly this jumps out and ambushes you both. It must be a bit of a shock to the system for both of you.

I know it must be mortifying, but PLEASE BE KIND TO YOURSELF. Forgive yourself. This is NOT the current you, this is you from seven years ago, a you in your 20s, and anyone is allowed to make mistakes and move on...and you have moved on. It was an ex ex.

I'm sure he had relationships before he met you and he's lucky that no one photographed that. but forgive him too, its years ago to you but its yesterday to him, but you can both get past this.

but I also agree with
@TheDisgustingBrothers
"Just give it time, I’d feel awful if I saw something that like of my partner but it wouldn’t change how I felt about them, I’d just need a bit of a grace period to be in my feelings to process them and then I could get over it. You can’t really say you wouldn’t treat him the way he’s treating you as a) you don’t know and b) everyone is different and we all have our own ways of handling feelings."

Life rolls on and the past is the past and will seem more so as all the new stuff that is going on in your lives distracts you.

If OP herself is shocked by these photos I think it's fair to say they are very explicit.

A trusted partner very rarely exists imo. You might, or might not, be able to trust a person when you are in a relationship with them . But once the relationship is over then you most definitely cannot trust them.

Personally I don't understand the need some people have to take and receive " intimate " photos. Seems there a lot of wannabe porn stars out there. Otherwise why reduce yourself and someone you are in a relationship with to a series of body parts?

I imagine most people wouldn’t want to see explicit pictures of their partner with someone else ,but it was in the past and people have a past, maybe a lesson for everyone about storage of explicit pictures, they don’t just go away unless you delete them

Exactly, unless the OP asked him to check through the photos for her, but she hasn't mentioned she did as far as I can see. How would he know what photos she would want to save from a time before he was with her? It sounds like she wasn't bothered about seeing what was on a phone she hadn't switched on for many years and just wanted rid of it.

He asked her is he could wipe them, not look through them...

If he came across an old diary of hers and asked if he could burn it, and she said yes, that doesn't mean he has the right to read her private thoughts and feelings from a time before she knew him before disposing of it

If she said to wipe them, he had absolutely no reason to go through them at all, he was snooping and he's found something he doesn't like, he should NOT be making op feel terrible for having a life before him when he shouldn't have even been looking in the first place!!

You’re not going to find something sentimental to you on someone else’s phone.

Seriously?

He’s not a five year old in trouble at the school for the first time.

He’s a grown man that went snooping though and old phone and is now insecure and angry that his partner dared to have a sex life with other people before she met him.

She shouldn’t be acknowledging his feelings - she should be telling him to stop his stupid little tantrum and grown the fuck up.

Why was a factory reset all that was needed? If you had an old purse in a wardrobe that you hadn;t used in years are you honestly saying you would chuck it out without checking the contents first (old notes, coins, a spare house key?). If you wouldn't that's pretty stupid considering the time required to check vs the risk of throwing away something important/sentimental.

It's 100 per cent unreasonable of him to have a problem with this.

You have done nothing wrong. He decided to look at your old phones’ pictures. That’s on him.

In one of the updates OP said she’s very careful about things ending up on the internet so l got the impression they weren’t shared - hence being stored in a file folder on the device and not kept on the camera roll.