Dh saw old images of my ex ex and I

I can’t believe everyone is so casual about the fact that he was snooping through your phone. I would find that hard to forgive.

I think you just need to give him some time op. Whilst he will know rationally it’s not anyone’s fault emotionally he is hurt.
We have all been there where we know our emotions are being unreasonable but we feel what we feel, regardless of what our head tells us.
Give him space and time and I’m sure it will all be fine. He loves you and he knows you, like everyone else has a past. He’s just been confronted by it in a way he’s finding hard to emotionally understand.

Pretty poor and a clear showing of double standards from posters saying the DH needs to 'get a grip' and 'get over it', along with all the victim blaming of DH for taking a sensible approach before discarding of a device which could have sensitive information on. I wonder how many posters here would honestly 'get over it' that quickly?

DH is clearly putting on a brave front ('saying all the right words') but is understandably hurt. OP clearly feels awful and wants to be forgiven quickly but DH doesn't owe her that. He should be given the space and time to heal at his own pace.

It’s not snooping it was a file folder with thumbnails, and he was deleting everything, and stopped as soon as he realised. It’s a bit mad to think he was snooping in a file folder thumbnails lol.

Poor lamb !! MN has such double standards. OP’s get their arses handed to them for snooping through their partners phones even when they suspect cheating. This is exactly what DH has done. If it was OPs phone, then he should have handed it to her to go through and wipe. He knows OP did nothing wrong, so why is he pouting ?

When I was young and had my 1st boyfriend I was in his room left alone for few hrs as he had to go out, I was bored and casually opened his drawers.. I didn't even need to dig deep . On the top were photos of his ex and him, lots of letters.
I picked one of the letters- it was already opened out of envelope and unfolded - and I almost fainted from what i read. The most explicit writing she sent him.
This was early 90s and I was like 16yrs literally innocent girl.
When he got back I told him and he said she was a bit wild and dirty girl.
He was 18 and she was the same age as him.
I felt so embarrassed that I will never be able to compare to her.
We split up few months later, he kept contacting her, seeing her..
But I yes I was shaken by what I saw.

On the one hand neither the OP or her husband have done anything wrong. However I would think slightly less of my partner if I knew they'd done this in the past for the reasons you've outlined and also because I just think it's tacky and ridiculous. I'd wonder when my partner was going to suggest I do it with them and I'd hate it.

I'd also not want to be confronted with my partners ex's bits and pieces. With a new baby on the way the OP's husband will soon have other things to think about and I'm sure things will return to normal before too long.

"Imagine if you had the cure for cancer on the phone" etc. irrelevant here as it wasn't his phone, he'd have known this, so he should have said to op to check first.

Even if you didn't mind him wiping the phone, it's probably worth agreeing that if you find something personal of your's or his which predates your relationship, you take care of disposing of it yourself and vice versa. People are naturally curious creatures, even if it's not always in our best interests.

How long ago did this happen? You say he's been off with you for a couple of days. I can understand the initial shock, but he's heading into he needs to get a grip and stop sulking territory. He's the one you chose to get married and start a family with and that should be what he's focussing on. I'm sure he has his own sexual past and it doesn't sound like you would react this way if the roles were reversed. I'd ask him to have a heart to heart, so you can try to draw a line under the whole thing and enjoy preparing for the arrival of your baby.

What's wrong with doing that? Is it better for unused electronics to go to landfill rather than being used or recycled?

I think the knowledge that our spouse has a past can feel very different to actually 'seeing' it. We all have a past but an abstract idea doesn't hurt the same way.

I don't think it will help op to minimise the potential damage this has done. It is entirely possible that her DH just needs a couple of days to process and 'get over' those images. Conversely he could be the type who will never get them out of his head and now views his marriage differently.

The phone was OPs and he intended to wipe it, there was zero reason to look through it first. If anything he should have handed it to OP for that. As a result, he’s seen something that happened years before they even met, which is absolutely none of his business, and now he’s treating OP as though she’s cheated on him. He needs to stop pouting and grow up. He’s about to be a father.

No reason for you to feel bad about it.

Unless you claimed to be a virgin when you met him, I don't see why he's acting so off.

Surprised at all these well he was snooping comments, most folks would have a look before wiping a phone and it was a file folder thumbnails not the actual photos, and he stopped when he realised, and I very much doubt he was snooping through some file folder, just checking the thumbnails before he deleted everything, and he certainly didn’t expect to see his wife in her own porn images,

im not sure he’s done anything wrong, he is allowed to feel uncomfortable and a bit distant for awhile, he’s said the right things, let him get over it, it just requires time, I think what he saw would make most people uncomfortable.

But if you had a box of old tech wouldn't you even check they were empty?
I would and dh does too.
Imagine if you had baby's first picture from hospital there on an unused phone and just deleted them without checking. Everyone would be up in arms saying who wipes without checking first.

Given OP's updates I don't think anyone did anything wrong. Just give it a bit of time, he will get over it.

Did he think you were a virgin when you met? There’s no rewind button so he’s just going to have to deal with his quite irrational reaction to coming face to face with your past. It’s not as if the photos were taken yesterday.

Its as a pp alluded to, some men really dont like the idea of their partner being 'tainted' by another penis before they came along and they get quite upset when they find out she did have a sex life before them 🙄

I know I’m going massively against the grain here, but for fucks sake, it was before you were with him. It’s not like he uncovered some sort of affair.

He needs to grow up and get over it. It says a lot about him that he’s upset. I know some people will disagree but Christ, what you did with another boyfriend before you met him is none of his business.

Who even goes in the files folder to wipe a phone?

Dont feel too bad op. He was absolutely snooping around and got what he wanted.

Yeah you are just going to have to wait this one out. Do not make him feel bad for how he feels. He is saying all the right things as he knows you did nothing wrong. However doesn’t mean he probably isn’t feeling a lot of emotions. He just needs time to process though. Give him that time

Yes agreed, I wasn’t saying he was wrong for feeling rubbish about it once he’d seen it. I don’t think anyone has done anything ‘wrong’ really - as long as he’s not withdrawing to
punish OP for this. To be honest I’d probably attempt to have another conversation about it to try to clear the air, but it will probably just blow over as people are saying.

I imagine it’s a hard imagine to unburn from his brain.

Hopefully those imagined were also not of something you haven’t done with him. Too add an extra layer of issues.

All you can do is be your normal self no point in keep apologising for your past that he found. If I’d seen a thumbnail of what looked like porn I certainly wouldn’t have then opened that file to see more. In fact I wouldn’t have even been in files. Straight to setting and factory reset.

I can’t believe you’ve spent years punishing your dh for his past. And expecting him to do all this work to reassure you rather than you working on your jealousy and insecurity issues. I wouldn’t stay married to a person who would spend years punishing me for the audacity of having a past, and I feel sorry for your dh having to put up with this.

Then he shouldn’t have gone snooping through her folders. She said go ahead and wipe the phone, there was no need to look at anything before wiping it.

It’s his fault for snooping and it was an invasion of her privacy.