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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Photos of ex-wife

208 replies

rightroyal · 30/10/2017 20:17

DP and I have been together three years. We visit his mum fairly regularly, she's very independent with a very busy life and is not a poor lonely widow.

DP was with his ex for 20+ years but their relationship broke down about 5 years ago.

Here's the AIBU. His mum has two very large photos of DP and his ex on the walls plus a selection of their wedding photos. One in the dining room I look at whilst enjoying a meal at her house.

AIBU to be pissed off by these pictures? Her house her rules I get it, but FFS!

OP posts:
egginacup · 30/10/2017 21:33

Photos of her ex-DIL either individually or with family- fine. Wedding photos is a bit off, just out of sensitivity to her son, surely! I would hate it if my relatives still had wedding photos of me and exH on the wall when I went round!

iBiscuit · 30/10/2017 21:34

DAD most women would run a mile if you invited them to dinner and they found themselves faced with a wall of photos of you and your ex in your 90s wedding finery.

I know I would.

SumAndSubstance · 30/10/2017 21:36

I'm afraid the pictures are just a symptom of the fact that your DP (H?), and therefore also his DM, has a longer history with his ex-wife than he does with you. That's always a likelihood with second marriages/LTRs and you can't erase it. I agree with the poster who says YANBU not to like them, but YABU to expect her to take them down

KungFuPandaWorksOut16 · 30/10/2017 21:38

I don't get the posters who are asking has your DH said something.
What can he say. It isnt his house. If his mother wants a naked mural painted of his ex wife on the ceiling, guess what the son could do - nothing!

Sometimes on mumsnet it's like some of the posters want the husband too end up full on brawling with family members over something menial.

MrLovebucket · 30/10/2017 21:39

She was apparently married with one step son in September

Oh.

QueenUnicorn · 30/10/2017 21:42

YABU
ExW was a part of MIL's life for 20 years. They have their own relationship and MIL has every right to have a photo of her.
You cant just erase someone after 20 years.

ASqueakingInTheShrubbery · 30/10/2017 21:49

Ask DP to have a word. When I was first going out with DH he asked his mum to take down the pictures of him and his ex. MIL had had them up for so long she'd stopped noticing. There was no malice in it. I didn't give a shit, but it bothered him.

OohMavis · 30/10/2017 21:50

My first thought was how would the children feel if she took the photos down? She's their mum.

iBiscuit · 30/10/2017 21:53

She's their mum. In a bloody wedding dress marrying their dad!

Rainbunny · 30/10/2017 22:03

Bad manners OP? Oh grow up. If she wants to keep photo's of her ex-DIL in her house then that's her business and NOT rude towards you! The only person who may possibly have a right to an opinion on it is your DP. Even he can't demand that she remove all evidence of a woman he was married to for twenty years. She may have said some unkind things about the ex-wife to you but don't read too much into that - she'll have known the ex-wife for over twenty years and she's the mother of her DGC.

I also think it's nice for your DP's children to see that their mum is still remembered in their grandma's house and I imagine it would have been very upsetting if their grandma had removed the pictures after the divorce.

PyongyangKipperbang · 30/10/2017 22:11

If you get together with anyone past the age of 35 you can be pretty certain there will be ta least one significant other in his past, often a spouse. It is very childish to kick off about a photo of something that, no matter how much you dont like it, did happen.

He did love her once, enough to marry and have kids with her and you may not like the thought of that but you cant alter that its fact.

I suggest you spend your time working out why this bothers you so much than seething at inanimate objects in someone elses home.

PyongyangKipperbang · 30/10/2017 22:14

Also my grandparents did something similar afer the divorces of two of my uncles. The photos were removed and replaced when they got remarried and not before. Some people are old fashioned like that.

Branleuse · 30/10/2017 22:15

I think its weird OP. YANBU

iBiscuit · 30/10/2017 22:17

I don't believe that so many people would feel comfortable having their dp and his ex grinning down at you in soft focus as you tried to make polite conversation over dinner.

JWrecks · 30/10/2017 22:27

I don't know, actually... That's a tough one, IMO.

On one hand, as his DP, I would NOT be comfortable with that at all.

But on the other, she may adore those photos of her son, regardless of who else is in them. The photos of her DS's wedding day may still be a big deal to her.

And on my magical third hand, it's possible that she simply doesn't have anything to replace the large photos with, or that the frames they're in go too nicely to take them down??

ShellyBoobs · 30/10/2017 22:27

..they've had 7 weddings between them and marriages varying in length from 1 year to a quarter of a decade

As long as that!?

SumAndSubstance · 30/10/2017 22:32

Shelly, haha, hadn't noticed that! I presume she meant 'century' Wink

JWrecks · 30/10/2017 22:38

She is not like a daughter to her. She's not seen her for 5years and is not particularly complimentary of her.

Well that is strange then! (Sorry, I'd left the tab open and didn't refresh before posting before!) If they're not even close, then I can't really understand whey they're up, other than maybe she hasn't got anything to replace them. You said they were large, so maybe she really hasn't got anything. She could also just be so used to them that she doesn't even notice them anymore.

What you could do is take some lovely photos of the same size, maybe of you and DP and the DC (or maaaaaaybe just DP and the DC?) and give those to her? A subtle hint that the ones she has in the frames could do with replacing?

BarbarianMum · 30/10/2017 22:44

Maybe she keeps them there for her grandchildren - they might not want their mum airbrushed out. But honestly, why would you even care? He's yours now.

1DAD2KIDS · 30/10/2017 22:44

iBiscuit granted my photos are not on my wall, stored away. I don't know about my ex all in her 90s finary, I not that old, I was still a child in the 90s and she was younger than me. If I married her in the 90s we would have been breaking a law I'm sure.

Original poster
rightroyal · 31/10/2017 08:43

Thanks for all of your comments. I may have a word with DP. Just for the record i'm not DEMANDING anything. I was asking was I unreasonable for being pissed off about it? Far from any demand!

The children are very well aware who their mother is and don't need pictures in their grandma's house to remind them! Quite the most insane comments i've ever read on Mumsnet! Very entertaining though.

OP posts:
sizenines · 31/10/2017 08:55

Ask DPs mother directly why she keeps the photos on display - get it out in the open and hear her response, she may be surprised you have noticed them. OH and I had this on both sides and it was just because the photos had become part of the furniture and they were used to them, nothing more. We started to ignore the pictures in the end, even to the point where it became funny.

YANBU, but it's one of those things that happens in life, and you will get over it as long as your relationship is good in all other respects.

FeedMeAndTellMeImPretty · 31/10/2017 09:09

My DP had massive photos of him and ex up all over his house when we met. I put up with it for quite a while before asking him why he had left them up. His response was it was nice for the kids to see them, that they had been happy together and that his view was that anyone new would have to put up with it. However, he had now realised it was uncomfortable for me, so he took them down and put them in the kids room.

I don't know if my XH's family still have photos of me up, but they still invite me to family events and said I will always be family to them, so it would be nice to think they haven't erased me!

I can see it from both sides and nobody is being unreasonable - it's just human emotions. Flowers

QueenUnicorn · 31/10/2017 09:20

Of course they need pictures in their Grandma's house. How would you feel if your own Grandma removed all photos of your Mum because your Dad had a new partner?
I think it's a really selfish thought to say that the children don't need the pictures because you don't want them there. You got with this man knowing he had children and everything that comes with that.

fantasmasgoria1 · 31/10/2017 09:55

I got rid of all photos etc from my stbxh. My new mil when my dp split with his wife many years ago took all photos containing her down and even cut her out of a couple!

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