Partner with photos ex on Facebook.

[helbel34]

Hi been together for 6 years, living together with a 3 year old DD.

Both of us have Facebook accounts don't really post much but do look on it fairly often.

DP was looking for a picture to show our neighbour on facebook on out tv.

All of the photos that came up were of him and his ex, one of them where recent all from when they were together. No recent pics of us, a couple of DD.

My AIBU is i felt really embarrassed by this at the time, then quite put out at the fact that anyone looking on his Facebook will naturally assume that they are still a couple and I'm not part of his life.

I do know that this sounds immature, but I can't help feeling this way.

Are you the one perpetually worried he's cheating on you/not over his ex/obsessed with before he met you?

You say you don't post often so there's the problem. Just make a post of pics and tag him. Sorted

Gently, YABU. I understand where you're coming from, but you say that neither of you use FB other than for browsing. There was a time when people used to upload to FB a lot, but now they don't.

If it's an old photo, then it's safe to assume they're not together. If you look at my FB profile you'll see photos of my ex fairly high up in my recently photos list, but they're all from 2018 or older.

If it bothers you, add some photos. It's easily fixed.

You say yourself that you don’t post much on fb, so that would explain why there are no recent photos etc. Often on fb images can be uploaded by others and if you are tagged in them, they will appear on your feed even if you didn’t upload them yourself. I find a lot of friends who have pictures from old holidays ad days out are now putting up photos for the memories.
If there are no photos of you and child, you need to consider whether you and your partner want photos of your child on social media.
You have been together for 6 years and have a family, if anyone on your fb page does not know he has a partner and child then they aren’t really a friend are they, so their opinion does not matter.

Unpopular opinion probably but it’s not hard for him to delete them. I find it really odd when people have old pics of past relationships on social media.

If my partner calmly said to me hey I feel a bit sad and embarrassed the other night when there was lots of old photos of your ex on your facebook. I'd be more than happy to delete untag whatever. Why would I prioritise photos of my ex over my partners feelings?

So I don't think you are unreasonable to feel this way it's all about how you communicate it to your partner.

Simply ask him to delete it . I don't understand this tiptoeing around when it clearly upsets you .

If the pictures are of particular high sentimental value e.g. previous partner died, they share a child, were together for 20+ years etc then he can simply download the pictures and save them for safe keeping .

Did you not already know what was on his Facebook?

Yeah I knew what was on there, it was just seeing them all when he looked over them. I don't think in anyway that he's still hung up on her, it was just hurtful to see.

Just struggling to see how it was hurtful when you already knew they were there that's all!

So on fb all my photos are on albums. I’ve set albums with my ex to private so no one can see them. I’ve not deleted them. I use fb as a bit of a cloud storage thing and some are from before we had iCloud etc. but they’re there for our kids when they ask to see older pics of things. Harder to do if you don’t collate into albums and they’re just random pictures. But he’s, get some uploaded and tagged if you’re that bothered.

Like I said it was just the fact he was looking for a photo to show our neighbour, probably didn't help that it was on the TV 55in 4k!!

I totally get how you feel OP. My boyfriend of several months hasn’t posted anything about me on his FB as he says he’s a very private person and only really uses it to update distant family members etc. but he’s on there a lot chatting on various groups and pages he follows. Anyone on those would happily assume he’s single.

He did have a couple of pics of his ex on there and is still friends with her on there and in real life.

If we’d been together as long as you and had a child I’d be most put out that I was still in the shadows. It’s one thing not to post “I love my wife so much #blessed” but it’s weird if he hasn’t tagged you in photos of the kids or managed even one pic of you together. Definitely worthy talking about. I don’t think he necessarily needs to delete his past but he should realise how you feel when it appears that you don’t exist in his online world.

YANBU

It is disrespectful regardless if you use fb or not. Okay so you guys don’t use fb and haven’t noticed. Well now you have, so it needs to be deleted.

I would find it odd if people deleted all pictures of their ex unless it was something like an abusive ex. It's trying to erase a past and pretend that it didn't happen.

It would be even more odd if the person doesn't use fb much - would mean the ex was taken up head space to go to such efforts. Would you expect someone to throw away physical copies of photos too?

Facebook isn't real life. It's a product of what you've uploaded onto there. It's just a reflection of the fact that neither of you have uploaded any photographs of you together, not a reflection of your relationship.

All that shows is that you don't use it any more, why would you feel hurt?

I would feel the same, OP. It's the fact that six years have gone by, you have your family life now, with DD. And to look at his social media profile and within a couple of scrolls of his photos is their life.

Have you told him how you feel?

Unpopular opinion probably but it’s not hard for him to delete them. I find it really odd when people have old pics of past relationships on social media.

@s4usagefingers why? I think it’s more odd to be so hung up/petty that you go through your Facebook just to remove all trace of someone who was a significant part of you life (or force your partner to do the same).

Unless there was some kind of abuse then it’s just history and you move on. You don’t have to make efforts to erase it from the past.

Horses for courses I suppose. I’ve been married twice and I can’t imagine having pictures of my first husband on my Facebook profile, he’s not part of my life anymore. I still have all of our photos which are on an external drive and wouldn’t dream of getting rid but they are just for me.

My ex was given an ultimatum by a new girlfriend and told he needed to sit down and delete all of the pictures from when we were together, including ones on any trip or holiday whether I was in them or not.

Needless to say her insecurities went further than that and they split leaving him with a gaping hole in his albums (no hard copies or back ups, he's not techy whatsoever). Couldn't flick through his old travel pics anymore.

She had zero need to be jealous or worried, bloody ridiculous. Of course, I've sent him copies and he's got them now but what a load of fuss over nothing.

There aren’t many photos of me and my partner on Facebook either. Doesn’t bother me, Facebook isn’t real life. In my experience there are only a few select types of people regularly post on Facebook (especially photos) and I’m glad to not be one of them.

FB might not be real life but I'd still be telling him to update his photos. Photos of the ex being all happy families would never be ok with me.

‘Getting rid’ of pictures of him and his ex is probably not just a case of deleting his pictures of them, he’s probably also tagged in loads of other peoples pictures too, so he’d need to de-tag himself to remove all the pictures of them from his profile. Obviously do-able but I wouldn’t be upset my OH hadn’t done that.

I would have no problem adding photos in this situation, but anyone that told me to delete old photos would be dumped straight away. I am not going to pretend that parts of my life didn't happen and would think it very controlling and pathetically insecure if someone wanted me to do that.

Arnt you friends with your husband on fb? Cause if you were uou would have seen all the photos and knew then that others will see the same ones.

But if a partner told me to delete my photos then they'd be shown them the door ....I'd never delete my past life just to let someone who's suddenly in it feel better.

Do you think people need to erase their life history when they start a new relationship? I'm not a big fan of ex photos either and personally don't have them up. But I totally understand that ex relationships are a part of someone's life story and memories, and it's really cruel to expect them to erase/delete/hide that because of the new partner's insecurities.