Memory box for his ex

[Chloslilly]

Hi all, my BF and I have been together for 2 years, he is 24 and I am 28. We are moving in together and I am 9 weeks pregnant (undecided if we are going to keep the baby).

Tonight after work I came to his to help him back, I found a box under the bed, it had a sticky label on it reading his name and his exes, clearly not his handwriting. He was with his ex from 16-20, long distance from 18-20 as she went away for uni. I asked what it was and he said "stuff", I asked if he wanted to keep it and what stuff (referencing the label). He said just bits and pieces and yes I want to keep it, he was quite defensive and he took it from me and sat it to the side.

I've been thinking about it all night and I woke up. I know this is an invasion of his privacy but I got up and took the box to the living room. I opened it, and it is filled with letters she sent him, little note books with polaroids of them on trips with him writing about the day beside it. Loose polaroids all with captions on the end (in her handwriting) saying things like "first date". There were some unsent letters from him to her, he dated them and they were handwritten and towards the end of the relationship. They are long and filled with details of his life, how much he misses her and loves her and can't wait to see her. Also random jewellery, book marks, tickets from events and all sorts. Also a whole little booklet just with pictures of her, clearly from dates or things they were at together but anyway.

I feel like I have never ever seen this side of him, he's very nonchalant, he doesn't really do big displays of affection, I don't expect it and really I find it all a bit cringe but it is making me feel odd, like he loved her more than he does me or something. Also the way he was so defensive when I found it and made it clear he wants to keep it, it isn't like he just forgot it existed.

I also don't really get the letters etc, like they were long distance yes, but it was 2018 and face time existed.

AIBU to feel weird about this? Should I tell him I looked or just leave it and move on? Or is he maybe not over her?

I have two boxes which contain mementos from two previous long term relationships. Even though I broke up with both of my partners, I do cherish the time I had with them. I am moving house myself and come across them last week. I opened them for a quick look and it was nice to see what I had kept.

just because I have these boxes doesn’t mean I loved them more than my husband. It doesn’t mean that I want to back in those relationships either. Luckily my husband is also sentimental so he probably has some boxes like this too.

When you are a teenager and perhaps in your first love you do things like write notes and letters and cards etc especially if long distance. Your partner may not do this with you but he is in a different stage in life.

what you have to question is: how does he treat me, do you see yourself in a long term relationship.

my husband is much better at talking than me, but open up a conversation about your relationship. Ask questions about each other and even about previous relationships. It can be healthy and previous partners don’t become a ‘taboo’ topic.

I think it’s weird. It’s not like he was married to her with kids. Even weirder if he’s not sentimental this way with the op.

You should not have read his letters. That is an aphaling invasion of privacy.

What an utterly disgusting thing to do, @Chloslilly . If this was reversed, you'd be hysterical that someone had invaded your privacy, then splattered the information they had gleaned from this root around your personal things all over the internet.
You my want to consider these truisms...

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

Just because you’re curious doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an answer."

Your curiosity is not a license to invade my privacy

I kept letters from previous boyfriends I my attic for years. These men were part of my life why shouldn’t I remember them.

He was very very young. His first love! He fell hard and it affected him deeply. That’s all normal. As is the keeping stuff, I have letters from my first bf still in a box in the garage. It’s not because I hanker after him, it’s a sweet memory of innocent young life.

you say it’s ‘not him’. He’s grown up and matured, and that’s also normal.

My husband’s partner of his early 20s died. 30 years on he still has memory items of her and still visits her grave on occasion. I don’t feel threatened, I see it as evidence of his emotional maturity, and the fact that we embrace it, openly discuss it etc actually bonds us more too.

jealousy is a killer. Don’t succumb to it. A cheater will be a cheater, but expecting a partner to erase all evidence of previous relationships is really unhealthy.

What a bizarre activity.

I have never known others to help each other pack. I thought it might be a euphemism.

I don’t blame you for looking. 9 weeks pregnant and moving in with him? He should have been far more honest and opened up with you.

I have ex stuff in a memory box but it’s mixed in with a load of other things. Anything else I’d find a little strange.

I have stuff like that. Its as much about remembering the person I used to be at that age. First love is a significant thing!
When he's older he'll look back at all these things and there will be stuff in there that reminds him of the era. Not necessarily about her.

You've invaded his privacy, these things weren't for your eyes. This is not a goid relationship, better to end things now as he can't trust you.

vile

It’s just memories. It was hidden away in a box. People are entitled to privacy. You shouldn’t have looked.

16-20 suggests that she was his first love. Teenagers do soppy things that adults don’t; write bad poetry, make mix-tapes (probably playlists now), carve/graffiti initials, spend ages on the phone talking about nothing,and make grand declarations and promises about forever that clearly will never happen.

Adults don’t tend to, perhaps because they have grown up a bit, perhaps because they just don’t have the time and have better things to do!

Let him be sentimental about his first taste of romance. Surely that’s better than him having just shagged a string of girls, whose names he can no longer remember, and it having meant absolutely nothing to him?

The other thing I would say is that my little girl loves to hear about our lives before her. I think she is on the cusp of starting to be aware of romance, as she’s made comments about how x says they fancy y. She’s been very curious about our previous teenage loves. It would have been nice to show her a similar box of memories, but neither of us have anything much left of the things we left at our parental homes when we went off to university.

I have a box of letters from my first love who I was with 16-18 - it was very intense and sweet and I absolutely did not behave like that with my partner of 20 years, who I met when I was 24.

I wouldn't get rid of the box - it's part of my life, I existed as a person before I met my partner and it reminds me of being a teenager. It has nothing to do with him. I would walk swiftly in the opposite direction if I saw my ex - I ended things because he was a twat. But they are still sweet memories of a first love.

You need to just get over this. You're in an adult relationship with him and you're going to have a baby. People grow up.

As my gran used to say 'Old love rusts not' - strongest feeling ever, be it in kindergarten, school. etc. Such a beautiful feeling, not everyone is as lucky as he is to have such wonderful memories. There is nothing you can do about it. This was and is between them. You can decide what your reaction will be, but you can change nothing in his feelings towards his first love. Personally I love my dh so much, that I think I love his first love too (never met) and occasionally I ask him to tell me about that time in his life, and he does and it makes him happy and hence, me happy. Equally, many years on I remember my first school love and those memories make me incredibly happy. However, they are memories, only memories, and then there is real life.

So your way of keeping your exes stuff in a memory box is acceptable, but the chosen method for OPs DH is not?

You’ve potentially both got the same stuff though?

And as for it being OK to look, without asking, why is that OK? Why didn’t OP ask to look, you know be more honest and opened up that she wanted to know what he’s kept.

also fail to see what the pregnancy that may or may not be kept is an excuse for OPs behaviour.

Good idea to look really, has no one else here watched You on Netflix?

It’s quite normal to have a box like that and to want to keep it. I’m in my 50s and somewhere in the loft is a shoe box with all the letter and cards from my uni boyfriend. You just need to look at you and him as you are now and consider whether it’s right, that’s all.

I'm not a remotely sentimental person but I kept some teenage love letters and mixtapes for about 15 years because you just can't actually bring yourself to put them in the bin. It's not because of how important they were (the mixtape was bad and the boy was unmemorable) but how important they were. So you keep them indefinitely instead.

I did eventually lose mine in a house move and didn't really feel much about that, but I'd have been extraordinarily pissed off if DP had rummaged and pried and made it all about him. People are entitled to lives before you, and to have fond memories of those lives.

He was a teenager. Teenagers do all kinds of PDAs you wouldn't as a proper adult. Just forget about it, it is obviously precious to him.

I'm in my 50s and I have boxes of old 'love letters'. Slightly off topic but I hope today's young lovers still write letters in the digital age as they are a nice thing to keep. It doesn't mean I have feelings for people I haven't seen since the 1990s; if I 'still have feelings' for anything, it's my own lost youth.

16-20 suggests that she was his first love. Teenagers do soppy things that adults don’t; write bad poetry, make mix-tapes (probably playlists now), carve/graffiti initials, spend ages on the phone talking about nothing,and make grand declarations and promises about forever that clearly will never happen.

Indeed and I think it's important not to forget that part of us. I genuinely can't believe I ever wrote a love letter, the person I became is so unromantic and unsoppy, but... apparently I did!

That's unfair. He should have told her what was inside. This woman is pregnant with his baby and they are moving in together. Her worth in the relationship is just as valid as 'privacy' and when it comes to things like a memory box about an ex someone's new partner shouldn't have to compete. Go easy on the op she's pregnant and doesn't need absue.

I’ve got a scrapbook/photo album from my most serious ex somewhere and photos of others. They’re part of my life story, why shouldn’t I keep them? Almost certainly my DH has an album from his first wedding somewhere but I wouldn’t ask.