Dh saw old images of my ex ex and I

[Kazane]

Dh and I have a plastic box filled with electronics where we store chargers, headphones, usbs etc. It’s become a bit of a dumping place for random things. There are things in there that have been knocking around for years. Dh decided it was time to organise the box. He ended up firing up an old mobile (to wipe and recycle). Unfortunately, this mobile still contained intimate images of myself and an ex. I mean really explicit. Obviously I was a complete idiot to lose track of those images. Dh said he only saw a couple and stopped as soon as he realised what he was looking at. But I guess the damage is somewhat done. I looked at the photo gallery and was absolutely horrified with what was last on there. I mean the phone is 7 years old. I was in my 20s. I would be really upset if I saw pictures of Dh and his ex.

Dh has been quite off with me for the last couple of days. I’ve apologised that he had to see that. But beyond that I really don’t know what else I can do. I’m 6 months pregnant and feel really hurt by the whole thing. Dh has said all the right words but I can tell he’s pulled away slightly. I would be hurt in his situation but I don’t think I would be treating him the way I’m being treated. Ie being distant

Please be kind. This whole thing has caused me a lot of anxiety. I have generalised anxiety and this has made my anxiety so much worse.

@sandyhappypeople
He did ask her could he do it and she told him to crack on. It's right there if you read her posts properly.

He has a right to be upset, just leave it be and let him get over it.

That’s fine , that’s how you’d do it, I’d also briefly check through folders before I deleted though just to be sure nothing in there required as you forget with time, I’d see no issue with that and not consider myself snooping.

He asked her and she said yes, she even wrote that,

What right has anyone got to be upset about something that happened years before they knew their partner even existed? He’s ridiculous.

Presumably as "it takes two to tango" - does the "ex" in this relationship have these photos (or similar) on their phone as well ?

Have you any idea what they've done with their copies?

He asked if he could wipe them and she said yes. Why was there a need to go through them first ? A simple factory reset would have done the job.

FFS he snooped and found something he didn't want to see. He needs to take responsibility for that. He could have deleted everything without looking, but he didn't. Natural consequences.

He's entitled to his feelings but he shouldn't make it OPs problem. People have been taking rude images of themselves practically as long as cameras became available to the average person. If it wasn't on the phone it could easily be a forgotten photo in a box. I've seen bits of these going through deceased family's things - there is a reason I tossed them without looking further. I don't want to look at something I couldn't unsee. He could have done the same.

I agree with this ^
also some people are more visual then others so images are stuck with them for longer, it’s just the way their brain works. However he needs to do something about that not you, he needs to move himself from this and focus on realities of today’s life which are that you are expecting a child together, presumably he has a job and other responsibilities.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!!

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.