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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Insecurities over pictures

50 replies

Mrjoeblack86 · 20/08/2015 02:10

I really need some advice,

I'm not too sure if this is the best site to ask, but all the post I've read are really supportive and logical. And I know this is in a relationship forum but, quite specific. I have an issue with my partner and I'd really appreciate someone else's two cents and I've thought about it that much that it's become an issue.

My partner (who is lovely) has had some self esteem issues since we first became a couple (From pre existing circumstances). And sex in our initial stage of our relationship hasn't been the passionate, hands all over each other experience that you typically have. Anyway we have talked and found closure about the issue and I agreed to be understanding. But some things don't seem to add up. I asked her for some flirtatious pictures, nothing too vulgar to which she stated that she didn't do that kind of thing, only for me to discover pictures on her desktop of her naked and smiling with a man she'd only be dating a couple of months. I can't help but feel a bit concerned, I know she has self esteem issues but this wasn't that long ago that the pictures were taken, and she seemed perfectly happy in the pictures. What am I to think?

OP posts:

wafflyversatile · 20/08/2015 02:27

How did you discover them?

You need to ask her. We don't know.

Maybe her issues developed recently. Maybe they took them when they were drunk and she felt more at ease doing that than taking one on her own.

Maybe he just had a particularly persuasive personality.

Maybe she regrets letting them be taken even though she was happy with how she looks in them.

Donotknowhownottomind · 20/08/2015 04:59

I asked her for some flirtatious pictures

Why?

anklebitersmum · 20/08/2015 05:07

I'd suggest that you might want to consider the fact that it's none of your business what she did or didn't do with her previous partners and that snooping about on her computer is unlikely to win you any brownie points. Just the opposite in fact!

You expect her to trust you with personal photos when she clearly can't trust you not to nose? Wow.

JeanSeberg · 20/08/2015 05:14

I can't help but feel a bit concerned

About what?

It's none of your business, end of.

And here have a .

ARV1981 · 20/08/2015 05:17

Maybe he coerced her into taking the pictures and she now regrets it?

If you've been snooping behind her back then she will be upset by that. But if not then just talk to her.

Please don't start thinking that because she did it for someone else she must do it for you too - that's not fair. Be sensitive to the fact that she has intimacy issues - where did they spring from? Perhaps this guy she looks happy with in the pictures made her take them against her will (people put on their "happy face" all the time).

JeanSeberg · 20/08/2015 05:18

So you're just annoyed she won't send you pictures of her tits then basically.

AnotherTimeMaybe · 20/08/2015 05:19

I see why you are concerned , she comes out a bit innocent/insecure to you and then you find pictures stating the opposite
You need to talk to her and ask her, she might have a valid explanation but still you have a right to ask

Smilingforth · 20/08/2015 06:16

It sounds like there is someone more to her reticence. Talk to her sympathetically she may well open up.

Rainuntilseptember15 · 20/08/2015 06:31

I don't get the modern obsession with taking photos that compromise them later. What is wrong with your imagination? OP are you upset she has been more relaxed with someone else? Maybe she was more comfortable with him than you, maybe he was very domineering - how can we know?

YonicScrewdriver · 20/08/2015 06:44

Novel thought: your girlfriend is a person too. She can make her own decisions about sharing pictures of herself.

If this is real, of course.

whattodohatethis · 20/08/2015 06:52

It is perfectly possible that part of the reason she has issues is because she took those photos and then when they broke up he threatened to show people. Or did show people. And she is scared that it will happen again.

People are different in different relationships.

To look at me you wouldn't think I have any issues, but something as simple as saying "yes of course I like you" brings me into a panic. One of my exes who I'd been dating for 6 months at the time. I told him I loved him and he said "don't be so stupid jess" walked out of my house and I never saw him again.

Just because I told him I loved him does that mean that my issues with using those words now can't be real?

Be understanding about her issues, snooping and putting pressure on her because of the pictures you found will make her feel worse

VaultHunter · 20/08/2015 07:15

Ask her...no one on her knows why...we may be wise but we are not mind readers...

Cabrinha · 20/08/2015 07:46

If you've been rooting through her computer, you're a cunt.
Maybe that's why she don't send you titillating photos - because you aren't TRUSTWORTHY?

differentnameforthis · 20/08/2015 08:02

Welcome to MN, op.

The only thing that applies here is ... Just because she has done it previously, with someone else, that doesn't mean she has to do it with you.

Do you often snoop on her pc?

How do you know that he didn't abuse the photos, which has made her reluctant to do the same again?

What are you to think? That she is allowed to do what she likes with her body & you have your answer.

Gooseberrycrumble2 · 20/08/2015 09:37

I know it seems unfair to you but she really is entitled to decide not to be photographed. Maybe she realises in retrospect that she's making herself vulnerable by making such photos. Maybe she's moved on and has no intention of ever doing such photos again. You really need to respect her decision

Twinklestein · 20/08/2015 09:48

It's possible she took the pics, had ownership of them and never gave a copy to the guy.

She may not want you to have your own pics as she doesn't know what you'll do with them.

Either that are as pps said, she may have regretted it.

Word up - it's really, really bad form to ask for pics, however 'tasteful', as women have no control over where they end up.

TheStoic · 20/08/2015 09:56

You need to talk to her and ask her she might have a valid explanation but still you have a right to ask.

Any explanation she has is valid. Including no explanation.

AnotherTimeMaybe · 20/08/2015 12:02

Any explanation she has is valid. Including no explanation.

Of course, but if you value your partner a) you dont tell him you never do something when you clearky have in the past and b) if you are somehow caught you dont just chose not to explain

OP made a mistake by snooping around but still...
Not sure many women would be happy if OH was caught lying like that

RepeatAdNauseum · 20/08/2015 12:06

Another

She hasn't lied. She has said she doesn't do things like flirtatious pictures - not that she'd never done them, but that she doesn't do them now.

She doesn't owe him pictures. Perhaps the guy she's posing with in the older pictures did something which made her not want to repeat the experience. Perhaps he put them on the internet or spread them round his friends or wouldn't delete them. We don't know.

She wasn't caught, she wasn't lying in the first place.

JeanSeberg · 20/08/2015 12:08

She has no obligation to explain anything she's done in the past. I'd query that he has a right to ask unless it directly affects him.

TheStoic · 20/08/2015 12:08

If you value your partner, you accept what they are comfortable doing sexually the first time they tell you.

AnotherTimeMaybe · 20/08/2015 12:18

repeat valid point. I think it depends how she said it in the first place
If i 'caught' dh lying though id personally want to know why.
I absoluteky don't think shed owe him an explanation of her past but the problem is that she contradicted herself and it will be difficult for him to believe her again . Agreed though that if the guy jn the picture has anything to do with how she feels now i can see why shes like this but still now this this is exposed its better for their relationship if shes open about it

flanjabelle · 20/08/2015 12:19

Perhaps that man has something to do with why she feels this way now?

Let this one go op. You don't have a right to flirtatious pictures. It's a bit weird that you asked for them to be honest.

AnotherTimeMaybe · 20/08/2015 12:21

Jean as i said yes i agree but problem is shes been caught contradicting herself
For example if i keep on telling oh im a virgin and then he finds some pictures of me with another man, not sure how you can see past this

AnotherTimeMaybe · 20/08/2015 12:23

It's a bit weird that you asked for them to be honest.

Now thats a bit different... Why do people do that anyway? i have a video somewhere with dh i have to bloody find it now

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