I’ve known people that when a relationship ends burn or toss pictures away of their ex. Regardless of whether they had children or not. One of the decisions that I made when I ended my marriage was to not be spiteful and destroy all photos of my ex-husband. Not because I was hoping for a reconciliation, but because it was my life. He was a part of my life. Both good and bad.
We shared Munch and he was young when we separated. He was almost 5. I often thought about life and death and my mortality. I wondered if I died tomorrow would Munch remember me. So, I kept photos of his dad and I together. That was a life that we had and if either one of us died Munch would remember that his parents had loved, laughed and lived prior to him being born. That he was created in love.
The thing is that I know so many people who discarded those photos. They have no memories of their exes to show their children. So, it got me to wonder do you burn or discard pictures of your ex? Whether they were your boyfriend or husband?
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Personally, if the person was just a boyfriend I don’t see the issue destroying the pics etc because you’ll always have those memories in the back of your head. It would now be an experience. However, if it were my ex husband, I may not discard anything because as you rightfully said, the child/children should be able to see that things weren’t always the way it is now. That their parents did love each other and things just didn’t work out.
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What if you had children with an ex boyfriend? I didn’t, but would the same rules apply if you were married? I believe that my ex destroyed all the pictures of me, but like I told him that my family doesn’t have all the pictures that we took so how would my son know who he was with me. There would have been a big gap of about 13 years.
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Wow that’s a lot of memories missing. If I had a child/children with an ex-boyfriend, then yes, the same rules apply as if it were my ex-husband because I would always want my child to know how much we loved each other and that we had a lot of good times together!
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I agree with you 100% on this. When I separated from my first husband I did the same, I kept photos of him and when my daughters were older enough I passed those photos on to them. My aunt taught me that lesson she kept photos of two past boyfriends because they remained friends long after the relationships ended. Some of those photos were handed to his current wife when he died and they were published in a memorial. IF there was a bad break up I can understand why you would want to erase that memory. But those memories are a part of your past. As well as proof that you’re mature enough to reflect without regret or thought of rekindling. I don’t know, but that’s just my feeling on the subject 🙂
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I know right, because most people’s family don’t have photos from the years you two spent in a relationship so if something happened why not give them to his/her family.
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Exactly! But like I said, this takes maturity 😉
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If you have children together, I totally agree with keeping photos for the sake of the children. If no children are involved, you do what feels right…burn them and start fresh or keep a few as reminder of what not to do again if it ended badly. My 2 cents.😊
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Lmao. Great advice
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Oh, tough subject. I burned everything that our child wasn’t in. I kept the few pictures of both of us that he was in. I looked at our wedding photos, and all I could see in her smile after everything was, “look at my new doormat.” But that was my sitch and I’m painfully envious of exes that can have an amicable separation.
Now, why is this really a sticky topic? Well, you wrote a post a while back in the topic of staying friends with exes. (Forgive me for not finding and linking) I have learned to be extremely careful with seeing patterns across relationships. I mean, my brain is just wired for logic and numbers, I can’t stop these things from coming to attention. It doesn’t matter whether it’s positive or negative, if I tell my girl about it, she’s utterly offended. Baby’s mamma is who is forced to be part of our life together, and it is all kinds of miserable. I had good relationships other than these two. A lot of them. I had some meh sorta dates. But I have had a lot of fun times and simply said adieu with women. And I can’t talk about that because it upsets my girl. Even a picture of my son in my hand sets my girl off because she sees that being at a time when I was married to his mom.
I suppose everyone has their limits, and I suppose we set these boundaries for our own health. I feel like having kids with exes creates a lot more boundary challenges in future relationships.
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It absolutely does. My ex is engaged and if he gets remarried and dies tomorrow his new wife would have no photos of him. I’m not talking about photos with us, but photos of him and his son at various stages. I didn’t destroy it out of respect for my child, but I’m okay if you want and you don’t have kids. I’m not jealous and neither is Mr. C so it doesn’t matter. Now, if there are pictures of my exes that were not my child’s father, he would probably feel some kind of way.
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I didn’t burn or destroy pictures of Loser. I returned them or gave them to my children.
I never destroyed anything he gave me…I just returned those things as well. If he or his tramp wanted to destroy them…they could “have at it.” 😬
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That was very noble of you. LOL.
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Since I have kids with Mr lemon I kept pictures and photo books. I did get drunk and burn all the letters and cards he gave me throughout our relationship. It was very cathartic.
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Lol. I understand about the letters and cards. They are part of the past.
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I don’t burn pictures at all lol I have pictures of exes and my husband and children know and have seen these photos. I think you’re right. It’s just a symbol of who you were and I think it’s a healthy way to show (children) that you were a person before they were born.
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Yep. That way they see that your life was lived and there is nothing they can do that you haven’t done or known someone who did it. Doesn’t mean that you want the other person, but it was a part of your life lived.
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My girlfriend threw away/deleted all our previous pictures when we broke up last time. Now we’re back together, and she regretted doing that. Here’s the killer part: she said it was my fault!!!
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LOL. It was your fault that she destroyed your memories? I love it. Make sure that you keep the photos this time.
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