In going through a stack of old photo albums last night I came across one that contained pictures of my ex-boyfriend. While we never married we did live common-law for 7 years and I accumulated a lot of pictures over that time.
The ones that are just him I might send to him as he is now a minimum of 10 years younger in most of them and I doubt he has many pictures from that time.
The ones of him and I together, well, I have no idea what to do with those ones. Do I toss them? Stick them in a closet someplace?
We have both married since that time and I doubt either one of our spouses want the pictures in the family album all that badly.
So I wondered what other people did with old pictures after a break-up of a long term relationship. Play darts using them as the bulls-eye? Keep them as a reminder of the sort of person * not * to date?
What did the rest of you do with pictures of your ex-SO when all was said and done?
Most of 'em, I sent back to my ex-wife after our divorce, but I have about 20 or so I have kept. They’re put away, but my current wife has no problem with them. She was a part of my life for six years, and I see no reason to try to hide it or pretend otherwise. It probably depends on your SO, and how they perceive them. My ex-wife hated pictures of my old high school girlfriends, though.
I’ve a few pics of my ex-wife. They’re tucked away until the next vacation I get that will involve camping under a wide open sky and a nice fire, whereupon they will go with and I will burn them and observe a moment of silence. Also, the next time I see the ocean, preferably on a cruise in the middle of it, I’m going to drop my ring into it.
Neither of that’s as vindictive as it sounds, I swear. Throwing them away is the best thing to do (speaking personally, not generally), and if you’re going to do that you may as well do it personally rather than letting the garbageman do it. I’d rather watch the paper go up in dancing fire and watch the smoke rise away in some quiet reflection than think about the pictures buried in some anonymous landfill crumpled between diapers for the next thousand years–that latter seems a lot more vindictive than my plan.
Pictures of a couple other ex-girlfriends that ended in better ways I’ve quite cheerfully kept around, with no intention of destroying. If the marriage had ended in a better way, I’d probably do the same with her pictures. It all depends.
I keep a box in my closet, full of random crap that once meant something to me, but doesn’t hold as much significance anymore. I have pictures, movie ticket stubs,letters, journals, presents, all sorts of good stuff. Every now and then when I’m bored, I’ll pull out the box and take a stroll down memory lane.
After a particularly bad breakup a few years ago, I took everything that reminded me of my ex boyfriend (including the gold necklace he gave me for our anniversary…) and threw it in the lake by my house. I regretted it afterwards, because I now have nothing to show for that year and a half of my life…
I recently went through my box, and threw out some of the older and irrelevant stuff. It was a 3 hours well spent. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.
I think I have one in a box somewhere of ex#1. The only reason I kept it is because I’m also in the picture & it’s really flattering! We’re on a fishing boat in Scotland, so there’s some lovely scenery in the background, too.
I do have the wedding video from #2 somewhere, too. I guess I’ll throw it out next time I run across it, though there’s some funny stuff there. Sister in law getting drunk & dancing like a wild woman, my mother singing with the band. Come to think abut it my SO has a wedding video too. Maybe we can watch them both & compare notes before burning them!
Somewhere in the assorted junk boxes, I’ve got pics of boyfriends from eons past. Shows how much they mean to me - I have no idea where they are. I suppose if they REALLY upset hubby, I’d pitch them.
He has a few pics of him and his ex - his mom found them when they moved - and they’re in the bottom of his nightstand drawer. I know he’s not pining over her or anything, and I don’t care that he has them. I might be a bit miffed if there were nekkid pics of her…
Keep a few. They’re a part of my personal history. I don’t toss photos of childhood friends I havent seen in many decades, why toss photos of exes who were a signigicant part of my life? Old pics from brief relationships? No. The relationships/marriages may have gone down the tubes, but the photos I keep evoke the happier times that were the basis of the relationship. For better or worse, they’re a part of who I am today.
My two serious ex-boyfriends are labelled and named thusly:
The BAD EX BOYFRIEND
and
The GAY EX BOYFRIEND
B.E.B. photos, cards, gifts and lingerie were ceremoniously burned in my parent’s fireplace as I sipped at cooking sherry as it was the only alcohol in the house. He also gave me a diamond ring which I had appraised, but couldn’t seem to sell to anyone.
He came back to retrieve it from me and said, “If I can’t find another girl who deserves this, I’ll just fucking sell it for the cash.” and I, in the greatest one line comeback of my short life at that point, said:
“Good luck, because they said they’d only give me $150 for it” and slammed the door in his face.
G.E.B. photos are still in frames and in fact up on the wall in my apartment. My husband and I both knew him in college so I harbor him no real ill will…except that he came out of the closet to everyone in our friend group BEFORE telling me…which made me look like a four star asshole.
Wow, all you people are freaking me out!!
Throwing away photos and burning wedding videos??
I guess I just work differently. I keep all photos. They’re almost sacred. They represent a part of my life… and even if things weren’t happy or the person I was with turned out to be a jerk… well it’s still my life! I have all the photos of my exes in albums. My husband doesn’t mind… in fact I think it would be weird if he did.
Thanks, Opal, I was starting to feel weird!
I keep all my pictures of my ex wife, the wedding album, letters, etc…
I am still trying to get her to go through the big box o’ pics from the marriage so I can finally put them in albums and put them away. Its not like I would go through them morosely (over that), but it was a major part of my life so far and I look back on it fondly. Especially the kid pictures, can’t wait for those-they will go on a separate album!
hmmm, its that time of month for another reminder…
All the physical reminders of my ex-gf are in a box in my parents’ attic. That’s pictures, a beanie baby, letters, paintings and trinkets.
The digital pictures from when she modelled for a professional photographer are still on my hard drive. I don’t look at them though. Nor do I read the saved chat logs, or icq history. Someday, I might.
Well, I got a couple shoeboxes worth of old photos up in the closet. Don’t have any real intent of throwing em away. I’d actually feel quite a loss if I did. Like Opalcat said, these people were a part of my life for better, or as more often the case, for worse.
Luckily my SO is very secure, so it’s not a real issue.
I did have some more “incriminating” photos which I pitched out of respect of said SO. But all the innocent ones, I keep.
At least they’re good for a chuckle and some quiet reflection every now and again.
Regarding the only “serious ex” I have, I kept two favorite photos, sent the rest back to the ex, c/o Mommy. There weren’t many to send back, though, considering the ex had already torn or cut most photos in half. (and if the photo was of the two of us, I got “my” half. All of those I kept. Some of them were really good shots of me. That’s rare.)
I have all of the old photos of my “serious at the time, but not really serious” HS ex’s though, and I’ll always keep those. (It was true love at the time, you know.)
I have a whole rogues gallery of selected exes on the wall (although not the ex-wife or any of my wife’s best friends.) Although elsewhere we do have a photo of Nell nude in a field of daisies.
It’s so long ago, it seems like pictures from another life.
Ms. Pinky is quite confindent she has me wrapped around hers, so there’s no problem there.
[hijack] My last girlfriend won’t get naked in front of me anymore, claiming she’s old & fat, so I don’t get to go to the hot tubs anymore, but that’s another rant. [/hijack]
I put her picture up on a dating site as somebody interested in meeting and having a sexy time. When you think about how many desparate men email people solely based on a picture and a few innuendoes, you’ll get a good idea of how much email she gets.
She’s changed her email 5 times since we broke up and they still come. I see her from time to time (we work relatively close so it is unavoidable) and she still has no clue where all these people are emailing her from.
I threw them all away. However, now it’s been over twenty years ago that he and I were married for six years, I’m sorry that I didn’t keep a few pictures. My sons wanted to know about my first marriage, and I was surprised by their interest, but maybe it’s knowing ‘Mom’ had another kind of life that has piqued their wondering. And all I had to show them was the divorce papers, not near as enlightening as pictures would have been.
So, if you’re thinking of throwing them all away, why not put them up, you can always toss them later if you still want to. I regret the things I did out of anger or out of hurt the most, and that’s why I tossed my own photos. I should have kept them, just to show I WAS young once!
All of them, except for one I couldn’t get at because it was incorporated into an event album, went straight into the can, as well as anything else (clothes she had given me, trinkets, etc.) I had collected over the years. It might sound odd, but I didn’t do it out of being upset, either–sometimes it’s nice to have a completely clean slate, free of memories like that.
I have only one photo of my most recent ex, and I still carry it in my wallet (I’m still really stuck on her and besides we haven’t finished torturing one another yet).
As for the rest, they went into a shoebox which resides on the shelf over my dresser. I’ve kept this box (which also contains letters and other assorted momentos) since 1989 and have not opened it since 1997 other than to put stuff into it. There are things in there that I can’t bear to even think of looking, but can’t bear to throw away either.
Throwing them away is the best thing to do (speaking personally, not generally), and if you’re going to do that you may as well do it personally rather than letting the garbageman do it. I’d rather watch the paper go up in dancing fire and watch the smoke rise away in some quiet reflection than think about the pictures buried in some anonymous landfill crumpled between diapers for the next thousand years–that latter seems a lot more vindictive than my plan.
