Partner has pics of ex wife on Facebook

Thank you Camelia3 and to all those who’ve taken a more charitable stance as I am suffering enough thinking about my insecurities and the impact of them. I am taking it all on and in.

After we married my husband needed to change his email address and used his first wife’s birthday .......

Fully agree with Notanan2's comments. His ex and the kids are part of his past life and always will be, and they are also part of his friends lives. His past life has made him the person you love today, do you want to change that?

I think you would be doing yourself a very great favour if you could accept that your partner had a life before he met you. It is only natural that he and his friends have photos from that time. I don't think it is insensitive at all that they have these.

You had a life too, before you met your partner. How would you feel if he were jealous about that?

Another point is: would you really want to live with a man who was capable of completely ignoring his ex-wife, their children and grandchildren? I certainly would not want to live with such a person.

If you think you have something to be concerned over then how about this:- just been sorting through drawers during the installation of new bedroom furniture and found a photo of my OH and his ex secreted away!

You are being very unreasonable and extremely immature about this.
Why should the past be ereased especially as there are children of the marriage? It is part of who he is.
She is in the past. You are his present. Don't embarrass him any further and please apologise for being so silly.

If you believe him you are being jealous over nothing, don't friend him on Facebook and there will be no problem

For goodness sake I don't see the problem, he is with you now but he has a past life just like you. You need to accept in this day and age people are going to have a past and extended families are the norm.

I have an x, the father of my children. We have a wedding photo with daughter, me, my husband, my x stood one side of me. No one gets upset by it, it is a modern day family photo. We both have photos of us with past partners but life is to short and busy to worry about them. We are in the present.

Yabu
You can not wipe out his past and you have hardly been together 5 minutes !
These are not in your face
He does not have it in his wallet (are you going to check now) or under his pillow
You sound insecure
He is with YOU
So if you want to keep him be adult understanding and confident
Some men and women do stupid things and do not see any significance in pictures or those well worn underpants
I had to explain why i wanted a new bed and mattress
It will only be an issue if you make it one
Move on
BTW mine was really sick and called me his ex wife name ...and he hates her ???

Oh dear, what about his children?
My ex father in law who was widowed met a spinster woman much younger than him and before she would move in with him she insisted he burnt all photographs of his previous life, in front of her. They included photos of his wife, in laws, his grand children, even his own son, some very precious records of the family. He said he "didn't think" of offering them to the family. This was before social media.

It was a huge shock.It isn't normal to do something like that. Offer any photos to those who might really appreciate them then delete those within your own sphere. Photos are what we have as evidence of someone's life.

All too often we are seeing old people dying these days & no recent photo of them for the funeral. Everything has gone on mobiles and probably deleted.

Well I must say I really cannot see your problem at all .
There are photos get over it .
Are you so insecure ?
He is with you the photos are history if my husband asked me to get rid of the photos have I have of my ex I would not do it.

How old are you?
Just keep away from social media

If you approached me and asked me to remove pictures from MY Facebook because you didn't like the fact your partner had a past I probably wouldn't. Then I'd probably be making a judgement about you.
I wish you luck sorting through your insecurities, its not much fun feeling like that I'd imagine.
Hopefully it's not too late for your relationship ?

Ok ok ok (yabu your post made me laugh out loud) everyone who hasn’t read the thread and just the first and last post - I am not objecting to any pics of him and his family or kids. I said I felt uncomfortable with seemingly intimate pics of just the two of them on his page. It felt weird. That’s all. Wanted different perspectives which I got. Yes I am insecure and that is the point. Thanks to all those who have posted positive advice and reassurances. Posts that are unduly harsh I would say you’re very lucky to be in a place of high enough self esteem but also in some strange way I’ve taken your comments on board.

Oh my gosh, don't delete his life! Facebook is a scrapbook, we should be able to keep happy memories even if a relationship is over x

If he is tagged in another person's FB pics, he can remove the tag himself.

My DH still has the photo albums from his first wedding in a drawer upstairs. I wouldn't dream of asking him not to keep them. His first marriage and the people in his life then are part of his history and of who he is. Granted I don't have to look at them every day on Facebook. But neither do you. It's easy to sort your settings pm facebook to stop the friend's pictures from popping up on your feed, and you have no reason to go looking for them. And of course he visits his kids in their home!

Take care your man will get fed up with you trying to get rid of his past life.. You will make things hard for his children too. You chose this chap and he comes with a past. You really do need help to overcome your controlling behaviour .

sorry that was meant to me on facebook not pm and yes as JustFiz says he can get the tags removed so they don't appear on his feed.

You say he has been living with you - so he moved in, perhaps to save money because of course he could not go on living with the wife and kids. So now, because you gave him a roof over his head, you want to delete his past. You cannot. But of course, you can check to see which pictures are being put on social sites, and say "How weird!" about the ones, and only those, to make your point, where he and the ex are alone and snuggling up. You are not being unreasonable about these - but, no, about the others, I'd not make a production out of it.

Hello Mambypamby - lots of good advice on here but really the best thing you can do is ensure you get professional counselling as soon as possible because people come to the situation you describe from different perspectives (yours, and possibly that of other people who have been the victim of such 'ironing out' of a previous partner's life). Speaking with a counsellor and exploring your feelings will lead you into a direction where you know what you can bear and what you can't.
The advice on this thread to recognise that you are coming late in the life of this man who has adult children, and that you will never be able to erase his past no matter how much you try, is excellent. If you were emotionally able to accept this you might be able to sustain your relationship. The advice to be affronted and place expectations on him and mutual friends is not. You are the newcomer, you cannot wipe out his life before you and if he has adult children you may find that you encourage confrontation from them if they have the slightest sense that you are trying to do that because it has a huge impact on their own self-identity. You don't mention whether you have an ex-husband of your own, and/or children. Talking with a counsellor will help you to get things in perspective and recognise your own insecurities. Unfortunately, if you don't deal with these insecurities and cut him some slack, your fears - probably that he will return to his ex-wife, may gain some foundation. He's with you at the moment but if you continually ask him to remove all public traces of what must be many years of his life, he won't be for long. What you need to deal with these insecurities is a CBT focused therapist who will get you to look at your core beliefs and challenge them. If you can do that you will have no problem in accommodating the outward evidence of your partner's past.

Notanan2...I totally agree with everything you have said.

Thank you GoldenAge for taking the time to compose such a thoughtful and helpful reply. The appointment for my first session of individual CBT arrived, very timely, this morning and I am to start this week. Fully take on board all your and everyone’s good advice. My rational brain, at any rate, knows I need to do the long-needed work for my own benefit as much as anyone else’s in my life. However my emotions are stuck somewhere in childhood where in my formative years there is a history of abandonment and neglect. Just confronting this in writing is making me feel like crying but I know that is the root of it. Thanks again

I met my ex son-in-law for lunch last week. He is the father of my grandchildren, and I always got on well with him. Their divorce was sad, but my daughter admits that there were faults on both sides. She never criticises him to the children, and doesn’t mind them, or me, keeping in contact with him.

Your attitude, Mambypamby, will cause a rift between you if you don’t stop agonising about such a petty thing. Ignore it. He has chosen to be with you, and his ex is the mother of his children, and to that extent remains part of his life. A few pictures mean nothing of importance

If you can't stand to see any of your DPs past and family involved in his life just stop going on Facebook. You can't ask others to delete parts of their life.

I am afriad you will need to suck it up. She was there for a long time. You cannot erase the past, particularly as she is the mother of his children. He has no 'personal' photos, so that should be enough. If he isn't even allowed to have old family photos from when the children were small then that's not really fair.

Is he being tagged in old photos recently- in which case I woud have to quetion why this 'friend' is reposting. Historical ones I think you need to ignore. They are part of his past, and made him who he is. OR is he being tagged in photos of the grandchildren that she happens to be in? Again - joint grandparents/parents - you have to accept it.