Question for divorced gransnetters

Don’t throw them. My ex MiL threw piles of family photos away when she was depressed, she was a survivor of a nazi camp. My ex has no family photos.

I gave my to my daughter. She later divorced herself and gave her wedding album to me!! They are in my garage!

I can understand people throwing them away if they have unpleasant memories of that person and there were no children. But if you have children then put away your personal feelings and think 30 years ahead when you are gone. It would be fascinating in 2072 to see ancestors' wedding photos from 100 years earlier in 1972.

I have been divorced twice and have kept the albums. They reflect my life and show two happy days. I see no reason to discard them.

I've been divorced for over 30 years now. I still have my wedding photos. My daughter's wanted me to keep them and my granddaughter's can look at them if they want to. Please don't be too Hastie to throw them away yet.

I’ve actually kept my wedding album for simple fact I’ve so many photos of family members no longer with me. and should my sons or grandkids want to look at them in future then they can see where they came from. Mines with all my other photos, it’s your passed ppl can’t wipe out past, I’ve also got all my newspaper cutouts of family members I’ve lost tape on back page too. Divorce is painful and bitter but it wasn’t always and it’s nice that family can look back and remember when you were in love and not throwing daggers at each other lol

Of course there us now the option of digital copying for future generations. Are we too old to consider that it has it been done. I have never wanted to destroy parts of my history. Be it good or bad these things happened and in my view should be kept even if not often looked at.

When my son's marriage ended he asked me to look after his wedding photo album saying there were some nice pictures of those no longer with us ...

I'm not divorced but have recently thought of getting rid of most of them. It's ok now though but only because he's now too frail to be a threat. Looking at the photos just makes me sad. I was only 21 and we had only met 10 months previously. I was such a naive young girl who thought he was the nicest man I'd ever met and was looking forward to us being so happy together. I honestly don't know why I didn't leave it tell him to. What a fool I've been.

Ditto to many of you. I've been divorced for 30 years, but have kept the wedding photos. They're in a box somewhere and I will leave them there for my daughters to make a decision on when they have to clear my house.

I never had any! Someone's cousin took some, but we never got them.
I think, though, that I would still keep them, in spite of everything since... they are, if nothing else, a bit of history.

Very 60s history: me in an orange shiny shift dress and him in his ratty old sandals..... them were the days..

I've kept mine because my kids will have a choice as to whether they want them. I can't quite bring myself to bin them and it is one place where almost my entire family is in one place. By the time I married my current husband, many of those family members had died.

I still have my album from my first marriage tucked away and also I have the album from my DD’s failed marriage as she wanted me to take care of it but not have in her possession.

Having been widowed and divorced I have kept the photos, although they are informal. I consider both these relationships part of my life history so had never thought to destroy photos. I just clear out pics of boring blurred views

My DIL had just left my son and their children, one of the most difficult things he’s done is to take down all wedding photos and family photos with her in. It’s been part of understanding she’s not coming back. They’re in a box in the loft, having read all your comments her I shall suggests he keeps some for the children to chose from.

On a better note he has filled the spaces with beautifully framed photos of him and the children. Tough times.

Our wedding photos were so awful that I happily binned them. The children (now in their 30s and 40s) have shown no interest in what the wedding day was like.
I have been very careful indeed to preserve photos of their childhoods and this Christmas gave them each ab album of pictures of themselves as the years passed.

BIN!

I gave mine to my children - the girls accepted them joyfully but my son didn’t want any. At least I no longer have them. I’ve still got photos of my daughters wedding - she’s divorced now - and I’ve got rid of those with him in but kept the ones of my daughter, family and friends.

Initially I threw the big album in the bin along with the smaller one. A friend persuaded me to fish the small one out ( wipe off the baked beans) and keep it somewhere for my children.

It was a disastrous marriage. Forty years on I can look at the pictures reasonably well, but the hurt he caused me and his children is still there.

May a wife contribute here?

Sadly no-one is likely to want your collection of photos now or later.

If you have children,OP, you did not say that you have, or nieces and nephews obviously you can ask them if they would like any of your photos, but basically you can just as well dispose of them as you see fit.

I imagine it depends on the reason for your divorce whether you want to keep you wedding photos or not. Most of us have kept our wedding dress too - and no-one is going to want it either.

My aunt sorted through family photos and put those she felt my sister and I might want in an envelope, (or three) wrote our names on it and added: family photos, you can keep or discard as you like.

We appreciated her consideration when we cleared her flat, as we both felt we had all the family photos we wanted and then some, and that none of our children will want them after our demise.

Am so pleased the concensus seems to be to keep old photos. Not wedding related but my mother before she died must have had some kind of moment. She tore all my baby photos out of an album and put them in the bin. Luckily Dad saw this and retrieved some (not all) and secretly gave them to me. Gone though is a posed baby picture of my christening and one of her and her twin aged about 9 months in 1919 with her mother (my grandmother who I never met). My grandchildren would cherish that one now as no reference point re ancestry.

I gave mine to our children. They were young teenagers at the time and kept them in their rooms. My youngest had one of him and his dad on display in his bedroom. That was fine. One of them has the wedding album, I'm not sure who.

I threw my wedding photo album out a couple of months ago. Been divorced for 32 years. I did however take out a couple of group photos as a lot of my relatives in the photos are no longer with us.

grandtanteJE65

May a wife contribute here?

Sadly no-one is likely to want your collection of photos now or later.

If you have children,OP, you did not say that you have, or nieces and nephews obviously you can ask them if they would like any of your photos, but basically you can just as well dispose of them as you see fit.

I imagine it depends on the reason for your divorce whether you want to keep you wedding photos or not. Most of us have kept our wedding dress too - and no-one is going to want it either.

My aunt sorted through family photos and put those she felt my sister and I might want in an envelope, (or three) wrote our names on it and added: family photos, you can keep or discard as you like.

We appreciated her consideration when we cleared her flat, as we both felt we had all the family photos we wanted and then some, and that none of our children will want them after our demise.

Wow, what a short sighted view! As I said, photos get better with age and they will be historic records in the future. Pictures of family should never be thrown out, just put them in a suitable box and keep them. You don't have to look at them, but someone will be fascinated and amazed to see them in 50 years time.

Good point, Chestnut. I’ve got photos of my first wedding and kind of treasure them (although the split was horrible). Second one took place on Antigua, so lovely souvenir but I can’t bear to look at them or my framed wedding photos, even though I’ve been divorced for nearly 2 years. Some sort of PTSD ….