Ex spouse/partner photographs

you cant ans shouldn't try to rewrite the past ,especially if there are children from that relationship.How would they feel if you erased all evidence of their mother? Be an adult ,you're in that relationship BECAUSE the other partner died or was divorced and it doesn't affect you.I would have no problem with photos.But then I stayed frends with all my previous boyfriends and still see some of them for the odd lunch now.My OH has no problem with that and why should he ?

Should have added no offspring.

No problem with keeping them, but don't want them on display.

I agree ilovecheese keep the photos but not on display. I have two children with my ex so can't and wouldn't want to erase him. After many years we have reached an accommodation, my ex picks me up at the airport when I visit UK and often accompanies me and my daughters on trips out. My current husband knows all about this and is ok with it.

I still have my first marriage wedding photos and lots of holiday/family pics with him . He passed away 3 yrs ago but I know our 3 children will appreciate that I've kept them safe for them to have in the future .

My OH has no objection and has photos of him in previous relationships which is no problem to me. We've been married over 20 yrs now.

My husband been dead forty years, no second relationship but I have no photographs of him in the house , just can't look at them, gave them all to our daughters

My first husband left in the middle of the night and returned to the house to collect his things a few weeks later when I was away with the children. We had lived separately for many years (he was a soldier mostly living abroad) and when I got home I found he'd returned all the family photo's - every photo of me and our children that he had. I thought it was very sad.

We have friends who were both widowers when they met. When they lived in his house they both had pictures up of their previous lives but when they bought a new house they only put up photos of their respective children. That said, they do still occasionally mention their previous spouses perhaps when talking about previous holidays. I worry about my widowed sister because she has made her new house a shrine to her husband who died 8 years ago. We only have one small photo of ourselves on the dressing table in the bedroom.

13 years ago my wedding photographs were about to be tossed into the North Sea. I didn't. They are still here. They are my history and will remain as such. The person to pity is the ex who did a runner after being discovered cheating and hasn't even a reminder of his young and teen children. His choice but I reckon it may have been difficult to explain to his"other" family as we had supposedly been separated without my knowledge (he said he was working away). But hey, I have lots of lovely pics of my gorgeous children.

It doesn`t apply to me, but 2 of my daughters don`t like the fact that I still keep all the photos from their first marriages, they` ve both destroyed all photos of their ex`s, including wedding photos. To me it would be like destroying part of our family`s history.

I recently got my first wedding album back from dd to compile a digital photo album of my life as I need to include some of them. My hubby of 30 years now certainly does not have a problem with that. It is part of my history. Both of us attend family celebrations together and we all speak. Next week I am off on my annual visit to my ‘Ex’ motherinlaw who will be 99. She loves showing pictures at her coffee monad talking about her ‘ex’ daughter in law.

My mother died at 51 in the 60's. My father burnt all our family photos when he went into a new relationship. I don't know why because he could have just given them to me but at the time I don't know where I would have kept them I was living in a bedsit, Also his new partner said he was always talking about my mother.

The photos he burnt included all our family photos including my school photos. I was 19 when my mother died and it is a great sadness for me that I do not have a photo of my mother that I can remember how she really was for me. The only one I have was taken of her with my 2 older brothers before I was born.

The missing photos have left a large hole in my life. I have collected 1 school photo, a photo with my grandmother and brothers and a tiny one of me aged about 10.

So when you are thinking of destroying photos think of others who may want them in the future.

But yes I can understand destroying some photos of the ...............

I think photos are so precious. Who knows what is waiting round the corner in life, you may never have the chance to take anymore of some one.

I think it's different if the previous relationship ended in someones death as apposed to divorce. I would want to keep but not display photos of a deceased partner and would have no problem with a new partner doing this.
I wouldn't want to keep photos after divorce. If my children were in the photos, I'd give them to them to keep.
D burnt her wedding album.

ajanela that's very sad

Slightly off topic. My brother had several of our old family photos going back a couple of generations.
When he and his wife split she destroyed them all so annoying as they were nothing to do with her. Just childish spite, she trashed other items belonging to him too.

I have always wondered if you are a widow and get married again and loved both husbands who do you get buried with when you die?

It rather depends on the status and presence of the mementos of that previous relationship. If they're just stored in a box somewhere, no problem. If they're actually on display in your home, I'd find that disconcerting. I certainly wouldn't be inclined to destroy anything like that, as that would deny your ancestors access to what is actually part of their heritage.

ajanela, I am so sorry you had your visible past erased liked that. So many men were blind to the harm they might be doing to their children. I hope it is less likely to happen these days.

My 1st husband who is the father of my children, I have made an album up for them all to keep, of their parents together so that they have their history, childhood etc
My 2nd husband, because of the many issues he bought to our lives, my daughter and I found it very therapeutic to discard most of his photos. The ones with him in it that we wanted to keep we just cut him out ! Very childish but it amused us at immensely at the time !

Although we've been happily married for 40 years, it mustn't be forgotten that I am DH's second wife. First marriage was childless and lasted a very short time.
He had never told our 3 DCs about his marriage, but I have. I have even shown them photos of the first marriage [kept in a drawer]. DH doesn't know but I feel it is very important for them to know something about their father's past. If it came out now, it would be a horrible shock for them.
So, yes, keep the photos of exes, particularly if they have died; label them - but if you don't feel that it is right to keep them on display, that's fine too.

My grandfather burnt all photos of my grandmother who died when she gave birth to her first child, my mother. It was on of the saddest things that my mother had to cope with, not knowing what her mother had looked like. Long after my mother died and I was doing family history, a relative she had not known about emailed me two precious photos of my grandmother. However painful photos may be to an individual, they may mean so much to another. Put them in the loft or hide them away. Don’t destroy them.

My second husband made me cut my first husband out of any photos which I now regret doing as it was part of my life.
I still have most the photos of my second husband as we had children together, but my third husband (of 18 years) doesn’t mind in the slightest as we have a brilliant strong relationship.

I've scanned every single photo onto a paid for Flickr account and then binned most of the originals. All the relatives can access them, and download whatever they want. The colours will stay intact unlike those of the prints (I had to use colour restoration for a lot of them.)

The photos include late DH's first wife. Why not? She's part of the family history. I may not like her but I'm not going to do an Orwellian Ministry of Truth job on her!