Ex spouse/partner photographs

I kept many of the photos from my first marriage, they were of the happy times we had together and with our two dd's. 2nd husband had a few although not many, never bothered either of us, none of photos on display. Now have just one photo of Dh2 and I on display on our last holiday together, sadly he passed away suddenly on our journey home. I still have the photos he kept of his first wife and daughters, will at some stage put them into an album for dsd1 who now has a family of her own.

Pen50 I so want to know how you did that. I have a mountain of photos from kids’ childhoods etc that I need to do something with.

On a related issue -how do we feel about photos of DC's ex-partners? I have several photos of group family holidays. A couple of them include an ex-girlfriend of DS2, as part of a group of 13. My DIL was surprised that I didn't take them down when DS2 and his present partner visited. Should I have done? I wouldn't have had a photo of just the two of them displayed.

Agree with others, if ex ius deceased then keep the photos. I was divorced and I destroyed all the photos of my ex. Nobody else wanted them! It was the only way I could cope at the time. Now, 33 years after divorcing him I've finally forgiven him, though I don't suppose he'll ever know.

As a second wife (OH divorced), I did find it strange and slightly hurtful that his mother kept all the photos of his first wedding and even got them out to look at once when I was at her house. There was (still is!) quite an age difference between OH and I, so I suppose I was a bit insecure back then, only 20 when we married. It seemed even stranger when, some 20 years later, on MiL's death, my BiL passed those photos on to my husband, who not surprisingly didn't want them as he had got rid of his own copies as soon as he and his ex had separated.
There are still a few photos of OH and his ex lying about in drawers and I dont have a problem with those, and obviously, there are lots of their children too. I wouldn't want to pretend that they never had a life together, but I did find those wedding photos a step too far for me - not that I ever said so!

My dad lost his mum when he was about 15. His dad remarried within 6 months and every single photo of his mum amd her side of the family was got rid of. It is only thanks to distant relatives that he and his younger sister later managed to get copies of other photos of her. It was an unbelievably cruel thing to do to them.

I wouldn't advocate my case. Then I had the divorce from hell which Hollywood would be proud to make into a film but won't be getting.

No photos of the ex in our home (I am very happily divorced and very happily remarried) The now adult children, 3 out of 4 didn't want them.

Ex was violent. Only my daughter who has any contact. She has a few of him. The rest with both of us were destroyed including the very few of him with the children. He played Dad only when he wanted to do.

My 2nd husband is the Dad he didn't have to be to my 4.

Not a usual story. Not one I would advocate. My brother and his 2nd wife were both widowed havr kept photos in the draw. They still visit 1st wife/husband resting place at birthdays and have a quiet day on the anniversary of death.

What works for each person and very personal decisions

I am 57 and have very few photos of my birth mother who died when I was three. My father remarried and my stepmother has preceded my father and I do visit her regularly but would like some photos of my real mother and some memories via older brothers .quite sad really .

My childrens wedding photos are on display, nothing else. I have my own photos of my family still in the envelopes they came in after developing them,( thats going back a bit) I occasionally have a look at them, and have a smile.

Our wedding photos are on my iPad.

44 years later I’m ready to share them with anyone who shows the slightest interest.

...and such moments are very rare

Never bothered me .....second marriage, husband widowed after 42 years ..I have a picture of his late wife on display ...and why not ? He love the photo ...people often say to me 'Why have you got a photo of her ?' my answer is ;why not ? I have none of my ex and don't want any .....gave them all to my daughter ....together my husband and I have so many albums I really don't know what to do with them all ...his daughter doesn't want them, so I guess they will all end up on the tip when we have gone .......neither of us have any wishes when we die, other than to be cremated with no religious service and no fuss, and ashes scattered wherever ........after all, we won't know, and there is no one who would wish to visit ....and why would they ! Prefer them to remember us as they last saw us .......

lindiaan, I think in most countries it is up to you where you want to be buried and you should write your wishes down. However, there may be some other things to take into account.

If we are talking burial here, not cremation, as I assume, it does depend on the size of the burial plot the family bought when the widow's first husband died. You can only be buried in a plot, if there is room for a second coffin - this applies to a plot you bought and to a pre-existing family plot, and must apply to a mausoleum too.

Anyone who has been married twice should take into account if there are children of both marriages, that choosing to be buried with one of the husbands is potentially hurtful to the children of the other. I think, I would opt to be buried on my own, if that were the case.

If a cemetery has been closed for any reason then you probably cannot be buried there, even if all your ancestors are.

Jewish and Muslim cemeteries usually only have numbered plots, even although Jews do put headstones with the departed's name on, so you are buried in the next available plot even if you have a former husband somewhere else in the cemetery, unless it has the kind of arrangement which some Jewish communities have of reserving a space for the widow or widower beside the spouse who died first.

I don't have a problem with it. Photos of my husband's previous wife and my ex husband are in the attic....both pictures of our weddings respectively. We have no other others and have never needed to refer to them. They are not even spoken about, the need has never arisen. Its history.

With missing school photos,you cold try on face book to see if any of your school mates have photos with you in them
Also same with the area you lived in
There may be someone somewhere who has old photos of your mum
Worth a try

I have one photo on display ( in the study which I use more than DH) of me and my late husband taken on our last holiday together before he died. My daughter also has a photo of me and her dad on display. After all he is her children's grandfather. My grandchildren treat my DH as Nonno but they have a right to know about their blood grandfather too! I also have all the photo albums with pictures of my children growing up. We have photos of all the grandchildren (his and mine ) on display too . They are all treated the same!!

No problem, we display our deceased spouses and our deceased children, even display grandchildren who DH has no contact with (their chose not his), never know they might make contact one day.

I agree with those who say "in a drawer, not on display".

It's part of your life even if the memories are not that happy. I show my DGC wedding photos of my first marriage to their grandad & those of their dads on holiday with us when they were young. They know Grandma & Grandad were married once. He loves them as much as I do & we get on OK anyway.
I have the wedding photos of my parents & they divorced. I think it is good to see that once they were happy & in love.

My mother was widowed aged 24 after being married for only 21 months, 6 months of which they spent apart as he was abroad for training. She married again 5 years later to a fantastic man, a very happy marriage that lasted for just short of 40 years. They are now both buried together in their village grave yard where they've been for the past 30 years. Photos of her lost love were kept in a drawer, but not on display. They are now in my drawer, but not on display. Photos of her second love and my much loved stepfather are on display both in my house DS's and DD's. Who did she love best? Who knows!

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!

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.

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.

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 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 !

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.

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.