Bf (25M) deleted a lot of my (23F) favorite photos because my ex was in them, doesn’t think I should be as furious as I am

A Reddit user (23F) is upset after her boyfriend (25M) deleted many of her favorite photos, including ones with her ex, because he felt uncomfortable with the presence of her ex in them. The photos, which were taken over several years, include memories with friends, family, and her ex, who she had dated for seven years.

The boyfriend explained that he felt disrespected by the photos and insecure about their shared social circles. While he acknowledges that deleting the photos was an overreaction, the user is struggling to move past the situation, especially since it involved significant memories. She wonders how to address this breach of trust and move forward in their relationship.

‘ Bf (25M) deleted a lot of my (23F) favorite photos because my ex was in them, doesn’t think I should be as furious as I am’

This story begins with my ex, Rick and I. My family and his family are friends and he and I have been close friends since we were children, we attended the same high school and dated from 2007 to 2014. Ultimately our relationship felt like it had run it’s course and we split amicably, however having many, many similar friends due to attending the same high school and university,

we saw each other quite often even after our break up. Because we share such a large and similar friend group, we have many photos together of not just us alone but with all our friends and even with family. Many of those photos are captured moments of treasured memories that make up a large part of my not so long life.

My bf, Adrian and I have been together for 14 months, we don’t live together but I do visit him at his place and spend nights there. Anyway a couple months ago he borrowed my laptop to fix something for me, when I got it back, that was it, I’m not someone who combs my photos often, in fact the last time I did update the photos on my laptop must have been February.

I randomly felt like going through them this past weekend though and found that there were a lot of photos missing, there are photos of my ex and I alone scattered here and there but most of them are friends/family photos with many people, which happened to include my ex.

I had probably 3500+ photos and I’m down to maybe 1300 now, over two thousand photos taken over many years, mostly by me are now gone. I understand this is partly my fault because not all the photos were backed up elsewhere, maybe 300 or 400 can be recovered, at best. Naturally I called him to ask what happened to my photos because he was the only other person to have the laptop within the last few months.

He said that while fixing my laptop, he found a lot of those photos and was very hurt that I had so many photos of my ex and thought it was disrespectful to our relationship to still have those. I got pretty angry because those photos weren’t just about my ex, they were about everyone over a decent chunk of my life and all the memories of fun events and even random mundane times in my life.

Yes my ex is in a LOT of them but we’ve known each other forever and our families are very close, we’d been together for 1/3 of our lives when we broke up and still saw each other a lot after things ended so obviously he’d be in a lot of those photos. It’s not like I saw him in a group photo of 11+ people and would start pining or anything.

I told him if he didn’t like it he should have approached me and discussed it, not acted without thinking and deleted my photos. Especially since the majority of ‘couple’ pics of my ex and I are gone. He says he understands why I’m angry and he did overreact when he deleted the photos but he thinks our relationship is powerful enough to overcome this and I do love him but I don’t know how to just move past this.

He says the photos are in the past and our relationship should be more valuable to me as it’s in the ‘here and now’ as opposed to 5 or 10 years ago. I should note that he and my ex do see each other from time to time, at family gatherings and I’m friends with his **(Rick’s)** cousins and sisters and he’s **(Rick)** friends with some of my guy cousins and when we **(Adrian and I)** do hang out in a group with my friends,

sometimes my ex is there because well, yeah, we share many similar friends. It’s not like we interact a lot or anything but he admitted that since we’ve been together he’s always felt like a large portion of our friends and family don’t really like him because they’re very fond of my ex. So he’s felt insecure for some time and acted without thinking.

I told him that my family really likes him and my friends like him as well plus they have known my ex forever so it’s natural they may have more affection for him but even so, if he felt that way, he should have discussed it with me.

See what others had to share with OP:

Terribledragon4Hire −  I love how he says he thinks your relationship is powerful enough to overcome this. I actually think that is irony at its finest. If the relationship was so good and he was secure enough with it he would not have destroyed parts of your past. Parts that make up who you are now.

I’m sorry OP to me going through and destroying something of mine with consideration of my feelings for whatever reason is simply not acceptable. I would be gone.

practeerts −  Look up recuva, you may be able to get them back if you haven’t done much since they were deleted.

OneTwoWee000 −  He says he understands why I’m angry and he did overreact when he deleted the photos but he thinks our relationship is powerful enough to overcome this and I do love him but I don’t know how to just move past this.. What a manipulative little s**t. He doesn’t respect you enough to have a discussion with you.

No, he makes the decision for you because of **his stupid insecurities**. He did something he KNEW would hurt you, and he knew you would never agree to. OP, you should tell this guy to f**k off. You don’t need a dude making unilateral decisions he *for you*. You are not a child. He had no right to delete your stuff! He crossed a huge f**king boundary and he’s not even sorry. If you stay with him, this a**hole will do it again.

stink3rbelle −  This is highly disconcerting. Your boyfriend disrespected you and your property. I can’t even imagine how long it would take him to sort through over 3,000 photos, let alone go about deleting 2,000 of them. This behavior is, at best, controlling and possessive. At worst, it’s unbalanced.

And then he tells you your “relationship is powerful enough to overcome this”!?!!! What in the hell is he on about? Did he apologize at all? Did he even explain why he felt he had *any right* to root through your personal files?

Pola_Xray −  This is deeply inappropriate and should be a huge red flag to you. It doesn’t matter if the photos were digital, treat this like he burned some of your things. ***He thinks he has the right to unilaterally decide which of your own possessions you’re allowed to keep.*** I would *immediately* d**p anyone who did this to me.

carocat −  Oh I’m so furious on your behalf, I’m so sorry. He would be dumped. I**asion of privacy and wanton destruction of personal property. How dare he.

[Reddit User] −  Your relationship isn’t powerful at all if he can’t talk to you like an adult about your photos, to understand why you have them and what they mean to you. No, instead, he goes behind your back and DELETES YEARS OF YOUR MEMORIES out of insecurity and jealousy. He destroyed belongings of yours to make himself feel better.

That is not the kind of person you want to be in a relationship with.

Imsolost123456789 −  and thought it was disrespectful to our relationship to still have those And it’s somehow not disrespectful to go through someone else’s photos and decide what memories they are allowed to keep? Deleting 2,000 photos is absolutely insane. The time that would take….

He says the photos are in the past and our relationship should be more valuable to me as it’s in the ‘here and now’ as opposed to 5 or 10 years ago. That past made you who you are. It’s not his right to decide anything about your past. This completely violation of boundaries, trust and respect would be a deal breaker for me.

FuckItImLoggingIn −  2000 photos? Two thousand? Yeah, d**p him this second. This is insane. These are memories of your life and he deleted them like they don’t matter. I don’t know what kind of saint he has to be in other aspects for you to keep trying.

StatusKuo-tv −  If he was uncomfortable about your ex, he should have spoken to you before he straight up DESTROYED anything (digital or not, that’s some straight up destructive behavior). You may be able to recover some of the photos using an undeleter utility given that you haven’t already overwritten the space they were occupying.

This is a huge boundary breach and you need to declare your space. If he thinks the relationship is “powerful enough” for YOU to give him a free pass out of this one, then it should have been “powerful enough” for him to overcome his insecurity. If he believes the relationship should be about the “here and now”,

he shouldn’t have ever been preoccupied by your ex “because it’s in the past”. What a hypocritical load of b**lshit. He can behave like a f**king child and destroy other people’s things, but no decent human being gets to BLAME others for their reaction to his own actions. Pretty sure that constitutes abuse:

He blames you for “making him” do some s**tty thing to you, then also blames you for reacting to being treated badly? He needs to grow a pair, take responsibility for what he did, and actually show a genuine effort to try and fix it or he will learn that he can manipulate you into getting away with whatever he wants.. Edit: Spelling