My 45 year old BF has dozens and DOZENS of pictures on his FB of his ex live in partner. Am I overreacting?

[howwouldiknownow22]

41 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

Yea this. I’m kind of confused. If he said he didn’t post pics of her, that could be the case. Are they just in a FB album that are not posted pics , then maybe. Maybe he had the pics in the album and didn’t clear them out.. I don’t go back and delete all the pics of my exes and me because I don’t give a s***

So, I talked to him about it and he immediately said he would take them all down and he didn't realize they were still there and didn't want to hurt me with them.  I told him that this wasn't some kind of ultimatum, but I wanted to tell him how I was feeling... and he said he understood and definitely would take them down, out of his own choice.

He says that the photos don't reveal how much he really didn't like her at all and he isn't quite sure why he stayed in the relationship for 4 years ...  (of course, I KNOW he begged her back so I think he is lying to me to make me feel better).

I didn't say anything more I just told him I wanted to be open and honest about how I felt.  he continued on and on about how he loves me and he never loved her .. etc etc. 

He is a salesman by profession...he definitely sold me hard today..  I don't know what to think... trying to believe him.  

[Cookiesandough]

11 minutes ago, howwouldiknownow22 said:

So, I talked to him about it and he immediately said he would take them all down and he didn't realize they were still there and didn't want to hurt me with them.  I told him that this wasn't some kind of ultimatum, but I wanted to tell him how I was feeling... and he said he understood and definitely would take them down, out of his own choice.

He says that the photos don't reveal how much he really didn't like her at all and he isn't quite sure why he stayed in the relationship for 4 years ...  (of course, I KNOW he begged her back so I think he is lying to me to make me feel better).

I didn't say anything more I just told him I wanted to be open and honest about how I felt.  he continued on and on about how he loves me and he never loved her .. etc etc. 

He is a salesman by profession...he definitely sold me hard today..  I don't know what to think... trying to believe him.  

Yeah… that sounds kind of fishy to me. I don’t know how I’d feel about all that. If he did post pics, why’d he feel the need to say he didn’t. Did you ever display some jealousy towards his ex to him? 
 

I think a lot of people here tend to jump on the “still into the ex” bandwagon for whatever reason. I think if he was the dumpee, there’s a little more reason for that. But I have kept my exes stuff/pics after I broke up with them and it was much less an indictment on my  feelings for them than it is was my general laziness . But if a current bf called me out I guess I’d be defensive too 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Cookiesandough

[d0nnivain]

12 minutes ago, howwouldiknownow22 said:

He is a salesman by profession...he definitely sold me hard today..  I don't know what to think... trying to believe him.  

Trust but verified.  He said he'd take them down.  See if his actions match his words.  

[JRabbit]

33 minutes ago, howwouldiknownow22 said:

(of course, I KNOW he begged her back so I think he is lying to me to make me feel better).

I've begged for someone back and later realized wow glad that didn't happen. I was just in a pathetic place at the time and wanting anything.

He is telling you he cares and will make it right, give him time to do so and go from there.

[ShyViolet]

43 minutes ago, howwouldiknownow22 said:

He says that the photos don't reveal how much he really didn't like her at all and he isn't quite sure why he stayed in the relationship for 4 years ...  (of course, I KNOW he begged her back so I think he is lying to me to make me feel better).

Why do you keep trying to catch him in "lies" about his past relationship that he had before you?  Honestly this all doesn't concern you and it's in the PAST and you need to let it go.  It's weird that you are so fixated on this ex girlfriend of his.  This is a problem with you, not a problem with him.

[LynneVicious]

2 hours ago, ShyViolet said:

3 hours ago, howwouldiknownow22 said:

 

Why do you keep trying to catch him in "lies" about his past relationship that he had before you?  Honestly this all doesn't concern you and it's in the PAST and you need to let it go.  It's weird that you are so fixated on this ex girlfriend of his.  This is a problem with you, not a problem with him.

It could very well be that he knew how you would react, which is why he lied about it. And lied about not liking his ex when you know he was begging for her back. And his thought may have been to not rock the boat because you’re insecure and now it’s backfiring. 

Honestly, I don’t see why this is a big deal for you... whether he was in 20 relationships or one. Whether he was madly in love or not. The fact is he is with you now. And the fact that he lied can actually portend the future for you here if you don’t chill out. 

If he treats you well and you’re happy together, don’t ruin it with retroactive jealousy. 

[basil67]

I think that having old photos of an ex is fine.  And so is living in a house which was decorated by the ex - if it's decorated nicely, why change it?   And why get rid of perfectly good furniture and drapes etc?   Such an expensive and wasteful exercise.

The problem seems to be him lying about the photos and downplaying the past.  The question is, why is he lying?  I suspect he was trying to protect you but went about it all wrong.   I suspect that he's not a bad guy, just a guy who made a bad decision.

[LivingWaterPlease]

The lying would bother me. However, maybe he'd added photos of them together that accumulated one at a time to amount to quite a few photos and didn't realize he'd put so many on there so that he considered them to be so minimal as to not amount to much. I think there is maybe an explanation that would take it out of the category of lying. Not saying there is, just that it's possible.

It also seems to me that you're overly fixated on his ex gf.  Even if he begged her back, it's very possible he's now glad she didn't return.

As far as the decor, I totally wouldn't be concerned with those things. They are now his and I really doubt he looks at them and thinks about her. To him, they're chairs to sit in, etc.; objects. What's he supposed to do? Throw stuff out and buy all new stuff?

If you, unequivocally, believe he lied, I'd deal with that on it's own.  But, please be sure of that which you believe. He may very well have thought he represented things accurately. I mean, he knows you could go check so if he told a lie it seems to me he would have tried to cover it up by removing the pics before you found them if he was a deceitful person.

I am a person who, if I spend $228 on an item will say to someone later on that i spent $250 on it. If I were to spend $211 on an item I might say i spent $200 on it. To me it's accurate if it's rounded out to the nearest $50. The reason is that the difference is so small it just wouldn't matter to me. To me, the issue here is how big a deal his perfect representation of his relationship with his ex matters to you IF there is no indication of lying, if his explanation is plausible.

You may be a rebound, but that part also wouldn't concern me. I'd enjoy the time with him with an open mind.

 

 

 

[IrinaM]

Quote

trying to believe him.

Never talk yourself into believing someone. Ever.

Stop spending four and five days at a time at this guy's house. The reason you are so insecure is because you don't truly know if he is into you. Stop making it so easy for him.

To me, lingering legal entanglements with an ex are an absolute dealbreaker. If a man is dealing with any hint of ex drama, I won't deal with him at all.

[Taramere]

14 hours ago, howwouldiknownow22 said:

 

Would this hurt you if you saw DOZENS of "amazing" couple photos with his EX of 4 years...all over your boyfriend's Facebook page? 

Yes it would, and I think you're absolutely right to raise this with him.

Facebook has caused a lot of problems in many people's lives and relationships, precisely because of stuff like this.  I've seen plenty of people who seemed to function perfectly adequately before the advent of Facebook having fall outs with people close to them over pictures and updates on social media.  And I don't believe it's because they're petty people hung up on silly stuff who aren't using Facebook properly.  I think Facebook and social media potentially cause a lot of harm, and that it's not good enough for people to be vaguely told not to take it all so seriously.  I don't believe normal, healthy coping mechanisms are necessarily sufficient for people to manage the complications social media sometimes brings into their lives (depending on how they - or, less manageably, the people closest to them - have been using it). 

Just from some of the responses you've had, it's clear that people generally are accepting of the idea that we're expected to have coping mechanisms for the unique relationship challenges and stressors that Facebook and other kinds of social media has brought into our lives.  Even for people who don't have social media themselves, it still impacts on their lives due to others close to them having it...so they still have to have those coping mechanisms. 

The trouble is that coping mechanisms aren't always healthy.  Feeling obliged to cope stoically, for fear of being called insecure if you voice any objections, when a current partner's Facebook page has pictures of their ex all over it is not the way to promote good emotional health and honest communication between the two of you.  Being p***ed off about those photos and being real about it strikes me as a perfectly normal, rational position that I'd expect to see from the healthiest, happiest and most functional people I've ever met.  Pretending to be okay with it....no.  That's the sort of thing people do in ultimately doomed relationships that take a toll on them because they spent too long trying to be cool with things that ate away at their self esteem and boundaries.

If your boyfriend wants to make this relationship with you work, I think he needs to be honest about what this relationship with his ex was. He's saying that it was a bad relationship, yet he promoted it as something fantastic on Facebook with all these pictures.  What's the truth here, and why is he presenting one version of himself and his past to you and another quite different version on Facebook?  Which is the real him, and the real history? If the two are very incongruent, then why is that?  I think he also needs to get those pictures off Facebook.   If the pictures are important to him, he could spend a bit of time copying and pasting them into a pictures clipboard on his computer (the equivalent of the old albums in the cupboard).  It might well be a hassle, but if he's serious about a relationship with you then surely it's a hassle worth going to.  Like taking pictures of an ex out of the picture frames on display in your home, and transferring them into a photo album where they can be stored with other past life mementoes.  

Don't be afraid to be a bit high maintenance here.  Either he'll develop more respect for you (and for the relationship the two of you share) as a consequence, or he'll start to make rumblings to suggest he's not sure about the relationship with you....which might not be pleasant to hear, but it's better than living a lie.

[Taramere]

11 hours ago, howwouldiknownow22 said:

So, I talked to him about it and he immediately said he would take them all down and he didn't realize they were still there and didn't want to hurt me with them.  I told him that this wasn't some kind of ultimatum, but I wanted to tell him how I was feeling... and he said he understood and definitely would take them down, out of his own choice.

He says that the photos don't reveal how much he really didn't like her at all and he isn't quite sure why he stayed in the relationship for 4 years ...  (of course, I KNOW he begged her back so I think he is lying to me to make me feel better).

I didn't say anything more I just told him I wanted to be open and honest about how I felt.  he continued on and on about how he loves me and he never loved her .. etc etc. 

He is a salesman by profession...he definitely sold me hard today..  I don't know what to think... trying to believe him.  

I didn't read this post properly before I posted.  That (bolded) is really positive.  He took your feelings seriously (ie didn't ridicule them with "you're being insecure" or anything like that) and said he would take the photos down.

I suspect that the difficulty in wanting him to be open and honest with you about his previous relationship might be that he probably struggles to be open and honest with himself about it.  Looking back on a relationship and thinking "I really didn't like that person" is an awkward thing - because what does it say about us if we stayed in a relationship for several years with somebody who we didn't really like or respect?  I think the thing is that when relationships end on a sour note (and the nature of break ups tends to make that the norm) it can be difficult to remember the person with much fondness.  

That said, the disparity between his claim that he never posted pics of her because he wasn't proud of her, and the evidence of all those pictures on his Facebook account is troubling.  I'm not sure what to make of it.  I think since he reacted positively to your comment about the pictures by saying he would take them down, I probably wouldn't want to then dive in by quizzing him on that disparity.  But I'd remain aware of it, and I'd employ a bit of subtle digging here and there when the opportunity arose to get to the bottom of it.  But I'm not sure how to advocate doing that, because it's a bit of an art.

 

[Crazelnut]

I'd be wary of any guy who says he didn't really love/like/whatever his ex and that the relationship was toxic, when in reality he was with her for 4 YEARS, shared a house with her,  begged her to come back, and has a boatload of happy couple pics on social media. This feels like cognitive dissonance to me.  Either he's completely downplaying their R to try to avoid making you insecure or he has 0 self-awareness or he's rewriting history because he's actually not over her but is trying to convince HIMSELF. 

[spiderowl]

How did you see these pictures if they weren't there?  Where exactly did you find them?

I doubt that it is unusual for people to have uploaded pictures in the past of exs.  It's a hassle removing things so would be better to hide them, though I don't know if you can do that with Facebook.

It's fair enough to ask about them as long as you realise he might have left them because of the hassle of going through and removing each one.

The matter of you feeling insecure with him is something else.  I can understand why, given the history.  Maybe talking to him about this will reassure you; maybe not.

[spiderowl]

2 hours ago, Crazelnut said:

I'd be wary of any guy who says he didn't really love/like/whatever his ex and that the relationship was toxic, when in reality he was with her for 4 YEARS, shared a house with her,  begged her to come back, and has a boatload of happy couple pics on social media. This feels like cognitive dissonance to me.  Either he's completely downplaying their R to try to avoid making you insecure or he has 0 self-awareness or he's rewriting history because he's actually not over her but is trying to convince HIMSELF. 

This is a good point.  However, looking at it from his point of view, his girlfriend asks him about an ex.  He's hardly going to see how keen he was, even if he has lost interest in her now.  His new girlfriend is going to be upset.  I think most of us would downplay a previous relationship, simply because it is over and you don't want to upset a new partner.

[Veronica73]

Sooo, I’ll say that I only read the OP’s initial post. But for me…..I still have pictures of my ex and I on social media. I think our wedding picture is still accessible on my facebook account. I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s sort of like a scrapbook. He was a really important part of my life and I see no reason to pretend he wasn’t. But if I got serious about somebody else…perhaps I would take the photos down on my own. If I was really serious about somebody else and they asked me to take them off of Facebook I imagine I probably would. But I don’t think I would lie about vacations or whatever. (Also, I think I would have a hard time deleting or getting rid of all my photos of him. He was a huge and very important part of my life and I still love him and care about him. And I don’t see anything wrong with that.)

Edited August 16, 2021 by Veronica73

[smackie9]

let me guess.....you are going to insist he buy a new mattress too?

Sorry but IMO you need to either get over it or move on from him. Ex wives, ex live in partners....there will always be remnants of them, whether it's photos or their choice of furniture/paint colour.

[flitzanu]

after dating for 6 months you've never looked at his public photo albums on fb until now?