checkoutat10 Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 So what do you do with all the pictures of you and your ex spouse? Or if you're a hopeless romantic and nostalgic like myself....the movie stubs, wedding cards, birthday cards, etc. Sigh. I have a huge box of actual photos of us. I have a ton of digital photos on Facebook. I have no clue what to do with them. Save them away for the kids when they're older? Burn them into a fiery inferno of oblivion?a What to do, what to do....
KBarletta Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 What I did: I took everything (and I mean everything) that reminded me of her - photos, photo albums, books, ticket stubs, souvenirs, even clothes that she had bought for me - put it all in a big box and placed it in my attic, out of sight for as long as necessary. Maybe the day will never come that I even want to look at our wedding photos again, but I wouldn't recommend a bonfire because that you might regret later. But putting it all in a box and getting it totally out of sight and out of mind is a good idea, like right away. 1
me85 Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 It took me nearly 16 months to delete pictures off of my computer and on my phone. Pictures on FB went right away.
toolforgrowth Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 I chucked them all. I saved the digital ones on an external hard drive for my daughter. I have easy access to them, but never look. It's easy now not to care.
Author checkoutat10 Posted December 4, 2014 Author Posted December 4, 2014 Thanks KBarletta. That does make sense. Everything is boxed up already and out of sight, I guess I will keep it that way until I move next year. I wonder what to do about the digital media. Tons of pics on the computer, phone, Facebook.... I'm thinking maybe burn them all to a disc and put it in the same box. Seems like a plan.....a sad project though.... This whole thing is a sad project. It cannot be over fast enough... 1
d0nnivain Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 Save them all for your kids. Take the digital ones & put them on a thumb drive. Box everything up & don't look at them. If you want to take 1 or 2 where you don't look so great & burn them just for the emotional satisfaction of watching the EX figuratively go up in flames, we won't tell your kids. 1
lindsay91313 Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 I have that stuff in the box with keepsakes from when my son was a little peanut on a shelf somewhere. Out of site, out of mind.
Yasuandio Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 Now, years later, I coming across old regular-type photographs. Really old photos. A couple of our first home in SC, he is outside spraying water on the little vegtables I grew myself in my first garden. He looks so proud. But so thin, aged, even though it was the early years in our marriage, around 1886-87. Probably, something weird or wrong was up then. He doesn't look healthy in those photos, at all. Those years were a sample of what was to come for the next 25 or so. He would abandon the home, pack up his stuff - disappear, about every 6-9 months, no rhyme or reason, but then, come right back, week or 2 later. Once my dad died, he even took my car, and abandoned me at the wake. I attended my Dad's military funeral escorted by the undertaket - how embarrassing. Finally, he had moved out to another place for good, I thought. I moved on, sold the house in 2 days, and was off to Ohio State University to get my Ph.D. on a full scholarship. I allowed him to crawl right back into my life, and he came with me. Then....... This is the problem with photographs. Finding the pix about the little garden has sent me into a spin. The photo is sitting on the counter. What to do with it. Probably burn it. But, I somehow dont feel that is a proper thing to do with someone else's images, although I dont really give a shytt actually, and could burn them with a clear conscious. So, to determine the right thing, I ask myself, what if situation was reversed. If he had my photographs, I would want them back, not burned. So what to do. I could mail them. But I will keep finding photos, for a long time to come - 26 year marriage, there are a lot of photographs around here. Everytime I come across onr in a box, or stuck in book, it is painful, or weird, or both. I feel differently about digital images stored in the computer. Never crossed my mind to look at them. If I run into one, I move it into a certain file. Those just dont have the samd impact. Thoughts?
Mr. Lucky Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 Save them all for your kids. Take the digital ones & put them on a thumb drive. Box everything up & don't look at them. I took a different approach. I saved a couple of dozen photos of us with our son that covered the timeline we were together and tossed everything else. Others may disagree, I don't see a need to save hundreds or thousands of images, digital or paper, of your ex... Mr. Lucky
carhill Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 So what do you do with all the pictures of you and your ex spouse? Or if you're a hopeless romantic and nostalgic like myself....the movie stubs, wedding cards, birthday cards, etc. Marriage box, along with our divorce documents. I think my exW left me a couple scrapbooks of some of our travels too and they went in the box. All part of life. In another box, I have pictures and videos of my family life, way back to when my dad took pictures of me as a baby with a 35mm film camera and made them into slides. Will anyone ever really care about that stuff? Probably not. However, when I'm settled into my old age, god willing, and have time to reflect, the images and sounds of a family now gone perhaps will inspire pleasant memories and, if I'm lucky, I'll have that in old age. Ha, I just remembered that I found a copy of our wedding video in an obscure cabinet of the RV while camping last weekend. It needs to go in the box too. No I didn't watch it. VHS player in the RV is long gone! Life is like that. Since you have children, you have a potential legacy to save for them. All I got of my father's first M was his (copies) and his children's letters during WW2 and after. I don't think I ever saw a picture of them. That's the breaks when the spouse leaves and uproots one's life while over in some trench on a battlefield. One comes home to nothing. Seems kind of empty to me so I don't mind a few boxes of such things.
Yasuandio Posted December 4, 2014 Posted December 4, 2014 Same thing happened to my dad also. I learned something was off when some bizarre picture portrait turned up on wall when I was a teen. My mom got ticked off and exposed the image, hung it up to be mean and hateful. A girl named "peaches." I found out it was his daughter - his firstwife went off with someone else, when he returned back from war. Soon after I was married, I met her and her family one time - she found my dad. Weird, very weird. Mom was really angry also. Yeah, these old photos and past lives cause big problems, need to be disappeared. Yas How long have you had that RV, Carhill? Dang.
carhill Posted December 5, 2014 Posted December 5, 2014 How long have you had that RV, Carhill? Bought it when exW and I were dating, after a bad storm flooded our tent and she announced that there would be no more tent camping in her future, so I guess 15 years or so. It's the youngest asset in the fleet In a way, it's like a picture album too, as we traveled all over the place in it. Cheap to keep so I still have it. 2
GirlStillStrong Posted December 5, 2014 Posted December 5, 2014 (edited) Gather up everything that reminds you of him to be put away. Write a letter to yourself (don't forget the date) describing exactly how you feel in this moment and some of the things you have been going through. Place the letter on top of everything in the box, and put the box and other stuff somewhere you will not see them or happen upon them. When you are ready to decide what to do with that stuff, open the box, read the letter and bask in the glory of how far you have come. Edited December 5, 2014 by GirlStillStrong typo 2
trippi1432 Posted December 5, 2014 Posted December 5, 2014 I agree, gather them all up and box them. I gave our son pics of us if his dad were in them and single pics of his dad. His father gave him the one of me he carried in his wallet to give back to me once he came out about his OW. Always the sweetheart. Blech!! Granted, you will miss some here and there. It's been five years and I opened a small drawer to an end table one day....lo and behold, there was the pic of us entering the reception hall, me in my wedding gown. On the frame, it had our names engraved...at the bottom, it said Mr. & Mrs. Husband's First name and last name. I remembered thinking to myself..."Wow, how replaceable am I?" Not much to it...just put another woman in the dress and don't even have to worry about his name, guess that makes it easy for him. The girl in that picture had lost her identity. The good thing that came from all of it, is that I have that back. 2
PegNosePete Posted December 5, 2014 Posted December 5, 2014 Take the digital ones & put them on a thumb drive. I agree with the principal but wouldn't recommend a thumb drive. They are not designed for long-term storage, and can be unreliable, especially the cheap ones. Same with home-burned CDs and DVDs, the data degrades after a few years. The best way to store data long-term is an external hard drive such as a WD Passport. 1
KBarletta Posted December 5, 2014 Posted December 5, 2014 I wonder what to do about the digital media. Tons of pics on the computer, phone, Facebook.... I'm thinking maybe burn them all to a disc and put it in the same box. Seems like a plan.....a sad project though.... This whole thing is a sad project. It cannot be over fast enough... You have the right idea. On the digital stuff, I just copied everything onto a thumb drive and threw it in the box along with everything else. I don't recommend throwing anything away until you know for sure that you'll never want it again - don't make that decision emotionally, but logically. I also deactivated my Facebook account, which takes care of hiding the photos (but saving them in case you want them later) and also served to unfriend her and everyone I knew connected to her. Then I created a new Facebook account with a different name, blocked her, and only connected to close friends and family who are not connected to her in any way. Allowed me to keep in touch with that select group that I knew would support me and still kept everything related to her hidden from view. And you disappear off their digital radar, too, which is an added bonus, especially if you are in NC. 3
GirlStillStrong Posted December 6, 2014 Posted December 6, 2014 Granted, you will miss some here and there. It's been five years and I opened a small drawer to an end table one day....lo and behold, there was the pic of us entering the reception hall, me in my wedding gown. On the frame, it had our names engraved...at the bottom, it said Mr. & Mrs. Husband's First name and last name. I remembered thinking to myself..."Wow, how replaceable am I?" Not much to it...just put another woman in the dress and don't even have to worry about his name, guess that makes it easy for him. The girl in that picture had lost her identity. The good thing that came from all of it, is that I have that back. I think it's pretty common for people to lose their identities in marriage. I'm glad you got your identity back! 1
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