‘My boyfriend has over 3,000 photos of his ex on his phone - it makes me uneasy’

In Lalalaletmeexplain's hit column, readers ask for her expert advice on their own love, sex and relationship problems. With over 200k Instagram followers, Lala is the anonymous voice helping womankind through every bump in the road. An established sex, dating and relationship educator, she’s had her fair share of relationship drama and shares her wisdom on social media to a loyal army of followers.

Every week thousands turn to her to answer their questions (no matter how embarrassing), and her funny, frank approach to love and relationships has made her the ultimate feel-good guru. For this week's column, simply continue reading...

Dear Lala,

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I’ve been dating a guy for a year now. I came out of a marriage with children and he came out of a four year relationship. He mentioned in a passing kind of way, when we were talking about deleting ‘old stuff, that he still has loads of pictures of his ex on his phone. He basically said he’d get around to deleting them all one day, but he has 3,000+ images of them so they’re just all still on there along with their entire chat history on WhatsApp. I know this as she’s messaged him twice since they split with well wishing types of messages. Should I be concerned that he still has an enormous amount of pictures of his ex on his phone? I don’t believe he looks at them, but it makes me feel quite uneasy that they’re all just sitting there in his pocket, 24/7. I have pictures of the kids and their dad together, but nothing romantic, which he’s welcome to look through at any time. Please help.

Lala says…

Well, there really is no right or wrong answer to this question. What me and the readers think about this matters far less than what you and your partner feel. This is one of those subjects that everyone will see differently. Some people will say that it is suspicious and that not deleting all traces of her means that he is still harbouring feelings and that you should remove memories of exes when you move on. Other people will think that view is ridiculous and that photographs capture a moment in time and that they don’t mean anything now. It sounds like you are the former and your partner is the latter.

Personally, I haven’t deleted pictures of any of my exes. I don’t see the need. I wouldn’t keep them up on social media, but I’m not going to go out of my way to delete every trace of our history from my phone. I do not harbour feelings for any of them. I don’t keep the pictures because I’m trying to hold on to the men. I can understand why he doesn’t want to spend the time deleting thousands of them. However, I can also understand your concern.

This isn’t really so much about the pictures themselves but what they represent to you. You are adding your own meaning to them. The non-deletion has sparked an insecurity, which has been heightened because she still gets in touch; and that has made you feel uncertain. That is not unreasonable but it is important to reflect on why you feel how you feel, he isn’t responsible for your feelings around this because he hasn’t actually done anything wrong as such. Outside of this do you trust him? Is the relationship healthy? Do you feel safe? Why did your marriage end? If there was infidelity, then could you still be grappling with feelings of trust and safety in relationships stemming from that? Or is this event another flag on top of other red flags?

I think that you need to sit with whether it is worth bringing up how you feel about it and ask yourself what outcome you want, would you want him to take a day off to go through 3,000 pictures? Or do you just want reassurance? He has had the pictures on his phone for your entire relationship and everyday he has chosen to be with you. They’ve been there the whole time, so nothing has changed just because he has alerted you to their existence. I’m not sure if your comment about him being welcome to look through your pictures any time means that you have asked him if you can look through his, but if it does, I would strongly think about whether that will make you feel any better.

I guess the long and short is that I don’t think it’s a bad thing that he hasn’t deleted everything, but if you do then it’s either because you know more of the context and this is another red flag on top of others, or because you are reading too much into it based on your past experiences or you’re already feeling unsure in this. And only you will really know. If this is the only thing then I think it’s nothing. If there’s more then you need to figure out where this fits. Communication is key and it would be good to talk about your feelings and why this has made you feel vulnerable. Just be careful not to blame him or feel like you’re right to force him to delete them if he doesn’t want to. As a stand alone issue, to me this isn’t a red flag, but you need to reflect on it with your greater knowledge of the wider context and figure out why this is concerning you and if you can find a way to feel better about it.