SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi I'm 9 weeks out from finding out my husband had a 2 year affair (1 year PA and 1 year EA) 12 years ago. It was with his best man's wife and when my 3 rd child was born. This means SHE is in my wedding pictures and I feel the memories and photos of my child's first 2 years including Christmas, holidays, birthdays and christening are all tainted by his betrayal 😩
We are working on reconciliation and he is doing everything he can to repair the damage he caused but what do I do about the memories and photos? If it was from before the kids, I'd chuck the photos but I can't chuck my child's baby pics.

Anyone else in this situation? What did you do?

9 weeks is early early days. My advice is to do nothing rash now. Put them in a drawer out of sight and let time pass. You will know what to do later on, MUCH later on. You are still in the shock phase and will be for months.

I couldn't look at any pics at all from the time of my H's A for a loooong time after DD. And those pics weren't even half as triggering as yours are, just mundane everyday pics not with AP in them. It was just that any pics from the months the A took place immediately made me feel physically sick and my heart started pounding. These days, it's not like that anymore. I do always think to myself, 'this was mid affair'. But now it's just a passing thought, not triggering and just sort of a sad memory that passes through my mind.

Perhaps some time in the future you can have the wedding pics scanned and professionally retouched to have her removed from them? Just don't do anything that can't be undone like burning/chucking them out.

[This message edited by Miserylikescompany at 4:15 PM, Sunday, March 9th]

Thank you for your reply. She's only in one picture but her husband as best man is in several. My husband did suggest getting them redone one day. For now they are all in the garage as I took down every picture on D day. Technology doesn't help though as my phone constantly pipes up with 'memories' which is so difficult. I have also left Facebook to avoid looking HER up 😩 kind of wish I looked bed in a time before technology....although it was was quite cathartic using a photo editor to draw dicks on her head in the pics I found online 🤣

This is so very hard Evio....my heart is out to you. As other said, do nothing rash at this point, although you definatly feel like it. Go through the process, day by day. Seek God to strengthen and guide you. As easy as it is to think everything was a lie, the fact is it was not. If you choose to reconcile, it will take a long time and lots of work to arrive at a common story. You mind and heart will be working overtime to realign. Everything you are feeling is normal....please keep that in mind. Again, read Betrayal Bind, and find and listen to Jake Porter. Praying for you.

Sorry to hear you are hurting. These cheaters cause so much pain from their selfish.

I tore up the wedding pictures & pictures of our many overseas travels & many other pictures of us together.
WH wasted 21 years of my life by cheating throughout the sham marriage.
I couldn't have them around as visual reminders.
That was 5 years ago & I don't miss them or regret doing it.
Most of them I tore up in front of WH to drive home the fact that he lied all those years so the pics were lies as well.

NO REGRETS. 6 years later & I don't miss them & don't care if he misses them! He never cared that he was hurting me so
.......
They just don't care about the permanent damage they do to us so I don't care if he wanted them.

Evio, hang on to them for now. Pictures like that are something your children will want to have someday, and they will likely never know of this betrayal. This doesn’t mean that you have to view them or put them up anywhere.

My wife didn’t cheat with anybody in the wedding party, but her infidelity was less than 2 years after our wedding. I think the same when I see our wedding pics. "And in just a year and a half after these wedding pics, she gives herself to somebody else". Ruined my enjoyment of the pics. But.. We have a daughter and I’ve kept them so she can enjoy them someday.

Brit...are you still with your wife? We have only been married just shy of two years when my husband cheated too 😞
Not sure how they make those vows and then break them so quickly

I would keep them in a file, just in case. You don't have to look at them. I've kept all my photos of my family for my kids even though xWS and I divorced. Photos used to be really hard for me because they are basically all tainted by my xWS cheating throughout our M and his treatment of me. When I look at the photos now I enjoy the one's of my kids. When I come across one of my XWS I don't feel anything at all, not fondness or of missing him. It was a past life I have moved on from. I did get rid of our wedding photos (IDK I may have a few packed up in boxes).

I Would also advise that you retain them: just put Just put them away in a drawer as other people have suggested or in a secure location. A very similar problem presented itself when during my wife's first affair she became pregnant with the affair partners child And all the photographs of my pregnant wife and the post delivery baby photos not to mention toddler and young school age photos of the child whom I accepted and raised as my son caused me a great deal of pain and anguish until I could look beyond the infidelity and see the joy that this innocent child, now a retired career upper echelon military officer, brings me.
I am so glad that I didn't follow my first impulse to want to destroy everything that reminded me of my WW's infidelity which would have been a good dozen photo albums from that time over fifty years,ago.

I get it.

Honestly, I wouldn't get rid of them. I would pack them away securely and keep them in a safe place. Until when/if you are ready again.

Thank you everyone. I really hope reconciliation works and if it does I could get the woman edited out of the pictures but I'm not sure whether I'll ever look back on my wedding day with fond memories again and that makes me so sad as it was such a special day 😞

This would be very difficult but don't destroy the pictures.

I'm not sure whether I'll ever look back on my wedding day with fond memories again

This is a very normal feeling. I couldn't look our wedding pictures for a few years, it felt like a such a fraud. File them away and deal with them further down the healing journey.

..I shredded our entire wedding album...and then had to go through 20 years of photographs to find all the pics of my bff who was the scumbag my wife had the 18 year affair with.

He, fortunately, died from brain cancer at 57 and I was able to piss on his grave several times since then, a promise I made to him in 1987 when I confronted him in his law firm office.

smy

It's so difficult isn't it. I found my wedding dress the other day and don't know what to do with that either. I mean, are we even married if he broke our vows?

So sorry you are going through this. It is completely understandable that these pictures trigger you. After discovering my first wifes betrayal with my then best friend, I rid my home of every image and/or reminder of him which included any pics that included the three of us. No visual reminder remained. She stayed mute over the purging and seemed very emabarrassed. He became persona non grata and was never spoken of or heard from again. As I stated before, I hung in there with my ww for a long decade before it all ended.

Do whatever you need to do to lessen your pain and that includes scrubbing your home of any and all reminders of your own personal betrayal. Prioritize yourself, your needs, & your healing. He has to sort himself out.

On another note, dont understimate the detrimental impact of being deceived for 12 years. Thats a long time to be kept in the dark. As many in like circumstances have said, had they known, they may well have changed the trajectory of their entire life. Others have said that they were robbed of their agency and that too is understandable.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 10:45 PM, Sunday, March 16th]