“I Found Nudes of My Boyfriend’s Ex on His Phone”
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Gary told me in the early stages of our dating that he had a friend’s wedding coming up and his ex was going to it. I found that pretty troubling but decided that when I went I’d put on a happy face and genuinely be kind to her if I saw her there.
Then a few weeks later I found her old nudes on my boyfriend’s phone. He promised there was nothing going on and that they were just old photos he hadn’t deleted yet; he said he never looks at them and forgot they were there. I chose to believe him as everything else between us is so perfect.
But seeing those nudes of his ex on his phone has made me not want to attend the wedding. After telling him I wasn’t sure about going, he informed me that I wasn’t invited anyway as he and his ex were invited as a couple and aren’t now allowed plus ones after breaking up.
My question is: Should he still go? Should I let him go and should I then get over it even though I have been anxious for weeks, am hurt that he still wants to go, and am uncomfortable with the whole idea? He doesn’t want to upset me, but he also says he doesn’t want to upset the bride and groom. (Yet he is not in the wedding party and told me that he is not that close with the couple.)
Please help — the wedding is this weekend and nothing is decided with us. — Nude to This
You may think that “when it’s right, it’s right,” but : 1) that doesn’t mean you should immediately move in with someone you barely know who is just out of a relationship; 2) it wasn’t actually “right”; and 3) when it’s wrong, it’s wrong, and this has “wrong” written all over it. I hate to break it to you, but no relationship is “perfect,” including your own super-special one. That your boyfriend didn’t bother to tell you that you weren’t invited to the wedding he was going to along with his ex is but one of several indications of that. The undeleted nudes of his ex is another. And the most telling is how cavalier he is, especially knowing how uncomfortable you are with all of this, about going to a wedding for a couple with whom he isn’t close that is also a wedding you are not invited to and where his ex, whose nudes graced his phone as recently as a few months ago, will be in attendance.
It’s really not your place to tell your boyfriend where he can and can’t go. But that he even WANTS to go to this wedding knowing how you feel about it — that he’s placing the feelings of people he says he isn’t even that close to above yours–speaks volumes. As do those nudes of his ex on his phone that you stumbled upon.
When it’s wrong it’s wrong, and “when it sounds crazy,” it often is. Moving in with your first adult boyfriend weeks after meeting him and just after he ended another relationship was kind of crazy. I know you think it was crazy in a “we’re just so crazy in love with our perfect relationship” sort of way, but someone who is crazy in love in a perfect relationship doesn’t behave the way your boyfriend is behaving. This isn’t Crazy in Love; this is just crazy. You should probably break up with the guy, but at the very, very least, move out, slow your roll, and actually get to know each other — imperfections and all — before you race forward.
I have been going over to her place to help her, buying stuff for her, and having her over all the time. I was getting excited to be a first-time grandma–only to be crushed. She called my husband to say she had been bleeding and was headed to the hospital. We jumped in our car, but when we got to the hospital, she would not allow me into her room. The great news is she didn’t lose the baby, but I still felt crushed. I guess she doesn’t consider her baby to be my grandchild. I don’t know what to do; I feel betrayed. My husband says not to take it personally, but are you kidding me? I need advice. — Crushed Grandma-To-Be
Oh, stop being such a drama queen. Your stepdaughter’s not wanting you to be in the hospital room after her near-miscarriage isn’t some statement about your role in her baby’s life. It isn’t even a rejection of you, although you feel like it is. This may come as a shock to you, but your stepdaughter’s miscarriage scare — even her pregnancy — isn’t about you! It’s totally normal to not want people in your hospital room after something like what she went through, particularly if someone who wants in is known to be dramatic, narcissistic, or often making things about herself, which I suspect may describe you.
Look, I don’t know what your history with your stepdaughter truly is. I think it sounds a little suspect that “whenever you had to discipline her,” she had friends’ families convinced you were evil, and that she thought things at home were so awful that she moved out when she was a junior in high school. It makes me wonder how, exactly, you were disciplining her and what she found in someone else’s family and home that she wasn’t getting in her own. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you and she simply had a long rough patch and that you loved her the best way you knew how. It does seem you DO love her and that you two have repaired your relationship; that she’s let you be so involved in her pregnancy is a great sign.
Don’t blow shit up now by being a drama queen after HER miscarriage scare. That’s a surefire way of alienating her. Keep supporting her. Keep being there for her. But give her some space. Back off a little. Let her tell you what she needs from you. ASK her what she needs. And if you want to gauge what kind of role you may have in her baby’s life — which, really, will be determined in the years to come — you could ask her what she might like her baby to call you. If she says “Grandma,” then congrats. But if she says something that indicates she isn’t thinking along those lines just yet, don’t give up hope. You are clearly someone who is a big part of your stepdaughter’s life, and as long as you don’t alienate her, there’s no reason why you won’t be a big part of her baby’s life, too.
There are lots of names for “grandma.” The baby may surprise you both and come up with its own variation. Lift the conditions you are putting on your love — both for your stepdaughter and the baby she’s carrying — and I think you’ll find you will attract more of it into your life and will cultivate stronger relationships, too.
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Also, LW1? That you felt the need to go through your boyfriend’s phone is yet another sign that this relationship is wrong. People in healthy relationships don’t invade each other’s privacy.
LW1: you barely know this guy, and it’s not right. It’s wrong. There are so many red flags waving around and you should open your eyes, instead of dismissing them. If you’re being honest, you know that a close friend wouldn’t make exes go to their wedding together. You think he’s going to rekindle with his ex, and you are probably right. Intuition is a powerful thing when you aren’t being sideswiped by your crazy love story, right? But the answer isn’t to snoop to find proof or confront him and start drama, it’s to leave when you know things are not right. This isn’t an adult relationship, it’s a pretend one. By which I mean, it’s a “make believe we’re super in love enough to get married” relationship. He’s going to a wedding with his ex as his date. That’s the relationship you’re in.
LW2: her medical emergencies aren’t about you. They are about her. This is why you weren’t wanted in the room. I wonder how much of the discipline throughout the years involved you feeling disrespected in some way. My advice is to stop taking things so personally, and show a bit more compassion and love to this girl you consider your daughter. That’s what a mother would do.
LW1 He’s been broken up with his ex for over six months and wedding invitations go out much closer to the wedding than that. Nobody invites a person and their ex of six months as a couple. He’s taking his ex as his date or maybe they are both invited and have decided to go together.
If he was as crazy in love with you as you are with him he would be excited to take you to the wedding and introduce you to everyone. He isn’t doing that. He’s going with his ex. You don’t need to know more than that. He’s trying to get back together with the ex.
Why not move out while he’s at the wedding. In the future, when you instantly click with someone, go ahead and be excited and happy but give yourself a few years to be sure it is as good as you think it is. If it is a great relationship it will still be great in a few years but if it turns out to not be so great you have protected yourself. I suggest this as someone who did just click with my husband but since I had experienced a previous not so good relationship I made sure we had two years before getting married just to give it the opportunity to fall apart if it turned out to not be as good as I thought it was. Time is a gift you should give yourself in any new relationship. You won’t regret giving yourself at least a year before moving in with someone but you can regret moving too fast.
I agree that invitations would have gone out later, so that part doesn’t make sense. But a lot of couples I know set their guest list prior to six months in order to send out Save the Dates. I could see them counting him and the ex as two, and not necessarily wanting to double it to four, especially if they’ve only been dating people for a couple of months. It’s sketchy, but I don’t think it’s impossible to be at least partially true.
I guess what I meant to say, but forgot, was that it seems like maybe the couple getting married COULD have done what he said, but that he probably could have said something and didn’t (“Hey, your invitation was just to me, since Ex and I broke up, but I’m dating someone now. Can I get a plus one?”) But I could also see how he might assume he got a plus one in the beginning and then later, once the invitation arrived, found out he didn’t.
I assume the guest list was done way in advance and it is easy to see how he and his ex would both be invited to the wedding. The part that doesn’t add up is that he and his ex supposedly received one invitation that invited them as a couple. Invitations don’t go out six months in advance and I don’t know anyone who would invite a broken up couple as a couple. They should each have their own invitation and should go without a date if they don’t get a plus one.
So the big question here is…who received the invitation in the mail? Did someone get the invitation and then tell the other person? Or did they both get individual invitations w/o a plus one?
Whatever the sitch, I think boyfriend is going to try and hook up with the ex at the wedding. OR they may be working on a reconciliation already, and the wedding is the first official ‘we’re back together’ outing.
When you know, you know? Clearly not, huh? If you are going through his phone it’s already over. I found pics of an ex on my phone when I finally looked through the millions of pics that transfer over last time I got a new phone. Frankly, not that my husband would want to see this, but what do you think? The minute he meets you he goes through 10k photos just to make sure one didn’t get through? Ya no. Don’t freaking move in with someone after a few months. You don’t know. This is called infatuation. Chalk this up to a stupid mistake and move out. So many poorly thought out decisions.
Your whole situation sounds disasterous. MOA!!!
LW1: You moved in with him too fast. Moving in with someone a few weeks after starting to date them is bonkers. I don’t even know WHY you would do that. Why not just enjoy getting to know them and receive confirmation that they are good for you? People have many layers to who they are. You can’t know enough about someone that early on to know whether you should move in with them.
It’s hard to tell whether he’s sketchy or not. I find it odd that you were bothered that he was attending a wedding his ex would be at. If you don’t trust someone to be at an event their ex is at, then don’t move in with them. If you don’t trust someone enough to not snoop on their phone, don’t move in with them.
Please let this be a wakeup call that you should not marry someone you barely know. Outside of desperation, I don’t know why someone would rush these milestones so quickly. If you two were truly “meant to be,” then waiting a year to do this stuff wouldn’t matter. The worst case scenario would be that sometimes you would miss each other when you weren’t hanging out. The worst-case scenario of rushing into this is that you have a legal commitment to someone who makes you miserable. This is a no-brainer.
LW2: I agree with what Wendy said. Making someone’s emergency and loss as a gauge for how much they care about you or appreciate you is silly and setting yourself up for resentment. My best friend had a miscarriage, and she had her husband wait and text her family until after she had time to process and she didn’t let me know for about a week. Did that mean she hates us all? No. She was not focused on what sort of image this would project — she was focused on her grief and her health and just sort of surviving. It would have been super selfish of me to focus on how I had been excited to be an “auntie” or how I thought she should have called me sooner. It wasn’t about me. This isn’t about you.
I also think that you are putting too much of this on being a “stepmom.” Plenty of kids are obnoxious to their parents. Not just stepparents. It sounds like you are sort of keeping score also. You gave her stuff and spend time with her, so you expect to be treated a certain way because of it. It doesn’t work that way. If someone is not holding you as close as you are them, then maybe scale back a little. You can still be supportive and give her things, but if you find that you do that stuff because you want to get her affection in return –knowing you have a rocky relationship — then it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“I also think that you are putting too much of this on being a “stepmom.” ”
Agreed.
I personally wouldn’t allow my own mom anywhere near me were I to end up at a hospital for anything serious; she’d make it all about her and create more drama/problems for me. Thank you, but no thank you.
So for the LW1 – I kinda want to give the boyfriend the benefit of the doubt. First, it does seem like he moved on from the ex quickly. Let’s say the save the dates went out a year before the wedding and now they have broken up and moved on and moved in with a new person. Just be aware that is a quick turn around.
However, I have 3000 pictures on my phone and do need to go through them but haven’t, I can see how old pics are still on there. Also, just because he isn’t “That close” doesn’t mean not close at all. When I was 24 – 26, I had a big group of friends and there were a bunch of weddings. There were some people in that group that I didn’t hang out with alone but I liked the weddings because my friends were there and sometimes I got a date and sometimes I didn’t. Just because they aren’t hang out every weekend friends doesn’t mean that he should just bail on the wedding.
One more story – When my husband and I were first dating (like 3 months into the relationship), he went to a wedding with his ex girlfriend. They had RSVPed together and she was upset they broke up and embarrassed to face her family alone and he went. I wasn’t thrilled at the time but it was one night. Now, we weren’t living together but we were an exclusive couple. A wedding is one night and he has been honest that his ex will be there.
Before you blow up a relationship, I would ask more questions. Find out who this couple is and how many people he knows who are going. I would start to find out what the situation with the break up was and try to have an open conversation with him. It isn’t about allowing him or not allowing him. It is finding out if he is still in love with his ex. I would consider this a yellow flag not red.
So I was totally on “boyfriend is doing nothing wrong” for LW1….right up until him springing on you last minute that you weren’t invited to the wedding. Either he was purposely avoiding telling you, he is lying because he doesn’t want you to go, or you two have some of the WORST communication skills I have ever heard of. How did it not come up that you were planning to go or that he was expecting to go to this wedding without you!? Something stinks and its this relationship.
And by doing nothing wrong I mean its reasonable that a former couple would have enough mutual friends to be invited to the same wedding and also plausible that he would have forgotten he had old nudes.
My question would be did the boyfriend even know you thought you were going to the wedding? Did you just assume that you would be going until you said something and he went Uhh, no. Do you even know the people getting married? I have a feeling you invited yourself to this thing because you are his girlfriend now and it never crossed his mind that you thought you were going with him since you were not invited. Lighten up. If he does hook up with the ex, he isn’t for you.
LW1 – I think you’re being unfair. Wedding guest lists are set many months in advance, it sounds like before you met this guy. You can’t ask strangers to bump someone they know so that you can attend. You don’t know the bride and groom. There are many good reasons to attend a wedding, but keeping tabs on a boyfriend isn’t one of them.
And you also can’t ask Gary to skip a friend’s wedding because the couple happens to also be friends with his ex. He says they’re not that close, but I wonder whether he said that because he’s trying to make it sound like he’s cool with not going. I don’t think you have a leg to stand on to be “troubled”. It’s a wedding! It’s about the bride and groom, not the ex. How would you feel if your someone skipped your wedding because of their ex? You’d probably be like, “hey man can’t you be an adult about this for one day?”
You are dating this guy, so if you want any chance of a healthy, respectful relationship, you have to trust him. And yes, he might break your trust and break your heart, but that’s the risk you take to have any chance of a good relationship. If you go into it with suspicion and distrust, even if you succeed in boxing him in so tightly that he can’t cheat, you two will not be happy together.
As to your actual relationship, I agree it sounds like crap communication. Did he say “I’m going to a wedding” and you assumed you were invited, or did he ask you to go with him and then take it back? If it’s the first, that’s on you. If it’s the second, then he’s vindictive and punitive and you should break up right away.
My advice is ask him to delete the nudes, watch him delete them, ask him whether there are copies anywhere else (computer or cloud backup), and ask him to delete those too. Then tell him to have a good time at the wedding.
He is not vindictive for not mentioning she wasn’t invited. Why would she think she is invited to a wedding he got an invitation to before they dated? Plus, you know how much thought men put into other peoples weddings? He isn’t excitedly sitting around counting down the days. Also, the “let him go”. Oh sweetie, no. You don’t get to “let” him do anything. If you are so insecure that you cannot handle your BF being in the same room as his ex…and like 200 other people, then you need to deal with your own issues. But we knew that when you moved in with him weeks after meeting. I am so exhausted with all the drama women create over their significant others being any where near their exes. If he is going to cheat he is going to cheat, controlling him isn’t going to stop that, if anything it will just make him resent you more.
“And you also can’t ask Gary to skip a friend’s wedding because the couple happens to also be friends with his ex.”
YES! The fact that you were upset he was merely going to a wedding that his ex was attending says a WHOLE LOT about this relationship. Before the knowing about the nudes, or that you weren’t invited, you were way overreacting to the fact that him and his ex would be anywhere in proximity, which makes you sound insecure and controlling.
There is a possibility that he forgot about the nudes, as long as he’s deleted them now. And I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that his negative reaction to you about the wedding was more about him refusing to be told that he wasn’t “allowed” to go to his friends’ wedding.
Sidenote: There’s no way in hell I would have given a plus one to my friend so they could bring their girlfriend of 6 months, whom I’ve never even met (I’m assuming), to my wedding.
The wedding guest list would be set way in advance but I don’t know anyone who would invite a couple that has broken up as a couple. They would each get their own invitation even if there was no plus one. I can see them having the same friends and I can see each of them getting invited to the wedding but that doesn’t mean that they need to attend as a couple.
I can’t ever bring myself to understand how people can rush into a serious relationship with people they barely know and then act surprised when they run into troubles like this.
Oh LW1 anytime anyone refers to their relationship as perfect, or their SO as perfect and awesome it might as well be a goodyear blimp message for Train wreck. Seriously I love my husband he can be wonderful but I am surprised every anniversary that I didn’t kill him in the previous year. Not because I hate him but because he is flawed and I do love him so the things he does wrong on purpose infuriate me to no end. I don’t think I am alone in this, ask people you know who are married for longer than 7 years if their spouse is perfect, I will bet my car that 90% will laugh and laugh at that question. We dont marry or date perfect people because well there are none, and even if there were they would be annoying. Truth is you haven’t known him long enough to be sure you won’t be a human rug in his basement let alone know what annoys you most about him.
LW2 – 16-17 year olds don’t leave their home because it is wonderful, and parents who want them there don’t let them stay gone at 16. Between me and my 3 sisters our home was the temporary home to quite a few of our friends with issues with their stepmom and stepdad. because our friends parents who only had natural parents came after them when they had fights. You cant change your past only your future, you cant choose to be her mom now that she is having a baby because you want to be grandma, when you didn’t choose to be a mom when she was the child. Be there for her and the child however she is willing to have you there if you want to be the grandmother, you are going to have to take what she offers you until she can trust you.
So much yes. I seriously thought of shoving my husband out of the car yesterday when he mentioned I as going 1 mile over the speed limit for the ten billionth time. Signs your relationship is most def not perfect: 1.) You constantly say it is. 2.) You talk about them on social media non stop, post pics, declare your love. 3.) You are any human being ever….the prior two just remind people it isn’t perfect and you are trying desperately to hide it.
I know a couple getting married in May and ever since they got engaged, it has been non-stop photo-bombing and messages on FB about how lucky they are, how much they love each other, countdown to the day…they do seem happy but I also wonder if there isn’t something not right and they just want to cover it up-it’ll all be ok once their married. I just wonder about people who post that much about how happy they are. Maybe they are just excited. who knows?
Nothing gets “better” once you get married. If there is a problem before it will exist, ten fold, once married. Some people are just happy but happy people just are, they tend to not need to tell everyone about it constantly. I totally get engagement pics, excitement but seriously if my husband wants to tell me he loves me, he has my number.
My mom used to say, “When you know, you know,” until my sisters both rushed into marriages that ended in divorce. She doesn’t say it anymore. Think before you act.
LW1). Oh, grow up. And SLOW up.
LW2). Eh, the fact that the stepdaughter got knocked up so fast in such a fabulous and oh so stable situations makes her look like the stepdaughter from hell…
I wonder if it’s because her dad let her leave as a teen so he could live in peace with his wife rather than insisting on working through whatever was causing the tension. Proving to your daughter you don’t really care all that much about her messes her up for life and sends her searching for other “father figures”—like, say, older married guys. We’ve all seen it many, many times.
Dad sounds like a failure as a parent.
Count me as one of the few on boyfriend’s side. Unless he specifically told LW she was invited I don’t know how she could think she was when the guest list was clearly set months ago and he and the ex were each other’s plus one. She’s the one going through phones and making drama about pics even she admits are old, she’s the one making a huge to do about the whole wedding. Why is her invasion of privacy being ignored? Surely there was no legitimate reason for her to be scrolling through old photos (and if there was BF obviously did forget he had anything racy). To be blunt I think he’s the one that should dump her and they both need to stop moving in with strangers.
I guess that I’m confused by some of the reactions to LW1.
1. People have said that he sprang on her or waited to tell her that she wasn’t invited. But he told her right when they started dating that he had the wedding? Why would she think that she would be invited? I guess some weddings have generic “plus-ones” but that seems to be more the exception than the rule.
2. People have jumped to the conclusion that he’s going *with* his ex, i.e. they were invited as a couple, but I don’t know why you’d assume that. It’s not unusual for couples to have common friends. Enough so that I’ve seen people worry or stress about encountering their exes at weddings.
3. The assumption that he’s cheating on her with the ex seems to be really out there. If that was happening wouldn’t she have found some evidence of it on the phone when she looked through it? Other than old pictures?
4. I don’t like these “putting X over her feelings” formulations that people bring up. If someone is making controlling demands of another person, then they shouldn’t get “their feelings” put ahead. Either she believes the old nudes on his phone are a sign that he’s cheating with the ex, in which case she shouldn’t stay with him. Or she doesn’t, in which case asking him not to attend a wedding just because his ex is there seems like a crazy and controlling ask.
Never mind-I see that she said that they were invited as a couple. My bad.
Even then it sounds like they were invited as a couple when they were a couple and since breaking up they don’t get to change the head count by inviting plus ones.
They were invited over six months ago? Honestly, although everyone will chime in that they’ve had wedding invitations and seating charts done that far in advance, I have never been to or invited to a wedding that far out. Save the dates are another matter.
He also says he isn’t close to them. But he’d rather go to this wedding than make his fiancé feel comfortable? That’s strange. It’s all VERY strange.
Is she his fiance? She doesn’t get to demand that he never be present at the same large event as his ex and then turn around and say “why won’t you prioritize my feelings?” It’s a controlling and unreasonable demand and flipping it around to make it about the feelings if the controlling party is I think misguided.
I didn’t say she had to demand it.
Would you go to a wedding of people you aren’t close with? I wouldn’t. My time is precious and unless there were some kind of reason to go a wedding of people I’m not close to, I wouldn’t go. And I don’t even have a jealous partner.
I mean, I get that this LW1 is essentially asking if she should make a big deal over this or not…when the real answer is:
don’t make a big deal, and also don’t move in with men you started dating weeks ago, lest the inevitable nudes of exes show up and you know…this happens.
(I added fiancé, because she says they are talking marriage.)
LW1: he is inserting you as the female in his happily ever after storyline. He wants marriage, I’m sure, but clearly that’s not a good idea at this moment. The minute things get tricky (like right about now) he’ll show you his priorities. I believe he is right now.
I mean, there may not have seating charts and the calligraphy but it’s reasonable that they sent out save the dates and did their guest allocations early on. In any event, I don’t see why she’d assume that she was going, without being told so explicitly.
I might go to a local wedding of people that I wasn’t particularly close to. I think that she’s bringing it up as a way of saying that he should submit to her demands but he might appreciate the invitation and like the people and want to enjoy a nice party with common friends.
I find it unlikely that anyone sent out the invitations over six months ago. It’s easy to see that he and his ex would have mutual friends and would both be invited to the wedding. It is much harder to see those friends inviting them as a couple knowing that they broke up over six months ago. I don’t know anyone who would do that. If they are friends they should know you aren’t a couple and by the time they are sending out invitations they should be sending out two invitations, one to each half of the ex couple. The boyfriend isn’t just saying that they are both attending the same wedding. He is saying that they are attending as a couple. Attending as a couple is hugely different than just both of them attending the wedding of mutual friends.
I saw something similar happen early last year. A friend’s son was engaged and he and his fiance were both invited to the wedding of mutual friends. They were both in the wedding. Then they broke up before the wedding. They both went to the wedding and they were both in the wedding but they didn’t go to the wedding as a couple and they each received their own invitation. Nobody who knows you will invite you as a couple when they know you have broken up and I don’t know anyone who sends out the invitations over six months in advance. Save the dates are different than invitations.
Even if he can’t take someone extra to the wedding no one would force him to attend as a partner with his ex. That’s the choice of him and the ex.
I could totally see it. Save the dates sent out way in advance, RSVP and head counts done then uh oh, couple breaks up. Nobody is dating anyone new in the interim (not seriously enough even at say 3 months in to this new relationship with LW) so the original invitation stands except they go separately instead of together. If I were the marrying couple I wouldn’t include a girlfriend of only a few months either.
But why go , if you don’t know the couple well?
Most guys I know abhor weddings unless it’s close friends and there will be a good celebration.
Okay yes LW1 you need to slow this relationship down. How long ago and why did he end things with his ex? Often times people who are grieving the loss of a relationship hurriedly get into another one because they think it will heal their pain but it does not, I suspect that’s what he did to you here. That’s why he pushed to move so fast he was filling a hole with you and I doubt he’s over her BUT
I also see no indication that he wants to get back with her. He can still grieve the loss of a relationship that he no longer wants to be in. It may be that you need to allow him that grief. You can’t expect anyone to forget their exes and wipe them out of their whole mind it’s not reasonable. My fiancé has wedding pics of his ex wife and he. That’s part of his life and I would never ask him to get rid of them.
Now naked pics let me let you in on a little secret here, many men maintain a “collection “ and in this digital age even more so. If you ask most men if they have naked pics of exes they do. It’s like how almost all men look at porn it’s just assumed but many don’t discuss it with their partners unless asked. And he may even fantasize about her sexually from time to time and a bevy of other women it’s naive to think he will not that’s human nature. You are attaching a meaning of love to the pics because to women sex is love but to most men it’s just sex. You can ask him to delete them but he probably won’t, he will just get better at hiding the pics, sort of like men do with porn.
As for the wedding did he ever tell you you were invited or did you assume? And it’s not as easy as just adding you. As a single person for years I never got a plus one. It’s pricey and these people do not know you that know his ex. It’s wrong for you to demand he not go to appease you. I think he should ask if you can come but that’s it.
You are insecure in the relationship and I suspect that deep down it’s because you know he moved on too fast and still cares for her. I think you need to move out and start with him again slowly.
I actually feel a little sorry for LW1. I have been there and I understand how bad you want things to go well with someone you really like. So much so that you don’t really use your head.
My take is that this guy and his ex broke up. He is possibly/probably still hooked on her. (I don’t keep thousands of pictures on my phone and would delete any I had of someone I was done with) He met LW1, she was nice, eager and he needed someone to help pay the bills. I have known so many guys that had girlfriends more for the fact that they needed help paying their bills (and other benefits) than because they were genuinely in love with the person. The fact that he is willing to go to a wedding of a couple he isn’t even close with despite how it makes his potential future wife feel speaks volumes to me.
If I were her I would pack my stuff and go a.s.a.p. while I still had my dignity. He isn’t the one. Chalk it up to experience. I hope she didn’t sign the lease.
BTW as we all know on dw…anytime the word “AMAZING” is used, it is time to MOA.