A
male
age
41-50,
*omebody2008
writes:What should I do about naked photos of her ex-boyfriend?Here is some background information: My girlfriend and I have been dating for 1.5 years and are getting ready to move-in together. We "joke around" about getting married and it doesn't scare either of us. It gives us that nice "comfy" feeling, actually.In the beginning of the relationship, there were some trust issues from my side because her ex-boyfriend was still around *as a friend* more than I would have liked. Due to that, I snooped around her apartment and found pictures on a CD with naked photos of her and her ex-boyfriend taken 2 to 3 years ago. This was among other CDs with normal photos. This was shocking to me given the length of time we have been dating! But I never said anything to her. Why? Well, it's her apartment and I know I didn't have the right to go through her stuff. It could have turned into a fight about why I was snooping through her stuff. I mean, they were in CDs hidden in the closet.That was a few months ago. Now, we are moving in together and during a *nice* and *polite* conversation, we discussed that we both have pictures of our exes and that it's OK to bring to our new home. I mentioned that pics with hugs, kisses, etc are fine, but anything else that would make me uncomfortable and are not allowed. So we now started packing her place and I noticed that she still packed those CDs! I'm flipping out! What should I do? I can think of a few things. What do you think? Do you have other suggestions?1 - Manage to grab the CDs and throw them away before we move and never say a word. They are already in a box, so she might realize that she's "missing" some CDs once we start unpacking.2- During moving in, I could joke with her and say something like: "Oh, here's your box with photo albums and CDs. There better not be anything I wouldn't want to see here or I'll have to give you a spanking *wink*". Then see if she throws them away later.3- Once we move in, throw them away sometime in the future and never say a word.4- Once we move in, "Find the pictures in the CDs" for the first time and confront her. 5- something else? Help!I'm thinking 4, because I'm dying to know why she is keeping them. But it will lead to a fight because we explicitly said no such things would be allowed. Problem is that they're in a CD, so she will know I snooped around and she might lose some trust in me. My counter-argument can be that it's *our* place now.
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male
reader, somebody2008 +, writes (2 July 2008):
somebody2008 is verified as being by the original poster of the questionNo, no naked pictures of us. It's too easy for that stuff to end up on the internet. Thanks all.
A
female
reader, birdynumnums  +, writes (27 June 2008):
 Are we to be led to believe that YOU have naked pictures of yourself in your house, then?
;-D
You sound a lot better now that you have it all settled in you mind!
Cheers, Good Luck with your move, Hun!
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A
male
reader, somebody2008 +, writes (27 June 2008):
somebody2008 is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for the replies, everyone. Now that I have calmed down from the initial shock, I'm OK. I'll try to reply to those who answered so far:
- I honestly do have complete trust in her. In fact, she, her ex, some of her friends, and have gone out for drinks and other casual things and she openly discusses with me when she talks to her ex. Same goes to me. The trust issue was mainly in the beginning.
- I think she has forgotten about the contents of those CDs. While pack, I myself found pictures of one of my exes that I thought I had lost (not naked ones though) from many years ago.
- I have to think of what's best for *our* relationship, so I have decided not say anything at this point. An argument over this is not going to make anything better and will just hurt the relationship because there's no way of bringing this up nicely given that there's no way that I just "came across" the pictures.
However, at some point in the future, I will find a way for her to "go through her CDs" herself (hey, honey, how about you backup all your CDs to DVDs instead?). I will then hope she remembers them and throws them away because I still do not want pictures of (some other, haha) naked guy in my house.
Thanks for the replies!
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A
female
reader, Sugarbuns  +, writes (25 June 2008):
 I vote for option #3. Once you've moved in together find the CD and help it find it's way into the nearest dumpster, preferably not one near your house or apartment and make sure you break the CD in two before placing it in the dumpster. After that, you should seal your lips and if she later discovers it missing, she'll just think it got misplaced in the move. Never confess. She'll think you're childish and insecure but that's okay. She doesn't have to know the truth. Or you could do what I did one time after I discovered a CD my b/f had with naked pics of him and his ex. Remove the CD, and replace it with a blank one (has to be the same brand if you can find it) and then label it the same. Luckily, his CD only had XXX written on the outside and not too hard to duplicate in my handwriting. I placed the empty blank one back in his cover and he's never been the wiser. If he ever plugs it in he'll just think the CD has been corrupted and that'll be the end of his naked ex pictures. It's petty I know, but I asked him to remove them and he didn't. It was only fair in my opinion. I made sure I broke the real XXX one into a million pieces and threw it away miles away from our house. Good luck!!
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A
female
reader, birdynumnums +, writes (25 June 2008):
I'm with you on this, number 4, but only if you can wait until you move in.
It's fine to keep mementos and pictures of your ex, just not naked ones! She may or may not even know the contents of the CD when she was throwing stuff into a box, but I wouldn't put up with naked pictures of an ex. The fact that you have both talked about a lot of this issue is in your favor, but frankly, I wouldn't have thought to specify whether or not the pictures were naked either. You do have the right to look at things in your shared home, but even before you move in together, that level of trust should be there for both of you! So perhaps the real problem here IS the hiding and snooping and planning and writing in after freaking out over this instead of simply coming out and discussing it right now. I suspect the longer that you wait, the bigger the problem might become. The whole thing may be a non-issue if she wasn't aware that she kept it. I have a gazillion old mix cd's and they all look alike!
Good Luck with the discussion and Congratulations on moving in together.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (25 June 2008): Yikes, man. You got yourself into a real pickle.
From the sounds of it I would say that your girlfriend has either completely forgotten about these pictures or is deliberately hiding from them, with both being about equally likely from where I stand.
As you said, you've really made this worse for yourself by finding these by subterfuge, so you can't just be upfront about it with her.
I would honestly suggest you just forget about it. Unless you have a reason to think otherwise, this girl who's been honest with you up until now shouldn't have any reason to be dishonest with you about something as trivial as this. If she's respecting your wishes, she'll throw the CDs out as soon as she remembers she has them.
If she IS keeping them for some reason and is being sneaky about it...well, that's a bigger problem than your girlfriend having naked pictures of her ex.
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