Partner (37m) deleted all of my (35f) mostly explicit hidden photos months ago and didn’t tell me.
Using a throwaway to avoid my main. So I (35f) just found out that my partner (37m) deleted my entire hidden photos album in my iPhone 8 months ago without telling me. This all came out tonight while we were laughing at old pictures of my kids from when they were younger. In good spirits, he told me to access the hidden folder to see if anything was in there.
Backstory: Last late June/early July, he went through my phone because we have an open phone policy and generally I do not care what he sees or does not see. He feels the same way. We’re adults, it’s worked out fine for us until this issue. He accessed my hidden album while I was sleeping and went through the pics and freaked out. For context, over the last decade+ I hide photos, some randoms of me and friends where we are totally ugly, tons of nudes of myself, X rated photos and videos of ex relationships and whatever else I randomly decide either I don’t want to look at in my main camera roll in the moment or photos I don’t want my kids to see if they are looking. It’s all a big dump of shit based on how I was feeling.
I never hid this from him, was ashamed about it, etc. Told him the same thing. Said it was just a big dump. He was extremely upset and expressed that it was not ok I was keeping photos of ex’s and nudes and who knows what I was doing with them. He questioned why I would still have them, then demanded I delete them all immediately. Okay, understandable. I told him I never access that album hardly ever, apologized for what he saw, and said since the file was so large I would eventually get around to combing through them and delete the ones of my exs. I also explained that I like to keep nudes of me because I definitely want to look back at my body through the years especially as an old lady because we only live once and I want to be reminded I was hot!! He told me to do it asap. I said no, I just needed some time because it would take forever and it really was not that important at the moment. I was busy unpacking because I had just moved in with him, was working a full time job and frankly thought he trusted me enough to do this on my own time.
Back to today. It really slipped my mind for ages. I don’t go into that album ever and it faded off the things to do. Once I realized they were all gone, I got overwhelmed, started tearing up and excused myself to the bathroom to collect myself before we talked. I told him I felt he violated my autonomy and now all of those photos I really wanted to keep were gone forever. I don’t give a flying F about the photos of my exs, I care about the silent roll I’ve had over the years and all the things I don’t have anymore aside from them. He says that he has no shame doing what he did, he doesn’t feel bad and he gave me more than enough time to do so. In reality, it was maybe a few weeks from when this was discussed initially in late June/July to when he said he deleted them in Aug. And I just found out. I feel deceived, I told him he had no right to do that and don’t know how to resolve this or help him understand. He is stuck on this train of thought that I’m really upset about losing the dicks in my phone. Even going as far as saying that my reactions are affirming his assumption that I am attached to my exs and he took away material I masturbate to, even going as far as mocking me when I respond that it’s not true. He also told me to message my best friend about the situation and ask her what she thought because she would tell me I’m wrong. I don’t want to bother her, so I came here instead. I think he did this because he has some insecurity and is obviously struggling. I got heated, told him I would remember this and one day when a situation would arise I would get him back. Not the best choice of words, but here we are. I’m pissed. He should have trusted me that this doesn’t matter and to let me do it on my own time. I never argued that I needed to keep the ones of my exs. I’m sad about everything else I lost.
Am I missing something? How do I navigate moving forward from this? He’s currently sleeping on the couch.