“I am a newlywed thoroughly enjoying the experience of having recently married my long-term boyfriend.
I truly took my time with marriage and stayed in my committed relationship for almost seven years before I would even talk about it. One of the reasons I was so careful about moving to the next level was that my boyfriend is a widower with three small children.
I didn’t meet his kids until almost a year into our relationship. Everyone around us thought it was weird, but the pace we were going worked for us, so we didn’t allow outside opinions to influence us.
When I met my current husband, he had just recently become widowed. His wife passed away unexpectedly, leaving him to raise their three children on his own. I didn’t swoop down and step into his ex-wife’s role right away because we decided the kids needed time to adjust to her absence before we attempted to fill the void. Once we felt the time was right, I was introduced to his children, and things progressed nicely with respect to the relationship I share with them.
Four months ago, I decided to move into my husband’s home that he had shared with his previous wife so as not to uproot the kids and force too much change at one time. One thing I’m not a fan of is that it’s a home filled with memories of his deceased wife everywhere, especially pictures. She had largely decorated the house and put her stamp on it in so many ways.
Recently, I talked with my husband about how the pictures of his wife made me feel. He argued that it would hurt the kids if we told them we would take down the pictures. I retorted and said that, at least, the pictures of him and his wife only needed to come down and that family pictures could stay up. I could tell he struggled with that idea, but I felt it was a levelheaded compromise. He said he would think about it and let me know.
Should I force my husband to take down the pictures of him and his ex-wife or suck it up and let the memories linger in our home?