My fellow married old farts: Do you love to look at pictures of your spouse when he/she was young?

[NNadir]

My wife was 22 when I married her, just turning 21 when we moved in together.

I love her very much decades later, in ways that matter far more than when it a big part of my love for her was involved with the fact that she was incredibly sexy, but I still find myself looking at her when she was young, when that odd thing was so important.

I don't know what I'm trying to see in those pictures. What am I trying to see, what is the yearning? In a way, it almost feels perverse.

Of course, no real disrespect, but now 21 year old people seem so much like kids - smart kids to be sure, kids perhaps wiser than I was at 21, better kids than I was at 21 to be sure, fine kids - but they're still just kids.

It is strange, though, because it occurs to me that as I have always seen my wife as a full woman, when I was just living with her, when we first married, but was she just a kid? Am I really looking at a full grown woman when I look at those pictures? Was there something of "just a girl" there?

There are many things that are wonderful about growing old, powerful perceptions, but many things that seem more mysterious than ever and in some sense disturbing: The challenge of the veracity of memory is one of them.

I took a day off from work, and spent it with her, walking around downtown Princeton, masks off for lunch on a sidewalk, and suddenly I'm struck by a kind of wonder...how I wonder...how did the time go away?

[Karadeniz]

1. Who said, Youth is wasted on the young. I wish I'd known then what I've since learned!

[cayugafalls]

2. No need to look at pictures, when I see my wife, I see the love I married.

Nice op though, it truly shows your love.

Just speaking with my wife and having some time together at dinner is always a joy. Little things...

[LizBeth]

3. It is taking you to a fun exciting happy time. Pictures are wonderful there is so much in the story.

You look at the pictures you cannot help going back to that time in your youth too.

[rickford66]

4. My wife of 46 years is gone.

But I have photos of her on display from before I met her. I wish I knew her earlier.

[NNadir]

11. Deepest sincere condolences. I can only imagine your grief.

The most selfish thing in my marriage, I think, is that I want to die before she does.

[rickford66]

12. I figured to go first also.

It didn't work out that way. My wife once got irritated when I was looking at a photo of her when she was maybe 17 or 18. She of course wasn't the same person, but I loved both of them.

[NNadir]

13. I know exactly what you mean. It sounds as if you loved her a great deal...

...and I'm sure it gives you peace to understand how love changes as it grows.

It will always be with you, I'm sure, that love, I sense.

It irritates my wife too, when she catches me looking at pictures of her as a girl or young woman.

It annoyed her to no end that men hit on her because of the way she looked; frankly I was no exception when I first met her, but after she flipped me off - which she did very deftly by telling me all about her boyfriend at the time - I, unlike many others, did not become resentful or offended. Because she was so nice, so sweet, so smart, I was satisfied to be "just a friend," as most flip offs go.

(I was somewhat older than most of her pursuers - although there were older men hitting on her as well - but in general a little bit more mature. Of course, when I remember her at that time, like I said, she struck me as very mature, but now that I'm around people in their early and mid 20's through my sons, I kind of wonder. This isn't to say that these young people are not highly intelligent, ethical, and hardworking. It is only to say that they lack a depth of vision, perhaps a depth of vision that you apparently share; knowing what love really is.)

We were friends for quite some time before we became lovers. After more than 30 years though, she is still suspicious of my intentions at the time, and doesn't want to think it was about looks. It wasn't, but on the other hand, it certainly didn't bother me that she was physically attractive. It was just a bonus.

[rickford66]

14. Ditto

[yankeepants]

5. I look at my husband of thirty years and still see

the man I fell in love with at first sight.

[Earthshine2]

6. If I were to psychoanalyze this based solely on the info here ...

it's not about her. It's about you.

You yearn to feel young again. By looking at those pics, it reminds you of how it felt to be young and in love.

[Croney]

7. When it's dark, and we're in bed, we're still that young couple holding each other.

Decades have passed, but we forget.

[GETPLANING]

8. I am lucky

My wife was very attractive at 30, she still turns heads at 65. We have our wedding photo on a shelf in the hallway. I tell people, "That's my wife with her first husband."
"Oh, really," they say, "he was really handsome, you're pretty cool to let her keep that photo around."
After a pause, laughter. Yes, I'm pretty lucky.

[smirkymonkey]

9. +1000

Lovely thoughts.

[Kaleva]

10. The opposite. Wife and I enjoy growing old together and look forward to what the future may bring