Dear Annie: I was married for 19 years, and we had three children together. Our divorce was nearly 40 years ago. One of the lingering issues from that time was the ownership of our many travel slides, which documented years of family trips abroad. The court divided them roughly in half.
Years later, I paid to have my share of the slides digitized and gave my ex-husband online access so he could select any he wanted. Over the past decade, I’ve repeatedly asked to borrow his slides so I can copy them, too — especially since some contain precious photos of my late family members. I even offered to cover all expenses and suggested he keep full control of the process so he wouldn’t have to worry about me keeping them.
Despite all that, he refuses to cooperate or even explain why. We haven’t spoken in years. He’s now 83 and still married to the woman whose affair ended our marriage decades ago. I can’t understand this level of hostility after so much time has passed. Why would he continue to deny me access to something so sentimental — and what, if anything, can I do about it? — Frozen in Time
Dear Frozen: After all these years, this isn’t really about slides. It’s about control and old resentment that never got resolved. Your ex-husband’s refusal to share something so sentimental says more about his bitterness than anything you’ve done.
You’ve been generous and patient. You offered to pay, to copy the slides, even to let him oversee the process. You have shown kindness and reason, and he has chosen stubbornness and silence. That’s not yours to fix.
At some point, peace matters more than fairness. You’ve already preserved what you could and carried the memories that truly count. Let this be one more reminder that closure doesn’t always come through cooperation. Sometimes it comes when you stop asking and start accepting.
Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com.
