'AITA for yelling at my husband about a old box of letters and pictures?'

"AITA for yelling at my husband about a old box of letters and pictures?"

I (44F) have a box at the top of my closet full of old letters from when a good friend of mine went on a mission for 2 years, notes from friends and ex's, cards, pictures, and wedding invitations to people I forgot their names and movie ticket stubs etc from middle school, high school and college and shortly after.

Some are happy memories some are not as happy, but memories none the less. I haven't even gone through through this box in probably 20 years it just lives in my closet and in all my moves over the last 25+ years it just comes along.

There is nothing to hide in it, just old memories and dumb crap that middle /high school kids write each other and letters that a missionary sent his friend for 2 years. Yesterday I came home to find my husband going through it and reading everything. At first I laughed and said "find anything interesting?"

Then I noticed he made a mess of it (it is organized by person and middle, high-school and college etc) everything was all mixed up, letters weren't put back in envelopes, etc. I got pissed and told him not to touch my stuff if he was going to just make a mess of it.

He said he just wanted to see what was so important that I kept for over 25 years, and he was going to put it away. So I asked him if he knew what envelope belonged to each letter and what ticket and picture belonged to who?

He got mad and told me it didn't really matter. I told him to get out of my face and let me put it back together. Now he is pissed off because "it's just old letters and pictures." AITA for yelling at my husband for making a mess of a box of old letters and pictures? He thinks I am.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

gingasmurf said:

NTA it’s your memory box. Fiancé asked to look at mine years ago and now actively keeps gig tickets, wristbands etc. and adds to it so it’s kind of our shared memory box now, he never would have disrespected me by just going through it without me.

welovegv said:

My wife collected all of this stuff for me when I moved out of college and from my old bedroom at my parents house. Didn’t even know I had a box until I stumbled on it a couple of decades later. My wife collected all kinds of stuff of mine that I forgot about. Even random pictures of me with other girls. She just saw it as part of my past before her. You are NTA.

javlafan2 said:

Not at all, his careless handling of your documented memories is insulting, it's as if your life has no meaning.

Max_at_Red said:

NTA. Why didn't he ask you to show him the box? He was being nosey, and now he messed up your memories and should at the very least apologize.

throwingwater14 said:

NTA but I would look into scanning/taking pics of anything you can as a digital back up. I know reading a letter on the computer screen isn’t the same as holding the page in your hand, but if there is a fire or hubs decided to trash the box, you lose it all irrevocably.

FrancinetheP said:

Historian here! When a famous person gives their personal papers to a library it is a “best practice” to preserve them as closely as possible in the organization that the person originally used— bc the way people organize documents tells you something about their values and priorities.

Your husband didn’t know about this, which is not surprising, but he also didn’t think to care about it, which is really rude. I imagine he felt embarrassed being. Aight going through your private things, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse. NTA: He owes you at least two apologies.