My boyfriend avoids every photo of us, and now three years of our relationship barely exist in pictures

My boyfriend hates being photographed. He does not post selfies, avoids group pictures and turns his head when someone raises a phone.

I knew this when we started dating. I did not think it would matter as much as it does.

We have been together for three years. I have hundreds of photos from that time: meals, beaches, birthday cakes, hotel windows and his hand holding a coffee. In most of them, he is just outside the frame.

At my sister’s wedding last month, the photographer asked couples to stand together. My boyfriend stepped away and offered to hold everyone’s bags. I asked him quietly to take one picture with me. He said, ‘Please don’t make this a thing here.’

So I smiled alone.

When the wedding photos arrived, I cried. It looked as if I had attended without him even though he had spent the whole weekend beside me.

He says he is not hiding our relationship. His family and friends know me, and he is affectionate in public. He simply dislikes his face and body in pictures. Seeing a bad image can ruin his mood for hours, and knowing a photo exists makes him feel exposed.

I believe him. I also do not want to make his insecurity into a project I supervise.

But the complete absence is becoming its own kind of pain. When our dog died, I realized the only picture of the three of us included half of his shoulder. On trips, strangers offer to photograph us and he automatically says no before I can answer.

I suggested taking private photos that never go online. He said privacy does not change how he feels when he sees himself. I offered to let him choose which ones we keep. He said posing would still make the whole day revolve around whether he looked acceptable.

He thinks I value proof over experience. I think photographs are part of how I keep experience. I do not need a public relationship album. I want a few ordinary images that show we stood in the same years together.

Last week, I asked whether he could agree to four photos a year: birthdays, one trip and one ordinary day. He said a quota made his body sound like a relationship obligation.

I do not want access to his image without consent. I also do not know whether I can stop grieving the blank spaces.

Is there a fair compromise when one partner experiences photographs as distress and the other experiences their absence as loss? How do I express that this matters without turning every milestone into pressure he has to endure?