Far be it from me to get in the middle of a spousal spat, but please don't delete your photos. BB will, as you said, also delete them, and then (as you know) that means you don't have a backup. You need a backup.
Do you have Amazon Prime? You have free .jpg storage using their Amazon Prime Photos, so you could at least get photos uploaded there. Having said that, what about emailing your FAVORITES to yourself, or uploading to Google Photos, if you have a google account (I think there's a 16MB limit on file size, but you can double-check all of that).
How many GB or TB of photos do you have? Is an inexpensive flash drive enough to at least tide you over until you can get another EHD? This pandemic has hit everyone in so many different ways, but it hurts my heart to think that someone may lose their photos--a way to remember their lives--so if you don't mind, I saw a Western Digital
2TB EHD for $60. Could that tide you over? Or do you have an iPad or old phone that you could transger them to? I'm grasping at straws, but it can be so difficult to have to choose what to delete.