(this is my first reddit post i hope im doing this right lmao)
So basically me and my boyfriend have been together since January last year (1y 3m now).
Everything had been fine, he was not lustful and always stayed loyal and respectful towards me at all times.
Come October last year, I caught a glimpse of his Instagram recent searches and seen a girl (Lisa) at the top (they were mutuals at the time) I asked him about it, but took note of the name, he swore he was only looking at her account because he wanted to re-watch a funny story she had posted poking fun about one of his friends new tattoos. I find out that Lisa is best friends with the girl he had most recently slept with before we got together.
I tell him this and we text all day and he swears he is being 100% honest about the tattoo story. After a few hours of me saying I didn’t believe him, he comes clean and says he “doesn’t remember” why he looked her up.
I was very upset and broke up with him for lying to me for hours. After about a week we got back together because I chose to see the best in him and move forward because this is both of our first adult relationships.
Now today, I was on his TikTok and seen a girl come up so I looked through his watch history and found him watching 2 separate girls thirst trap-esque videos. One account was a girl he used to be friends with in his childhood town, the other a random girl. When confronted, his initial reaction was to lie and repeat that he wasn’t looking at anyone. Then, said he “wasn’t thinking” and wanted to see how the childhood friend was doing and they meant nothing to him.
Btw his reasoning for lying to me is “wanting to protect my feelings”.
Basically I’m wondering if this is just something I should accept men will do in relationships or if its a waaay bigger red flag that will just snowball as we go on.
Thanks!