u/bleblon_

I’m a 23F in a relationship with a 24M. We’ve been together for two years and we live together.

In the beginning of our relationship I asked him if he ever watched porn, and he said yes. I thought about it, and I realized it made me really uncomfortable, and we talked about it. I told him that he should just tell me if he still wanted to watch it, and we could find a solution together, but he insisted that he could easily just stop and it wasn’t a big deal.

Then recently I found out that he’s been watching it ever since, and that he never stopped when he said he would. I even asked him multiple times about it, and he lied to my face every time. I even told him it’s fine if he had changed his mind, but I just wanted to know. He still lied.

We’ve talked about it a couple times now, and he knows that lying about it was even worse than actually doing it, and I really hope that we can have open conversations about it from now on. But he still says that he wants to stop watching it.

The problem is, I just can’t get him to explain why he’s watching it. Like, he even told me he sometimes imagines himself with those girls, doing things to them and fucking them. I told him I feel like he masturbates to the thought of cheating on me with those girls, and he just said “technically yes”. It honestly makes me feel physically sick.
He assured me that it had nothing to do with him wanting to actually cheat or to do with me or my looks or what I do and don’t do in bed.

But can someone who watches or has watched porn while in a relationship tell me why you actually do it?

And does it actually have anything to do with your partner or wanting to cheat?

And do you guys think he’s telling the truth when he says he’ll really stop this time? And why did he even lie in the first place?

I really hope someone can help me understand this a bit better, because I cant get the image and thought of it out of my head. I feel like I’m not good enough for him and that I did something wrong or that I’m not attractive enough, and I’m so scared that he compares me to them and wants to cheat on me.

And I want to make it clear, that I have absolutely no problem with him masturbating, it’s the porn that makes me feel like shit.

TL;DR - My boyfriend has been lying about watching porn after I told him it makes me uncomfortable and he said he would stop. Now I’m wondering why he did it, and if it had anything to do with my or my looks, or maybe even him wanting to cheat on me.

Hi, I’m 23F and AuDHD. I’ve been with my boyfriend (24M) for a little over two years now. We have a good relationship and he’s one of my best friends.

However, this morning I found a phone number in his phone with a message that just said “hello”. He hadn’t answered the message, but it also seemed like a message that was just sent to save a number from someone. I looked it up and it was a girl. I figured out that the message was sent at 2am when he had been at a bachelor party and a bar a week ago. (I am well aware that I shouldn’t have been snooping in his phone btw, but I have really bad trust issues, that I’m working on)
I asked him if he gave his number to a girl that night at the bar, and he said “I don’t think so”. I showed him the message and he seemed confused and still couldn’t tell me who it was. We looked up her name and he still couldn’t say anything about it. He says he doesn’t remember talking to her or seeing her there or anything. So he can’t give me any answers.

I’ve been thinking about literally nothing else the entire day and I feel like it’s killing me. I can physically feel the pain and stress from it. My heart has been pounding so much and my stomach has been hurting, I almost haven’t eaten today. It feels so terrible that he can’t answer anything about it, and I don’t know what to do and how to accept it. It’s like this every time we have a problem, it takes me so long to “get over it”. But this time is especially hard because I can’t get an answer from him, so I feel like I’m just stuck and I have to accept that I’m not gonna sleep tonight and I’m not gonna feel well tomorrow either.

I told him this and I asked him to please think about it some more or find a way to give me an answer about who she is and why he gave her his number and so on. Because I really can’t take this, it’s too much and my brain is making so much “noise” and I cant stop thinking about it. I feel like screaming at him until he tells me something, but maybe he just doesn’t remember, and also I don’t want to be like that, but I’m just so frustrated.

If anyone has had the same experience with emotions being too much and difficult to regulate in situations like this, and has any advice for me, I would appreciate it a lot.
I really hope someone knows what I’m talking about and that I don’t seem too crazy and insecure (I know I am though). But I just can’t take feeling like this and not knowing how to react or calm down, because I can’t get any information from him.
I hope it all makes sense, and that it’s okay and makes sense that I’m posting here:)

My boyfriend and I have been together for 2,5 years and we live together.

We have a good relationship, and he’s my best friend. Of course there’s been ups and downs, but we’ve been in couples therapy lately (mostly due to me feeling alone in our relationship and us having a hard time understanding each other) and everything is definitely a lot better now.

There’s just something I’ve been wondering:

It feels a bit like he doesn’t really want to make small sacrifices for me just to make me happy, and I have a hard time understanding why.

Like for example I’ve asked him a couple of times to get matching pyjamas with me, because I just thought I’d be fun. His answer is always “I don’t really wear pyjamas” and when I ask him if he will wear it for me, because it’ll make me happy, he says it feels like a waste of money (even though I offer to pay) or too cringey.

Another example is he won’t hold my purse for me, even when I just need to zip up my jacket or tie my shoes. And if I put it on a table in public, he wants me to put it right in front of me, so it doesn’t look like it’s his.

One more example could be that he always complains when he has to go with me to visit my grandma (who’s really sick). I understand he doesn’t know her that well and that it might be awkward, I usually try to go alone, but sometimes I need to help her with something, and it doesn’t work if he doesn’t come along if we’re doing something after for example. I don’t get why it’s so bad, we’re usually just there an hour or two, and he comes with like once every other month. But he still always says it took too long or that it was awkward or something, even though he knows she could die anytime and I really appreciate when I get to see her.

One last example is when I suggest things we could do, he’s sometimes pretty quick to say no. Like for example I suggested a museum I really wanted to go see, and he kept saying he didn’t like museums, even though he’d never been there. I kept begging him to go with me, because I really wanted to go, and he ended up saying yes, but he didn’t even try to enjoy it while we were there and he said it was boring.

I have more examples than this, where we’ve been in similar situations and I’ve been really disappointed.

I get really confused about this, because I play computer games he likes and watch the movies he chooses and so on, only because I know it makes him happy, and therefore it makes me happy (even though I don’t like computer games and action movies).

Maybe I’m just focusing too much on the negatives, but I just think it’s weird and it’s starting to get to me.

I just wanted to hear your thoughts and maybe a bit about how you experience/have experienced your partner making sacrifices for you and so on, because I don’t know if it’s normal for it to be like this.

Thank you in advance!

TLDR: My boyfriend won’t make small sacrifices just to make me happy, such as holding my purse for me and it’s making me confused.