SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So I’ve been with my boyfriend now for 3 1/2 years, I’m 28 he’s 29. We have had many rough patches, mainly with me fighting with him over not feeling sexy enough with him and not feeling good enough (although I feel pretty confident in myself outside of the relationship ship). He had issues with intimacy... but I had no idea exactly what that meant or how to fix it so I did the logical thing (hah) I fought him. So.. just a few months ago we got engaged, and just a few weeks ago we bought a house. Two days after moving in, I caught him on the toilet at 7 am snap chatting with someone. I was just leaning in to give him a playful kiss and he yanked his phone back and said it was flipbook and got incredibly defensive when I looked at his phone. He finally handed it over and said it was just porn. I did not do any further investigating and simply gave his phone back and just completely felt empty. This wasn’t JUST porn. Snapchat is a TWO WAY STREET. He Eventually explained to me that there’s mostly just porn accounts that post pictures and videos in mass quantities to people that follow them. He said he would also ask for pictures when their stories weren’t up... I just cannot get this out of my head that he ASKED these girls for pictures. It was just looking up porn, he was asking them. We were fine the first 2 weeks and I felt forgiving and understanding and we were having a ton of sex but now, I just feel so angry again and I cannot stop thinking about the moment I caught him and the fact that he tried to defend himself and he got mad at ME for questioning him and to think he was messaging these girls asking to see what they looked like and god know what else could have happened. I just feel like I’m going crazy and like I have no control over anything in my life anymore. I’ve dealt with a pretty bad eating disorder in my past and I’m starting to feel that come about again. I think that’s why I felt better the first two weeks, because I wasn’t eating at all and lost 5 pounds, I at least felt control there. But I got comfortable again and have been eating normal and that’s when I started getting angry again. I feel myself wanting to go back I to my eating disorder to feel a sense of control. I know that’s so wrong but I feel like that’s what’s happening and I just felt like I needed to share that with someone even if no or ever reads this. I feel like everyone I talk to just says “oh whatever all guys watch porn it’s no big deal” but it IS a big deal and it has effected how I feel in this relationship and it has effected my trust in him. He created a completely separate Snapchat account to do it too! I just really thought I knew this man. And I was just completely wrong.

Hello Colorblindexcuse, and welcome.

"Just" porn would be watching with out interactions. Photos, sites where you see already loaded material and the like. This is different. This is connection. This is seeking out someone else, to have sexual moments with, together. This is reaching out for someone else, and giving them intimacy, time, and attention. In other words, betrayal, infidelity, cheating.

Heck, if it was so darned harmless, then no reason to hide it, eh? You hide what you're ashamed of. You hide cheating. You hide betrayal.

Thing is, the only thing that you do have control of, is you. You can't control him, nor any other person. You, are the only thing that you can truly control, so please don't even go into the I'm Not Good Enough, If Only I FillInTheBlank, and so forth. His cheating is 100% on him. You didn't cause it, you can't make him stop it, and you can't control his choices to cheat. You can only control you.

Please start reading The Healing Library. You can find that in the upper left corner of your Forums screen, in the yellow box. Knowledge is power, so start reading. Good information written by experienced people. Next, take care of you! With your eating disorder, you are going to have to be extra vigilant about The Infidelity Diet, where you can't keep anything down and lose drastic amounts of weight. If you can't eat, and I threw up a lot just from stress, then keep a whole nutrition drink near you and keep sipping it. That will help with the dehydration too. If you had a good IC (Individual Counselor, the abbreviations that we use are in The Healing Library) that you used previously, please contact them and schedule an appointment. I also strongly suggest that you postphone that engagement and/or wedding date. The only thing that would be worse than this betrayal would be to be in the same place in a year, five years, fifteen years, with more property and children also tossed into the equation.

IMO, you both need counseling individually. You to figure out exactly what you need, deserve, and want in a safe partner. Him to figure out why he found it OK to make the decision to seek sex outside of your partnership. He's not a safe partner for you right now, and it frankly sounds like he hasn't been a safe partner for you for a while. This is major re-evaluation time. Shut down the words that he speaks, and look only at his actions. It's his actions, or lack thereof, that will tell you who and what he truly is.

Colorblindexcuse porn kills intimacy and while he is consuming porn and you are not standing up for yourself this relationship can not grow into anything beautiful. It will end in tears if you don't ask for change. Go to the healing library and read as much as you can then work out how you want to move forward. Its not fair to you, it is betrayal, take a Zero tolerance to porn. You will survive infidelity, we all do.

My marriage ended over this behavior so I'm not about to tell you it's no big deal. In the end, validation from random strangers was more important to him than his marriage. I also developed an eating disorder that ended up landing me in the hospital. In the time I spent trying to make it work with him I realized it was because he had always been triangulating me against other women. For our entire relationship he had been telling me how hot other women were, and it was done with the intention of making me feel less than. So that I would accept less than I was worth. Please, please, you must eat. If for no other reason than your brain can not function properly without nourishment and it will make the trauma you are experiencing that much worse.

Gently, because I know it hurts. I doubt you know the extent of his behavior. Cheaters are notorious for only admitting to what you already know and this type of behavior is addictive. A Google search of his preferred screen name might give you an idea of how many sites he is doing this on.

I found out mine was doing this every day after finding him on a "dating" site called benaughty.com. TBH, I've also discovered that even if we had sex every day he'd still be looking at it every day even though he says he wouldn't. He says he wouldn't if he had pics of me (which is a lie, because he not only has pics of me, he has been taking some while I sleep without permission). Not going into full deets on your thread - but just want you to know you are NOT alone.

I thought I knew mine. You don't know this man and what else he may be doing.

Live interactions are not okay - messages or pics. You do not have to accept this kind of behavior.

Men like this need help. The only person he should be messaging that kind of stuff to is you. And he should not be receiving it from anyone else. Have you seen his message logs? Any chance he's tried to meet up with any of these women? I'd be sure to look into that - mine did.

Cheating is defined as being sexually unfaithful - which is what your fiance is doing having live interactions with these women.

I'm sorry you find yourself here. Try to focus on yourself.

I know how hard it is to even eat right now as it's all fresh for me too. Please try to take care of yourself.

If he wants to make this work with you, no TT, you need full transparency - and everything on the table.

I can't tell you where to go from here, as I'm still in the throes of my own shit storm. But I'd recommend seeking IC to get through this and read up on the 180 in the healing library and start to implement it.

I agree with the others, it is a big deal, because its interactive and not just looking at porn. Its engaging with the other person, and also, if its so innocent, why hide the phone and why get mad.