My (F18) boyfriend (M19) was addicted to porn over lockdown. I had no idea of this until I had broken up with him in April. I broke up with him because I felt as though he was being very inconsistent with me; from being really loving and attentive one week to being really distant, and acting as if he didn’t really care about me the next week. Lockdown had made it harder as well because we couldn’t spend as much time together in person. However, he made no effort to plan to go for a walk to see me (we don’t live far from one another) and was inconsistent with calls/texts even though he was at home all day.
A week after I had broken up with him we met up and he confessed his porn addiction to me. I didn’t really think much of it at first because I thought it was normal for guys (and girls too) to watch porn quite regularly and I didn’t quite realise the impacts of excessive porn use like feeling depressed, wanting to isolate yourself etc. Before I found this out I didn’t mind him watching it as I just saw it as something for pleasure and I watched it myself sometimes. We talked for a while, he said he would stop watching porn and I decided to give him one more chance.
Now he treats me so much better and is very romantic/loving and I genuinely believe he doesn’t watch porn very much all. I’m not the controlling, ‘crazy’ type of girlfriend but recently I saw that he has Reddit on his iPad (I was gonna watch Netflix on it but stumbled across it), I didn’t know he used it and stupidly I looked at his saved stuff and history. I feel really guilty for looking because it’s his private stuff I’m not sure why I did it. Anyway I found loads of photos/short videos of naked women in his history from 5 months ago (around the time before we broke up). There were a few photos of women in his saved. I felt quite betrayed and upset.
Maybe I was naive to think that he wouldn’t just watch porn videos of people having sex but look at photos of naked girls as well. But I find it quite disrespectful and I wish I didn’t feel the way I do because it hurts so much.
I confronted him about the stuff on his Reddit and I explained how him viewing photos of loads of different girls to get off makes me feel inferior and like I’m not enough. I explained that I’m okay with him watching porn now and then but I find it disrespectful for him to be looking at photos of just women because it hurts me thinking he is getting off to another person, not at the act of sex.
He said he saw all porn the same and reassured that it was nothing personal against me, it was just something he used to get rid of an erection. He said he would never do something that I find so disrespectful again as well. He even said that he has no desire to watch porn because of all the negativity it has brought in his life and in our relationship.
I just get stuck thinking that he used to look at lots of naked girls because I wasn’t enough and because he treated me differently because of his addiction, if he hadn’t have become addicted to porn I think I would feel less insecure about myself. I just want to let this go because he’s not like that anymore and he treats me like a queen. Has anyone else experienced something similar? And how do I rebuild my self esteem?
Tdlr: My boyfriends past porn addiction still has an effect on my self esteem, he used to look at a lot of naked women and treated me poorly when he was addicted which makes me insecure. Wanting advice on how to rebuild self esteem and let this go
Submitted August 19, 2021 at 12:30PM by ljb17 https://ift.tt/3y7FL7w
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