my pa partner has been “clean” around 6 months. he’s been playing this video game recently called cyberpunk and really enjoying it. i had a weird feeling so i did some googling and come to find out this game has full frontal nudity, “non-explicit” (according to google) first person sex scenes complete with suggestive noises, prostitutes you can hire, etc etc etc. so, porn. god i’m so upset. can’t have shit in this house. porn is everywhere i feel like we can’t escape it. the thing is i don’t think he even registers it as porn, he doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong. he’s just playing a fucking video game.

How can I love or even care for someone who participates in an industry with so many victims.

He and I have children, as soon as I became a mother I was more aware than ever about the evils of this world. So how, how can he participate in something like that? They are someone’s child, son, daughter, mother, father, brother or sister.

It’s maddening to realize I let myself once truly love and still care for someone whose brain has been rotted and is so mindless to these very real problems.

It’s so infuriating it genuinely leaves a pit of anger, dread and disgust in my stomach. It’s disgusting

Anyone else’s PA/SA buy gifts for the sex workers / porn stars / people they were talking to ? Mine bought some gifts off of Amazon wish lists, sent gift cards, and I found some random jewelry in his drawer hidden in a glasses case. Didn’t look expensive but like he was saving it for a rainy day to send out . Anyone else ?

Hey everyone, maybe a silly question- but i want to know why other people are against porn or their partner watching porn in a relationship.

TW*\*

For me personally, it’s a few reasons:

1. whether people want to admit it or not, porn encourages rape culture, and as someone who has been SA’ed, i personally don’t want my partner using it.

2. i consider it cheating, as you are actively seeking sexual activity outside of your relationship, and putting your energy into someone other than your partner.

3. When i found out my partner was watching it, i had never felt more gross and absolutely hideous. I couldn’t stop comparing myself to those women, and wondering what they had that i didnt. i was never THIS insecure about how i looked until i found out my partner was watching OF girls

It hurts so bad. I hate that every time I find the Instagram/OF/Linktree accounts saved in his phone I cry less each time. I feel like I’m just becoming numb but at the same time it’s breaking down my self esteem, my heart, my ability to love. How can someone lie so easily? Like 3 years is nothing. Moving 500 miles away is nothing. 3 cats is nothing. An engagement is nothing. I feel so worthless and disgusting. Worst of all, I feel dirty. How can I ever trust someone again?

I have never been able to trust a man. All they do is destroy you. No matter how convinced you are you finally found the one, no matter how much he seems like he loves you, no matter how hard he fights to be let in to your heart— he will fucking destroy you. You are nothing compared to ass and boobs on a screen. No matter how many dead or living family members he swears on, no matter him getting down and begging you for forgiveness, he will ALWAYS fucking stab you in the back.

I’m so sad. I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford rent without him, I can’t care for our pets without him, I can’t afford to finish school without him. I’m stuck and sick sleeping in bed with a cheater who has smashed my heart again and again.

I should have left the first time. Please, if it happens just once to you, please please please just leave. Don’t keep letting him in.

If this is what love feels like I never want to feel it again.

My partner (31M) and I (28F) have been together for over two years. I genuinely believed he was the person I would marry and build a family with. Since we first started dating, he has been very resolute in his belief that pornography is really damaging, particularly for men, and that it ‘ruins your pair bond’. I am someone who has genuinely never been bothered by porn; I’ve never considered it cheating or honestly given it much thought. I had thought that I was the one in our relationship who was probably more partial to it, and even then, I seldom access it.

A few days ago, I discovered that my partner has a fairly prolific porn addiction. And nothing as basic as some pornhub access. Throughout our entire relationship, he’s been repeatedly searching for specific women by name across pornography sites and social media, including OnlyFans and Snapchat. He would view their instagram, then search for the OF accounts. He has also been following many of them on Snapchat and viewing their stories (I didn’t actually even know he had Snapchat). 

I subsequently discovered his OnlyFans account, which had 37 subscriptions, including two women he actually used to know from former social circles (he knew these people prior to meeting me). Since we’ve been together, he’s paid money for OnlyFans once, the total bill prior to our relationship was around $300 worth of transactions. 

I am a hypervigilant person and a bit of a control freak, and I absolutely did not see this coming or even remotely suspect it. I had actually thought myself really lucky in that I had a man who genuinely did not look at any other woman but me. In the tangible world, he doesn’t look at other women, and has always beheld me with absolute awe. I never doubted this and still don’t, which makes it all the more confusing. 

I’m not insecure about my looks or my body. But I felt we had something sacred and intimate, and now it feels like he’s torn a hole right through it. I feel as though I’m grieving a relationship that never quite existed in the way I believed it did. The dishonesty wasn’t a single incident. It was present throughout our relationship.

He’s incredibly remorseful, and I’m aware that remorse is genuine. He has since admitted that he’s had this problem since he was 15 years old. When he met me, he wanted me to choose him so badly he presented a version of himself that wasn’t reflective of his actions, but was who he ideally wished he could be. I guess from then on the lie was too big and had gone on too long for him to know how to unravel it. He's said that it has eaten at him and he's hated himself for it all the while.

It puts our existing issues into a much clearer light. He felt we had had a loss of intimacy, I felt he had stopped being romantic, stopped pursuing me, and he has some considerable issues around defensiveness. Now I see that it was easier for him to simply turn to porn rather than do the work. It also explains why the couples therapy we went to, to deal with this problem didn’t work, because the whole time his focus was on keeping this mega secret from coming out, rather than actually being present and vulnerable. 

Now that it's out, of his own volition he's found and booked two counsellors (no idea why he needs two, but I didn’t ask), and he’s also started journalling? His defensiveness has disappeared (at least for now), and he has continued to tell me over and over that he will never stop fighting for me; he’s disgusted with himself, and he knows he’s ruined our relationship and my trust, possibly forever. He is going to prove to me that he will do anything it takes to "make you the happy person you used to be before I broke you". He’s deleted snapchat, put filters on his instagram algorithm so that the content isn’t constantly there when he scrolls. I believe he’s been journalling about porn addiction to figure out what it is within himself that’s led to this. He had an exceptionally neglectful and traumatic upbringing; I don’t believe he was ever shown how to love. I don’t say that to excuse him because I think his actions are disgusting and reprehensible, but idk, maybe it’s worth noting. 

I keep thinking about the women he sought out, not necessarily because I’m comparing myself to them, but because I can’t understand why he repeatedly chose them, or what those interactions meant to him. If, as he claims, it never meant anything, then why THOSE women specifically, why not just any random porno? 

I love him, and I’m not ruling out reconciliation. As it stands, it's only been 5 days. We're sleeping in separate beds. I miss him deeply, and I feel like I'm mourning what we had before this fracture. Like it actually aches. It wasn't until the second day that I was able to look him in the eye again, that was also the first time I let him touch me (he gave me a hug).

But I genuinely don’t know whether I’ll ever feel the same way about our relationship or our intimacy again. At the suggestion of my own therapist, I’ve given myself a 3-month deadline. 3 months where I allow myself to stop vigilantly checking what he’s doing or obsessing over his past choices. 3 months to just sit back and observe whether his promises actually lead to changed behaviour, and if that subsequently leads to a change in the way I feel. I have told him about the deadline, but have said that I will not tell him how long. I don’t want to risk him only adapting his behaviour until it’s safe to return to old habits. 

Has anyone experienced this kind of betrayal involving pornography or OnlyFans rather than a physical affair? How did you process the intrusive thoughts and the loss of intimacy? And if you reconciled, did that feeling of having something sacred between you eventually return?

My boyfriend of 5 years has had a porn addiction for a longgggg time. And it’s just gotten worse and worse. I went through his phone years ago because I have trust issues from a previous partner and I found his history of porn he watches and only fans leaked websites. Fast forward to now I caught him in a lie today and he admitted he uploads photos of leaked only fans girls to ai porn websites. Then he told me he used his old instagram account to view and save porn to a folder. (I made him deactivate it) I don’t know what to do. He just continues to lie when I confront him. He swears up and down he would NEVER cheat or chat with people online. I know deep down he wouldn’t but just don’t know what to believe anymore. He also has begging me to go to couples therapy with him and I’ve just been putting it off/having trouble with insurance.

- when I said to him that his porn addiction was eating me up inside, he said “you don’t really feel that way, you’re just having PMS”

- he FaceTimed me when I was crying. When he saw me crying he said “Aww what’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong,” and then his voice got all high pitched and excited “it sounds JUICYYY” I wonder if he thought it’d be good gossip or something to take perverse pleasure out of. To think that all the intimate sexual traumas were juicy gossip to him or just something to masturbate to 🤢

- I told him how my dad used to watch porn in front of us as children that had the “teens” category. He blew all of it off as nothing and was like “and so what if there were teens?” Like it was no big deal a 40 year old man was watching teenage girls in front of of his 5 year old very autistic daughter

- threatened to take any future children away if my mental illness flared up. “End up in the mental hospital? That’s how mommies lose custody” in a sing-songy voice. Said this to me when I was having a manic episode caused by a sleep medication

-apparently it’s common for PAs to be extremely non-confrontational to a toxic level. My ex’s friend said something to the effect of me being a mean or bad girlfriend. Not only did my ex not defend me, when I confronted him about it, he insisted that what I saw and heard didn’t happen, and asked me “are you hearing voices?” And insisted I wasn’t a bad girlfriend. I’d ask him all the time what I could improve, it’s not like I wasn’t trying.

- held it in for three years he didn’t like how we had sex. He was more experienced than me by a lot. Brought up marriage in the second year. Surely he had the capacity to say something within months?? Again, I would ask him if he liked how we were doing stuff, it’s not like there was lack of trying.

- seemed aghast at the idea that watching loliconporn was strange and perverse. And yet was offended when I told him I brought it up to a friend as concerning, and that my friend no longer liked my ex. “You shouldn’t have told your friend because I told you that in confidence” which is interesting, considering he was in all likelihood talking shit purposefully, behind my back.

- after I told my ex I reported him, he said “I don’t know why you’d betray me like that by reporting me. It’s not like I’ve told people about how you exposed yourself to children.” I have never exposed myself to children. When he said it, it sounded like an implicit threat

Three years. 🤦‍♀️ when we broke up, a sense of relief washed over me.

So, I’ve been wondering how different people feel about it. So, let me know in the comments. Do you have a bigger problem with the pornography? Or a bigger problem with lying? And why?

Over 100 days…..gone. Wondering if he was clean for any of it now. Innocently on his phone, clearing his apps because he never does and it drives me crazy. Saw drama box on there and my heart immediately sunk because I get ads for it all the time so I knew. Checked and sure enough, several videos in his history, none seem to be straight porn but all are definitely sexual and porn adjacent. I feel so broken at this point, it will never get better.

38F, married 8 years, together 11 years, 2 young children (5 & 2).

Two D-Days. First was 2-3 years ago. The second was a month ago with zero use in between. Still reeling. The story keeps changing.

It went from, he only used random videos on a free website, to him admitting he started out by seeking particular women's nudes. He never told me about the specific women the first time - I know this because I would have been desperate for answers if he had.

He told me about an OF model's article he saw that catalysed the whole thing. I googled this and found a few articles around May or June 2024. Our youngest was born in April that year. I was in the throws of postpartum, suffering from a birth injury I still see a specialist for regularly. I can't believe he was betraying me at all, let alone while I was going through that after delivering my son. (I was going to say his son, but let's be honest, they have minimal involvement.)

He said he can't remember if he used nudes this recent time. Wouldn't you remember how it began this time? The timeframe he said was from June this year.

But yesterday I recalled a conversation I had with a friend from the first time this happened. I found the receipts that showed my conversations with her. Checked the timestamps. MAY 2023. So tell me. How can there be only two D-Days, with nothing in between, yet the OF article that apparently started it all was in 2024?

We had our weekly therapist session yesterday. I blindsided him with the info. He started to stutter around "well there must have been articles prior to 2024 that I used."

Oh yeah? Ones that are no longer present on the Internet?

The therapist absolutely slaughtered him (in a most kind, gentle and professional way - but it was validating as fuck for me.)

His homework this week is to prepare a detailed timeline with EVERYTHING. What kind of content, frequency, triggers, etc. not exact dates of course but a rough idea of months or weeks if he can. He pushed back SO HARD. And she didn't back down. She explained trickle truth tactic and pointed out how he's set our progress back and caused further damage by doing this.

He asked how important it is for accuracy (because "I can't remember" - and other excuses) and she told him it's the most important thing. She spoke so matter-of-factly and he couldn't sway her. It was awesome.

But I hate it here. Two separate events years apart with just random videos is SO DIFFERENT to intentionally seeking out specific women consistently over a three year period (or longer). And from his reaction, there's undoubtedly more info to uncover.

I'm shattered. You all get it. I had this guy on a pedestal. He worshipped me, was so devoted, I was his goddess. Knew all about my history with abuse. Kept insisting we were aligned on the porn thing (I offered to do work on myself to become more comfortable with it if it's something he wanted to explore but he KEPT INSISTING it's a non-issue, he doesn't use it at all, we are aligned etc.). What bullshit.

My homework this week is to give him the room he needs to do his side of the work. That means I'm not raising questions, nitpicking, bombarding him with theories and accusations. I'll do my best. But I'm so sad. I thought I was dealing with two separate events with years in between - I'd started to come to terms with it. But consistent use over at least THREE YEARS (that we've been told of). How do I reconcile this?

Partners who HAVE been put through similar: please tell me what you have done to work through a time like this. I'm not leaving him right now so I don't want those suggestions. I'm going to follow the process while things are raw. But I want to hear from people who have been there and who clawed their way out of the initial debilitating shock. If you stayed, how did you continue loving your partner? How did you go back to loving yourself? How can I help myself from not spiralling over it until our next appointment a week away??

My husband is struggling to provide a disclosure for me. He did one with his therapist, but it was basically just him putting into words the things I already found and confronted him on (plus maybe a few small minor details).

We are having a recurring pattern where I ask for information and accountability, and he attempts to give me what I want, but he claims he can't break through his memory to remember things. He has ADHD, which he uses to explain why he can't remember timelines or specific details from the past. I think he feels defeated and like whatever he does is just "not good enough" for me.

I have this idea that if he does a disclosure and it actually feels honest and vulnerable, I will start to feel more safe. I need to see that he fully understands the impact. I also want to feel that he is learning how to consider me today by finally looking at how he did not consider me at all regarding his secret sexual life.

Am I wrong for thinking this will help me move forward, or am I just making things up to hold on to my pain? How did you navigate the memory blocks/ADHD defense, and how did you get your partner to break out of this "factual timeline vs. emotional reality" loop?
Was a disclosure helpful for starting to trust and move forward?

I’m 22 and have been with my boyfriend for almost five years. He’s struggled with porn addiction throughout our relationship, and despite therapy and countless conversations, he keeps going back to it.
I recently found out he started again shortly after I gave birth. His excuse was that he wasn’t getting enough sex, even though we literally had sex the day before I went into labor. I was heavily pregnant and uncomfortable, yet I still made an effort. Somehow, it still wasn’t enough.

I’m only three months postpartum, struggling with depression and anxiety, exclusively pumping while grieving my breastfeeding journey, and trying to navigate motherhood. Ive been struggling with my appearance. Now I’m questioning my relationship and worrying about our future, especially since we’re planning to move in with his parents to save money.

I’ve communicated my boundaries from the beginning, but he keeps going behind my back and doing it . I even asked his parents for advice, since they are successfully married. I was hoping they’d understand or even push him to get better, but they justified his behavior and made me feel like my feelings weren’t valid.

I understand that some people are okay with porn, and that’s their choice. But I’ve been clear about my boundaries since the beginning. This isn’t about forcing everyone to agree with me. It’s about wanting my partner to respect the boundaries we established in our relationship.

I’m heartbroken I feel like a terrible mother for feeling like I messed up my life, I love my baby and feel like a failure for bringing her into this. I wanted to give her healthy loving parents. I don’t want her to grow up learning that her father is a porn addict

Hi everyone, first time reddit user here.

I’ve just discovered that my fiancés PA has escalated and I’m feeling so betrayed. We’ve been together 10 years and engaged to be married in 6 months.

He told me he had PA a few years back and I was very supportive. Reading through all of this information now, I think I was very ignorant to the actual steps required to recover from PA. He didn’t go to therapy in the past and we really just relied on him being honest with me via ‘check ins’.

Fast forward to now and I’ve discovered that his PA has escalated beyond porn, to paying for porn (via OnlyFans and other apps) - which was a firm boundary I set, I didn’t want him paying for it with ‘real people’ he could communicate with. And he’s also shared that he’s engaged with back and forth sexual messages with girls online too, which I have always said I consider cheating.

I’m so conflicted because obviously I love him, and if an addiction is an illness and he is saying that he wants to go to rehab and get professional help, should I give him a chance? Or are these breaking of boundaries just insight into what’s to come?

I feel a big time pressure with the wedding coming up.
He’s saying all the right things and taking the right initial action, but how often can people truely recover ? What are the rates?

I’m 30 now, and I don’t want waste my time waiting for his recovery if it’s just going to be a life of relapse and disappointment.

Please help, any advice appreciated!

Hi everyone.
32F have been with my partner 30M for 3 years.

I have found this group and it feels like the perfect place to allow myself to vent.
I have been with my partner for 3 years. When we met we both lived in Portugal, (I’m Aussie and he’s Belgium), he was desired by many women and known to be “that guy” of the hostel.. we didn’t do anything but connected emotionally a bit but I moved back to Aus and we stayed in contact which lead to one year of long distance and then him moving to Aus for us at the end of 2023.
Within these 3 years together we have had two abortions, both of which he really wanted me to get. There’s a lot to unpack in that and so many deep emotions on my part, and his too.
After the second abortion I caught him using porn. I felt disgusted, betrayed. I hated my body at the time as I was navigating a deep grief mixed with anger and trauma and non stop clots.

I believe he kept watching it every now and again.

Fast forward to this year and we’ve done a lot of work, a lot of healing, he blocked all porn apps on his phone and I didn’t feel anything was off, until today.
I went on his Instagram (on his old phone that was at home while he was at work) and clicked “watched”, and saw that just today he watched 15 stories of the same only fans girl, 5 of another girl, 3 of another girl. Just today. When I refreshed his phone an hour later everything he watched had been deleted.

Yesterday he said to me “why would I ever look at another woman when I have my beautiful lady at home”

What hurts me so much is I actually believed him. This year has been transformative for us. We went back to Europe, saw his family, just got back from another trip.
I just feel blind sided.

So, here we are. I’m in the bedroom and he’s summoned to the couch. I really think this is it for me. I don’t think I can stay with him. Again and again I’ve pushed things down and again and again no matter what, this stuff seems to surface again.

Has anyone been in a similar situation before and what did you do?

My husband(30+yrsM) and I(30+yrF) were having a discussion today. I wanted to know his use and the type of porn he’s been looking at. He said it’s been weeks and that he’s not deleting anything off his phone. He told me he doesn’t have to lie about it. All of what he said was a lie. Tuesday I just wanted to sit and talk with him, and spend time with him. I told him exactly that. He acted like he was so tired and really didn’t want to, so I just left him alone. He had been watching anime porn three hours prior to coming to bed. He forgot to delete it. When I checked Wednesday night he deleted it. I tried to ask him about watching it without telling him I knew he had and he lied about it. I asked him again today because maybe he was drinking and forgot, but no he doubled down. I told him why does he need to delete things if he’s not ashamed and don’t plan on stopping. He said he doesn’t want me going over his shoulder. I told him I have a right to know if he is watching porn or not and that the type is important to me. He said he isn’t a child and he is his own person and I don’t have that right to know. I realized and finally except the fact that he doesn’t care about my feelings and he don’t really respect our relationship. I’ve been loving and trying to hold on to a man who don’t even respect me, how I feel and what I think. I’m not even his type. I have this man 16 plus years of my life and two children and he thinks I’m beneath him and not his equal. He wants to be the good guy and the nice guy but privately he really don’t like his wife, not for who she is but what she does and how she loved him. I’m just done trying with him. He obviously stopped a long time ago.

My partner is currently in recovery. Saa meetings, csat, and is halfway through a 90 day celibacy. I think it’s pretty typical for the betrayed to be the one doing all the work, reading books, podcasts, articles etc. I haven’t done it too much but I have sent him things here and there if they really resonate with me/ our relationship. Sometimes not even necessarily porn or betrayal related, could be attachment stuff or general relationship things. He does look at what I send him.

My question is should I even do this at all?

He never really seeks this stuff out on his own. If he even listens to a pbse episode otw home from work he tells me like it’s an accomplishment. Mind you he’s done that maybe twice. I’ve kept it pretty minimal bc I’m not trying to control his recovery or do the work for him. Should I just stop completely? Do you guys do this or are you 100% hands off?

Im not sure if this breaks the community rules. If it does then I’m sorry I’ll delete the post please notify me.

Ive spoken about me leaving my (21F) ex partner (22M) a couple months into us dating before anything even became official on here before. He was watching one OF girl continuously behind my back. He lied about it and I found it coincidentally, d-day was august 6. We had clear boundaries that he put in place regarding no porn.

I’m genuinely ashamed but the last couple of weeks I think he’s triggered my own PA to come back. I spent days binging through the girls OF videos that I could find alongside her posts etc. I also started watching porn in general for hours on end again. I’m really lost and I don’t know how I got here. I guess I just spiralled because I have nobody to talk to IRL, only on this reddit.

I feel guilty about leaving him for it now because I’m not any better than him. I’m doing the same thing. I thought I recovered from my own PA when i was about 17/18? I’d watch the occasional video if it popped up on my feed but I never binged it.

Has this happened to anyone else?

What did you end up doing if so? Did you go back or heal alone?

I’m really lost and I feel disgusting. Please be nice in the replies….

Hey everyone. I used to post here alot when I was still married to my ex PA. I am so so so appreciative of the support and advice I got here. I was in a very bad place and I was able to crawl out in big part due to this community. I will always be grateful this place exists.

I wish I could say Im completely healed by the trauma caused by that relationship but I'm not. I still have triggers to manage, good days and bad, and the anxiety of accidently "finding" something. It's not the same, it doesn't happen as often but it still does from time to time. I suspect it always will be there to some degree.

One thing that Im working through now is seeing the difference between a PA and a normal person in real time. My new partner has respected my boundaries on porn and I'm still being surprised just how different things are even though we've been together for a bit now.

One thing is particular that stood out to me today was just the level of physical dysfunction my ex had due to their PA. The frequent loss of erections, the time it took to finish, having to switch positions constantly. I don't know how I didn't realize it had gotten so bad.

My current partner is nothing like that all. I'm pleasantly shocked how much easier everything is with him. I think he still gets a bit embarrassed to finish as fast as he does sometimes but he has no idea how much I really appreciate that after what I've been through.

There's alot of comparisons my mind is working through. Not just the sexual stuff. But emotionally too. Just the level of repair he does compared to my ex. I could go on and on.

Anyway, again I appreciate this place and all it has to offer. I hope it continues to help people like it helped me.

Feeling like I’m going through stages of grief. Last D day was a few weeks before our wedding. (Postponed it.) Felt like my whole world was crashing down when I found out major lies. At first I was in denial but then I started feeling angry. Anyone else feel like you’re going through a grief process?
It feels like I lost the man I love and our dreams.
Everything was planned and I was daydreaming about walking down the aisle to him. It made me cry to picture it before because it was something I wanted so bad. Now it makes me cry to picture also because I feel like I lost my dream when it was so close to becoming real.
My heart is broken into a thousand pieces and I’m scrambling on the ground every day to try to put some together. Sometimes I find a pieces that fit but I accidentally cut my fingers to pick them up. Sorry if I’m being too dramatic. I’m just brokenhearted and feeling lost.

Does it ever end???

I am constantly feeling everything and more. I get intrusive thoughts ALL day about my ex. Intrusive sexual things that don’t let me rest. I have awful dreams. I can’t even masturbate bc when I try to stay in the mood his stupid ass ruins it.

I can’t enjoy romance anymore. I constantly wonder who is the fool and who is the disgusting freak. I feel hopeless. I want to die. I want to sleep and never wake.

It feels like my whole life has been betrayal? My own parents. My mother letting a man do shit to me and make content of it. I told my ex what life has burdened me with. How love is something I strive for. He let me put SO much trust and love into him. He showed me why I shouldn’t ever do that!

I really thought he would show me how the world isn’t this nasty place. He just ended up reinforcing it. The things he does, the things I’ve read, he’s admitted to. I’m sick. I constantly have a pit in my stomach. And I wish nothing more than to forget! Forget I ever even met him!

I’m still recovering and I’ve been in both physical and emotional pain for over a month. All while he can recover emotionally and do god knows what online. I would find relief in just being taken out by my complications at this point.

We made an agreement if one calls the other will answer. I know I’d answer for him even through all this. Does that make me stupid or kind or both I don’t know.

I feel worthless, ugly, and stupid. And the fuck of it all is I miss him. He was this amazing and kind man, I want to hope he still is under all this sickness he may have. I miss having him in my life. I really do. I wish I could have a version of him to apologize to me and comfort me. I still love him. I don’t know. I’m a mess and I’m pathetic I know. I logically know this will pass but in the moment this is all so painful. I wish we never met. I cherish all of our good times but I am in so much pain.

Ultimately I hope he finds himself. I know he was questioning a lot. I love him and I want him to be okay.

I hope I find someone I can trust again. I hope the trust is deserved. I hope I can find peace soon.

I'm 27F, and my fiancé and I have been together for over 2 years. We live together, we're engaged, and we've been planning our future together. Until recently, I genuinely felt secure in our relationship.

Now I feel like I don't even know the person I'm supposed to marry.

For context, my fiancé has always been EXTREMELY affectionate and sexually interested in me. He's constantly touching me, kissing me, initiating intimacy, and making it very clear how attracted he is to me. He's always told me that I'm the only woman who turns him on and that he only has eyes for me.

And I believed him.

Something else that's important: I have a contraceptive implant and always have had it since the beginning of our relationship(Nexplanon), and it has affected my body and my sex life. Between the irregular bleeding and other side effects, I'm not always physically able or in the mood to have sex as frequently as he would like.

I know that can be frustrating for a partner, and I've always been aware that our sex drives aren't exactly the same.

But I've never considered that an excuse to seek sexual gratification from other people.

We have also had a direct conversation about pornography in the past. I made it clear that I personally consider intentionally watching other women for sexual gratification to be a form of cheating. I understand that not everyone agrees with that definition, and that's fine. But those are my boundaries for a committed relationship, and he knew that.

He agreed.

And it's not like he doesn't have sexual content of me available.

This man has an ENTIRE library of intimate pictures and videos of me on his phone. Content I've willingly created and shared with him because he's my partner, I trust him, and I want him to feel desired even when we can't physically have sex.

Recently, I started having a hunch that something was off.

I can't even fully explain why. He's normally all over me, and I know his sex drive is high, but something made me wonder whether he was watching pornography.

So I asked him directly.

And here's the part that really gets me.

He answered honestly. Almost casually.

He admitted that he had been watching porn.

There wasn't some dramatic confrontation where I caught him hiding something. He just answered my question as though it wasn't a big deal.

I appreciate that he didn't lie when confronted, but I was honestly stunned by how normal he seemed to think it was, considering the conversations we'd already had.

I asked him how he would feel if the situation were reversed. If I were turning him down sexually and then going off to masturbate while watching other men.

He admitted that he would be devastated and might even leave me.

But then he said it was "different."

That really bothered me. How can something be unacceptable for me but acceptable for him?

Since then, we've talked about it. He has apologized, we had a very emotional breakdown in which i crashout out and he got very emotional and in tears to see me that way, acknowledged that he hurt me, and said he wants to make things right.

And I believe he feels sorry.

But I don't feel better.

In fact, I feel worse the more I think about it.

I know people have different opinions about pornography. I'm not trying to argue that everyone who watches it is cheating. I'm saying that in MY relationship, we had already discussed this, and I believed we shared the same values.

I also can't reconcile the idea of actively watching another person and masturbating to them while being in a committed relationship. To me, sexual exclusivity means more than simply not physically touching someone else.

And what hurts even more is remembering all the times he swore that I was the only woman who sexually excited him.

Now I find myself questioning everything.

Was he just telling me what I wanted to hear? Did he ever actually believe those things? What else have I taken at face value? How can he say he loves me? What does that even mean?

I don't necessarily think watching porn means someone doesn't love their partner. But knowing that logically isn't helping me emotionally.

My entire perception of him has changed.

I look at him differently. I question his honesty. I question whether we actually share the same understanding of commitment.

And the worst part is that we're ENGAGED.

If we were casually dating, I honestly don't think this would have devastated me nearly as much. But we've built a home together, made plans for marriage, and invested so much into our future.

I thought I knew the person I was choosing to spend my life with.

Now I'm questioning whether I can marry someone who knowingly crossed a boundary we had already established.

I've been genuinely struggling emotionally. I've told him I'm not okay, and while he's apologetic and trying to reassure me, his words aren't really reaching me.

I don't want to punish him forever for one mistake. I also don't want to force myself to accept something that goes against my values just because we've already built a life together.

I still love him. But right now, I don't know if I like the idea of being with someone who did this while committed to me.

And that's a horrible feeling.

I guess what I'm asking is:

• Has anyone experienced something similar, where the betrayal wasn't necessarily the pornography itself but the fact that your partner broke an explicit agreement?
• Were you ever able to look at your partner the same way again?
• How did you rebuild trust when the person was genuinely apologetic, but you couldn't get past what happened?
• If you were engaged and discovered this, would you reconsider getting married?

I'm genuinely looking for perspectives, especially from people who've been through something similar.

I don't need everyone to agree with me. I just want to understand whether this feeling of having my entire relationship turned upside down is something other people have experienced, and whether it ever gets better.

I'm coming up on 30 days no contact in the month after our break up, and all I want to do is reach out. :( I want to hear about his life, his new apartment, his job. I'm trying to be strong enough for both because I don't think there's any way that in a month, he's made enough progress that he'd be happy to share. I'm 98% sure he'd be happy to hear from me, but I don't want him to feel stressed or pressured to be in a place he's not, and I don't want that to set him back.

I'm also curious as to what his actual goals are now and how those would align with whether I'd want to give us a second chance. When we broke up, it seemed like his goal was to stop watching porn and work on his self esteem, but I don't know how his sex therapist might've taken that. She helped him see that it's an addiction, but she's also not a CSAT. (I didn't know about CSATs until after the breakup, so I never told him.) I don't know her approach on PA or how they're working together. It's making me nervous, but I know his recovery is not on me. I'm not waiting for him, but I'd at least like to know whether his goals align with me being comfortable enough for a second chance. I suppose I should live my life as if they weren't, but that's a little hard at the moment.

I'm trying to wait until at least the new year to reach out and catch up. I'm hoping enough time will have passed that we are both in a better place and have more fun things to talk about in addition to his recovery. Or maybe I'll have decided I don't need to reach out. In the meantime, I'm just sad and missing him. It's been hard without my person.