Earlier this year I [21M] fell into a deep depression do to trauma I was ignoring and I was abusing substances including porn. This went on for a few months were I was watching porn behind my partners [23F] back. I know this was a horrible thing to do and I have since stopped for awhile and I am in therapy to deal with trauma among other things. Now though, I can’t enjoy my relationship or even look into my girlfriends eyes knowing that I lied to her. I want to confess to her and let her choose whether to dump me or not, but selfishly I am so in love with her and I also don’t want to cause her any trauma as well. What is the right thing to do?
2 comments
The way you talk about this makes it seem like you are lumping together a bunch of different issues rather than dealing with them separately. You mention substance abuse (not sure which ones you’re talking about, alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs?) alongside porn. Porn isn’t exactly the same as drugs, although I recognize that for some people, at some times, it can fill a similar role of like, addiction and/or escapism.
The way you talk about porn suggests that you think porn is automatically or inherently bad, and this is a viewpoint that I (and I think most people here) would disagree with.
At the same time, if you’ve told your partner that you don’t look at porn, and thus lied to her, that is a major problem. The problem is the lying, not the fact that you look at porn.
Now, if you both grew up and live in a more conservative subculture, there can often be an implicit understanding that it’s wrong to look at porn and/or that looking at porn constitutes “cheating” in a monogamous relationship. I would like to challenge this. I think it is critically important to actually have an explicit conversation about this sort of stuff *before* assuming that something either is okay, or isn’t okay, to the other person.
Plenty of people are completely fine with their partners looking at porn and some people even look at it together. At the same time, other people aren’t. And for some, it may depend on the nature of the porn and the person’s relationship to it.
How to proceed? I can’t say because I don’t know the details. I would approach this differently if your “dishonesty” is based on an implicit assumption that looking at porn is “cheating”, vs. if you explicitly told her that you don’t look at porn and/or she explicitly told you she doesn’t want you to look at porn and you agreed (this would definitely be outright lying.) The one situation is “less bad” than the other, but also it might be a bit more muddy and less straightforward to start the conversation. I.e. when you’re dealing with implicit assumptions it can be tricky because each of you might have more uncertainty about your values and/or desired boundaries and the uncertainty can hinder communication and make the process a bit trickier.
I will say, in the long-run it is good to be open about this stuff. If this is a strong relationship that is meant to be, you will weather this issue just fine, and even if this is a challenge it will bring you closer together in the long-run. If you apologize and she freaks out and/or doesn’t accept the apology, then it probably wouldn’t have been a good relationship for you in the long-run. It’s important both to have compatible values about sex and relationships, and to be able to accept each other as-is.
before anything, seriously well done for stopping! i know how difficult that must be for you, so please give yourself some credit for that
however, from someone whose been in the gfs shoes who found out all on her own, i’d really recommend just telling her and being open and honest about it. if you’re honest there’s a chance the relationship can come back from it. if she finds out by herself, she will never really trust you. good luck 🙂