We’ve been together for around a year and a half and generally have a great relationship. We both have some hypervigilance related to trust/infidelity, his is because he’s been cheated on and deceived pretty bad in a past relationship, and mine if from every relationship within my family having cheating going on in it.
Near the start of our relationship we discussed boundaries regarding watching porn. He’s watched porn regularly since he discovered it in middle school. I told him that personally, it makes me uncomfortable to be in a monogamous relationship with someone who watches porn and asked if it’s something he would be willing to give up in order to further our relationship. He said that he would stop watching it. There’s been a few times where he’s slipped up and been honest with me about it, and there’s been 2 times where he’s slipped up and lied to me about it even after I told him I was already aware of the slip up.
He will occasionally go through short periods of getting really paranoid about getting hurt. We will talk about it and I try to reassure him and help him in the ways I am able to. Sometimes it’s effective, and sometimes he continues down a paranoid spiral. All of the slip ups with watching porn that I previously mentioned have occurred during the times where he’s having a paranoid episode. They also all occur as soon as he gets home/I leave his place after we have a talk about the paranoia.
I feel a large sense of betrayal each time this happens because I just try to help him and talk to him and then he goes and watches porn, which seems to me, as a way of acting out at me. He’s always been remorseful about these slip ups, but they continue to happen.
Aside from this issue, I am completely satisfied with our relationship, which is why I haven’t broke up with him. I just keep telling myself that it’ll get better somehow. I’ve been in therapy for half my life trying to sort out my own shit and my boyfriend is planning to start therapy for the first time ever in the near future. So maybe that will help him in lots of ways, but also help him learn to cope better and not do things in an “acting out” way.
Has anyone experienced, or had a partner that experienced, this habit of watching porn only during times where there’s an issue going on within the relationship? Was there any reasoning for it that you were able to figure out? And finally, was there anything that helped stop it?
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TL;DR! – Boyfriend agreed to not watch porn, only watches it when he’s having paranoia about our relationship. Occasionally lies about it. Seems to me like he’s acting out in some sort of way.
3 comments
He likes other girls
He is watching porn waaaaaay more than he tells you he is. Those “slip-ups” are half-truths he tells you to make you feel like he’s completely honest. It sounds like you are more than happy to accept these half-truths and assign blame to some conflict within him but the fact is the dude likes porn and has no intention of not using it. Ever. Whether or not he’s the kind of guy who rejects real relationships for porn or just an average porn consumer doesn’t matter in this situation. What matters is that he made a promise he had no intention of keeping and has lied ever since. And you want to believe those lies and you want to control his behavior instead of admitting you’re dating a person who loves using porn and lied about it to keep you.
A lot of people will tell you good luck finding a man who doesn’t use porn all the time or at all but plenty of them exist if porn is such a dealbreaker for you. If you aren’t patient enough to find one of them, then I suggest adjusting your views on porn instead of constantly policing a porn user into pretending for you.
Watching porn shouldn’t matter in any relationship unless it affects the relationship (too much self play where you don’t need to be active with partner) or it’s something illegal.
Were allowed to still explore our own bodies and figure out what we like.
If he’s using this as a manipulation tactic when you’s are having issues and he specifically tells you, thats just icky.