I (29F) found an anonymous chat app on my (27M) husband’s phone and don’t know what to do now.

I (F29) am recently married to my Japanese husband (M27) and we live in Japan. We’ve been together for four years, married for two months. Yesterday, we needed to scan some documents at the local convenience store and because my husband’s phone data was running out, he took my phone to use and gave me his.

I have never once not trusted my husband. We are very close mentally, though physically we’ve recently been lacking due to both of us gaining some weight and losing self-confidence. We’ve discussed dieting and working out together and started this year.

Anyway, when my husband gave me his phone to use in case we needed to get in contact while he ran out to scan the documents, his phone was unlocked in front of me and I saw an app called “Lemon.” A quick google search told me it was a kind of anonymous chat app, but it felt a bit like a hook-up app from the reviews. Despite having never doubted my husband for the past four years, I opened the app on his phone (feeling guilty the whole time) and was met with at least 100 messages to women he has sent over the past two years.

All of the messages were started by him complimenting their icon pictures, saying they were beautiful, or something along that nature, but the conversations were very short, usually just with the girl saying “thank you” and then not replying again. A couple messages stood out though: in one of the messages, a woman had asked him about meeting, but he didn’t reply to it, and in another message he was telling a woman how he wished she didn’t have plans for her vacation. The implication felt like he was wishing to meet her. I also saw one chat from three weeks ago where he had sent a picture of his face (a picture he and I had taken together, and I was just cut out of it) and the woman responded with a picture of her breasts. My husband had kept messaging her without acknowledging the boob picture. The whole thing just felt so strange.

At this point, I felt like I was in a nightmare because I had no idea what to think. His profile had no personal information except his age and his profile picture was blank, so I had no idea what he was gaining from the app and I couldn’t process what I was seeing.

When my husband came home I set the phone down in front of him with the breast picture open and he started trying to explain with a bunch of excuses. English is not his first language, but he speaks fairly well and I was just crying at him while asking what those messages were.

Over the course of a three-hour yelling/crying session my husband explained that he didn’t see himself as attractive and he was just trying to look for validation from these women. I am perhaps a slightly above average-looking white woman living in Japan which naturally makes me get some attention, and he said he often feels inferior when we go out together because men he talks to always compliment me. This apparently has made my husband feel less and less deserving. He said that he wanted to figure out why I’d chosen him when he felt he wasn’t attractive. But his profile didn’t even have his picture, so I don’t understand how this app could validate anything for him.

I, myself, have told my husband on numerous occasions how much I am attracted to him. I often compliment his features and call him handsome, and I have always felt like I’m bragging by being able to tell people about him. Up until seeing those messages, I loved him with all my heart and thought he was the most attractive person in the world. I asked him why me saying those things wasn’t enough and why he hadn’t communicated more with me instead of using such an app, and he just couldn’t answer.

Two years ago when he started using this app, we were moving in together. He always calls us a family, says he loves me, etc. etc., so I can’t understand what he gained from this app. He assured me he has never once cheated since we’ve been together, and while it’s true that the messages on this app seem to support that, I feel like all the trust I’ve had in him is broken.

I just brought him to the U.S. in December to meet my family and we had big plans together. I saw our future with kids and my heart is telling me to stay with him, but my head is so confused and I feel so hurt. He called out sick from work today (something that is not common in Japan), because he told me I am the most important thing for him, and he wants to be with me and fix this if there is any chance of doing so. He has been nothing but apologetic and has been acting so ashamed since I found the messages yesterday, but I don’t know what I should do next.

Also, just as an aside, I downloaded the app and set up a profile with a picture of me wearing a mask just to see what the vibe was like. I’ve gotten more than 20 explicit messages or messages asking for sex from Japanese men, and it’s only been 12 hours. I showed these messages to my husband and asked him if it would feel like I was cheating were I to respond to them. Of course he said yes and said he hadn’t realized what it was like for women on the app. His own messages to women were not sexual, just complimentary, but the app definitely gives off hook-up/flirtatious vibes. He said he really doesn’t like that I’m getting such messages, and he doesn’t like me having it. He, himself, has deleted the app from his own phone.

Any thoughts or advice would be highly appreciated. I feel like I’m living in a horrible dream at the moment.

TLDR: I found an anonymous chat app on my husband’s phone, which he has been using to compliment women for the past two years. While it doesn’t seem like he has physically cheated, I feel like my trust in him is broken and don’t know what to do now.