So my boyfriend (30) and (20) have been together for 9 months. I found out that he often masturbates to other women online. I’ve confronted him about it before, but all he’s told me is that he’s been doing it since he was a kid and he doesn’t see how it’s wrong or why I’d be so upset about it. I understand that but I feel like that’s something that you shouldn’t do in a relationship. When we got together, I stopped watching porn and whenever I felt the need to masturbate, because he wasn’t there or asleep, I did. I don’t look at anything I just do it. I know it’s different for everyone so we made a compromise. Instead of him looking at other women’s pictures, he’d look at mine.
Before we got into a relationship I had told him that I don’t do nudes but I said that I’d be willing to if it meant that he’d stop looking at other women. So I sent him a picture once and his response was, “When did you take that?”. I mean I wasn’t really sure what response I was looking for, but I know that that wasn’t it. The thing is, is that I don’t think he stopped looking at other women tho. I always felt that, in a relationship, if you’re doing something a person doesn’t like, you’d stop in order to make them happy. If you thought that what they were doing was wrong.
I genuinely feel that he shouldn’t do that if he’s in a relationship with me. His exes may have been fine with that but I’m not and l’m scared that if he doesn’t stop then I’d have to leave him solely because I’m not ok with that and that’s not something I HAVE to deal with. We have gone through too much in this relationship for it to end like this and I don’t want it to. I love him and I see a future with him, but why is it that it seems like I’m asking too much of him? To stop doing something that I dislike so much when there were times he disliked something I’d say or do and I’d stop in order to keep him happy. I don’t think that it’s fair in this situation.
7 comments
What do you mean by “other women online”? Porn actors he has no interaction with, or women who he’s actually talking to?
Ok, so you have set a boundary and that’s fine. Now he has to choose what’s more important: his own sexuality or you.
For me the difference would be if there is emotional cheating.
A question. If he masturbates to erotic novels or girls in his imagination, or a erotic comic, would that be okay?
>If you thought that what they were doing was wrong.
That’s kind of the kicker here. He doesn’t see it as wrong, lots of people don’t and wouldn’t. To him, this may well end up being asking too much.
If you’ve already gone through a lot in 9 months, that’s also something to question. Sure, lots can happen in 9 months but if you’ve both had to wade through mud just to get 9 months in, that’s potentially not a good sign.
If he’s saying he’s stopped looking, but hasn’t stopped then that’s an honesty/trust issue which is its own kettle of fish outside of the action itself. Relationships without honesty and trust aren’t in a good place.
You’ve gone through so much already and it’s only been nine months. I’m not even going to tell you he’s too old for you, I’m sure you’ve heard it before and you say to yourself “we’re different, this relationship is different”. It’s not. You’re not. You’re being jerked around by a man who has very little emotional intelligence and even less respect for you.
As others have said, you are within your rights to set a boundary, and no one can tell you that what you’re feeling is wrong. But the boundary you are setting is quite frankly one that most men would reject, at least insofar as it pertains to porn.
Did you clearly and explicitly lay this condition out early in the relationship? Because if that was something that was sprung later on, I’d be annoyed.
To me, your post reads like you went into this relationship with different expectations about what was acceptable behavior. You say that you “found out” he was masturbating to other women online and “confronted him”. This suggests that you took him not doing that as a given and almost saw it as a form of cheating.
His view (and, I’d argue, the majority view) is that everyone watches porn. It’s not personal, social, or romantic – just a tool used to enhance arousal. I’m sure he loves you and finds you sexy, but most people enjoy a little safe variety in their fantasies, and porn enables that. And for many couples, that’s okay – it has no bearing on their attraction or love for one another.
I put a lot of this down to your age difference. I only encountered the “porn is cheating” perspective in and just after high school.
Several things to untangle here:
– you are 20 and he is 30. You are not as mature as a 30 year old, he is with you because a woman his age would not want him or because he wants to mould his gf to his wants. In any case, not a healthy age gap at your age.
– masturbating to porn is not cheating as far as I am concerned and is no big deal. I actually don’t need the details of what my partner masturbates to. Now if it is something you can’t move on from then don’t. The thing with sex is that we each have our own boundaries and as long as we don’t shame and try and prove something is creepy when it’s not, then whatever.
– you’ve only been together 9 months, do not act like you’ve been through oh so much. Either you actually have and you should run or, which is what I suspect, your bf is making it seem more intense with love bombing you, “I’ve never felt like this”, blabla. There is also the risk that the longer you stay in the relationship, the more you’ll feel like it’s too much of a waste to break up.
– you think he is lying about it and don’t trust him.
– you sent him nudes when you didn’t want to and I would absolutely not trust him with nudes when you break up.
All in all, if I were you I would break up because outside of the porn, you 2 are not at the same stage in life and you should focus on becoming your own person and not his perfect gf.
You’re basically a teenager and this guy is 30.
Him looking at porn might bother you, but almost all men do.
Really the problem is that he is a 30 year old man happy to date teenagers.