My boyfriend and I have been dating for about 8 months now. First few months were amazing and we were both dating with intention to marry. We rushed to move in together (on his insistence) and flew to meet my parents in a different country and a month later to meet his parents in another country. He took necessary steps to meet my dad first as to his wish. And we had planned to get married by April at the latest since we both wanted to and want a big family with lots of kids.
Over the course of these last few months, since January of this year, we have both decided to slow things down, put a pause on marriage and kids idea, be sure if we want to be together and work on being better partners to one another.
We have been fighting, arguing over petty things and it’s mostly me raising concerns, highlighting issues on things that I like and things that make me uncomfortable; for example watching porn, liking other girl’s posts on Instagram, independently hanging out with his female friends, him looking at other girl’s while we’re out in public, him over sharing our stuff with his brother and sister leaving me no privacy, over sharing with his friends too, and lying about his financial situation. We have talked about most of the above issues and come to an understanding where he has compromised and I have too. And he has clarified my concerns too.
Porn – He said he stopped and ofcourse he hasn’t watched porn while I’m around anyways. And he agreed to not watch since it makes me uncomfortable.
Oversharing with friends and siblings – He has clarified that he doesn’t over share but only shares within reason and that I need to trust him on that. And will share in order to get advice and reflect upon his actions as to ensure that he is not being toxic to me.
Meeting female friends independently – We talked at great lengths about this one, and he agreed to respect my wishes and meet with them in a group or in my presence. But When I was away for 10 days, he went behind my back to meet his female friend, and hid it from me and lied to me about it. I was extremely hurt and dampened my trust in him but He apologised and I forgave him because I know the girl and I know him enough to know he’s not the cheating type.
Lying about his finances – I clarified with him that what he has is more than enough, and we can build our wealth together. What bothers me is that he had to lie to me for a couple of months. This was a red flag then, but he came clean about it so I forgave him and let it go.
Liking other girls’ ig posts – This is a series of conversations we’ve had. And both came to understanding where he agreed to not engage in liking girl’s photos as I am incredibly uncomfortable with that and cleaning each other’s following list in order to make both comfortable.
At this stage in our relationship, we’ve had plenty of fights regarding above issues where he now thinks I’m nagging, clingy and nosy which is why I don’t know how to confront him regarding finding out that he liked his ex girl (that he was seeing for 5 months before me) Instagram posts all the way from 2019. For context, These weren’t explicit photos but just her photos looking pretty and beautiful in dresses or selfies of her. Because of the above concerns, and not to sound nagging and clingy, and controlling I don’t know how or whether I should even bring this up with him, when it’s related to the above same issues and they all seem connected to me.
Advice please. 🤍
**TL;DR: Boyfriend and I love each other, and we’re working on issues to be better partners for one another. I’ve told him I am not comfortable with him liking other girl’s photos on Instagram. Yet he sometime slips. But I forgive him for that. However, today I found out that he has liked his ex girlfriend’s Instagram photos from 2019. I am afraid to confront him about this as I don’t want to seem like I’m nagging about an issue that we’ve already discussed, and I don’t want him to suspect that I checked his phone. Advice needed on whether I should trust to let this go or not, depending on the above context provided.**