99% positive SO has a PA, but no concrete evidence. Need input from other PAs!!

LoloLaRoux

New Member
(Trigger warning a few paragraphs below! Sexual assault) Hi everyone, I could really use your advice please! My situation is so frustrating, and I'm at my wits end. Apologies, this is going to be a novel, please bear with me. Also, my SO and I don't live together, so that makes this even MORE complicated and tricky :( Apologies, this is a novel and a half of a post to read, but I feel like it's important I be as thorough as possible about my situation.

So this is my second relationship with a porn addict We've been together going on about 5 years. My second relationship, my ex was a PA, and we dated 6 years ago for about a year and a half...I caught him looking at hentai about 3 months into our relationship, and although I didn't like it, per se, I didn't think hentai was "that" big of a deal. He was horrified beyond belief though, and as PAs do, adamantly denied his porn usage, and under-exaggerated how often he watched it and PMOed. This is where it gets pretty messed up, his gaslighting and lying over the next year was SO bad, I actually don't remember a single thing from that entire year while we were dating...The only thing I do remember is the biggest and worst D-day, which was traumatic enough that my brain actually buried the memory of it deep into my subconscious, and it wasn't until this year when I started having issues with my current SO about porn that I remembered what happened. My ex and I, ages after we broke up, reconnected, and are now actually extremely close, good friends...He finally confessed to me that he'd had a PA since he was 12 (he's 27 now) and we've had some really good open and honest conversations about it, and he's become a valuable resource for me in terms of helping me with my current SO...But anyways, that's the backstory...now onto my current SO

When we first started dating, months into our relationship, porn got brought up. My bf said he was impartial to porn, and rarely watched it, and of course I was very skeptical, but I told him I wasn't personally comfortable with watching porn but, ugh, you know, tried to be the "cool girl" and not give a shit when even his so-called "rare" indulgence did bother me. Some time later, we were texting, and I asked him what he was up to (he was at his place) and he just straight up said, "porn!" and my ptsd was immediately triggered (from my prior relationship with a PA that did severe damage to my mental health) and I got super anxious and sick to my stomach so the next time we saw each other in person, I told him a bit about my past relationship (and what I could remember at the time about my ex's porn usage, which wasn't much) and how I felt about him watching porn. I asked him to not watch porn entirely, pointing out that it shouldn't be a big deal for him anyways since he said he was impartial to it, and didn't watch it often anyways. He said he was totally fine with that, and that he would stop watching. For the next 4 years of our relationship, I thought everything was fine...mostly. Even though I trusted him implicitly, every now and then there were these little red flags that made me feel uneasy, but I just dismissed my feelings as irrational and baseless. So this is a two parter...First about the PMs and my BF. So last August, we broke up and went NC until he reached out some time in October. We reconnected, and cautiously started dating again. In January, I was having issues with my reddit account so I hopped onto his (he had given me full permission to do so before so it wasn't a snooping situation, you know?) and that's when I discovered that after we had broken up, he had subscribed to a handful of NSFW subreddits, and were following NSFW women's profiles. That's also when I discovered that he had commented on two different women's NSFW pictures, and sent 4 PMs to 4 different women (knowing what I know now, and after talking to my ex, and other PAs and asking on reddit's porn addiction subreddits, 100% all agreed that YES, he IS an addict and that is DEFINITELY addict behavior so there's that...) I brought up my discomfort, and told him that once again that, if we were going to be in a relationship again, I didn't want porn to be involved, so he did take off all the porn from his account... things seemed great until April.

My BF has a secure google drive where he keeps all the private photos I've sent him over the years (ya know, his own private collection of all things sexy me) and I asked him for the link because I wanted to find a certain photo...WELL. While I was scrolling, I found a screenshot of another woman's tits that had been sent over her snapchat public story :mad: It was taken and saved 3 freaking years ago. That should be my big "HELLO STUPID OPEN YOUR FREAKING EYES HE'S HIDING HIS PORN USAGE BEHIND YOUR BACK AND IS PROBABLY A PA IN DENIAL...NOT TO MENTION...WE DON'T EVEN SNAPCHAT EACH OTHER ANYMORE MORON AND HAVEN'T IN LIKE 2 OR 3 YEARS!!!" but denial ain't just a friggin river, right? I texted him about it, he laughed it off, I got pissed off of course, and asked him what his explanation was. He said it had been from 3 years ago and he honestly couldn't "remember" why he had saved the picture, but reminded me that sometime after that, he had deleted snapchat (or so he claims, right?) I asked him if he had been cheating on me, or talking to other women, he said no. We ended up talking more a couple days later, and I just emphasized that I valued honesty over anything else, and I wouldn't get mad or upset if he had still been looking at porn, and reminded him about my prior relationship with a PA, and he promised me he wasn't looking at porn. But pandora's box had been opened, and my insecurity started nagging away at me.

Months pass, and then we get to the last week of August. I was exhausted, and sleep deprived as hell, and I don't know what made me do it, but I had suddenly gotten incredibly paranoid and suspicious, so I decided to snoop on his reddit account. I found his recent history was completely empty, which was an eye brow raiser because I know the guy, he is on reddit daily, constantly watching DIY videos, so they should've shown up in his history, right? But in the downvoted section was a porn gif off of a nsfw subreddit. It was a gif (that I deeply, DEEPLY regret looking at) off of a certain which triggered the hell out of me because it had been performed on me without my consent for my first time by an abusive ex. So now I've been dealing with, since then, severe PTSD of the betrayal trauma kind, and from all my prior sexual assaults, etc so I'm just a hot mess.

I threw myself into learning as much as I could about PA, and the warning signs, etc, and there are SO many signs, guys. Like, snapchat for example...My partner claimed that he deleted snapchat last year, but last weekend I got on the app, and searched for him, and it say's he still has an active account (as far as I can tell) and his username still showed up under my friends list. Now, another red flag is that I've had snapchat since 2013, and my snapchat score is 715...one thing about my partner is that he is quite the loner. He literally does NOT have close friends; he's a homebody so imagine my surprise to see that his score was 1,482, over DOUBLE my score!! There is literally NOBODY, no friends, not me, no one that he would be snapchatting with, unless it was with porn girls, right?? I mean, am I crazy for thinking this or what??

And then there was our sex life (we have not had sex once since the reddit thing back in August). Reflecting on things now, his porn usage was SO obvious because now I'm positive he had PIED, because whenever we tried to have sex, at least for the first handful of times, he couldn't even get hard, and if he did get semi-hard, a condom would make him go limp immediately...Eventually we stopped using condoms, and he was able to maintain an erection (but honestly...it still didn't seem like he was fully hard, you know? Like, hard enough to get the job done, but not hard like he should be) and he is notorious for PE. And again, this was more in the beginning, but he would do these "moves" and things that were SO obviously from porn it was almost laughable, but I didn't know how to say anything so I just kept my mouth shut, which I now wish I hadn't, but oh well. Another red flag is that he is CRAZY protective over his phone. He has not once ever let me use his phone, and he has never told me his password.

So that's about it folks...if you've stuck with me this long, THANK YOU!! Like I said, I am 99% positive he's an addict, and that he's definitely looking at porn behind my back, but I just...I have NO idea how to even begin to talk about this with him...and we don't live together, so I don't have access to his computer, nor do I have access to his phone...I'm honestly really tempted to ask him for his phone, at the very least, because I'm certain he won't want to give it to me. So what the hell do I do guys???? How do I talk to him about this?? (oh and as a side note, I just want to mention that I am also a recovering addict myself, so trust me, I know exactly how an addicts mind works, AND that there's no forcing him to stop and get better, only he can choose to do that, etc. Oh boy do I know ALL about that!!)
 

malando

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Yep, he's a porn addict. He's got all the signs. I would enter any talks with him on that assumption and I wouldn't even entertain hearing his side of it as to why he isn't a porn addict and how everything that you've found was from years ago. That's an insult to your intelligence to even have to hear it.

The way I see it, either he fesses up straight away and talks to you about what he's going to do about the problem, or you cut him loose. It really is that simple. This situation will not improve for you unless he is absolutely under no illusions that you are not willing to put up with this any longer. If he wants to keep doing this, he needs to let you go. Don't waste your precious time on somebody who is happy to gaslight you and leave you feeling constantly confused and paranoid. If he's got a problem, the least he could do is admit it and not lie about it - for your sanity if nothing else. If you care about him that much, tell him you'll support him to get help, but any more lies and you're out the door.
 

LoloLaRoux

New Member
Malando, how would you recommend I bring up his PA to him? That's what I'm struggling with the most is how to broach the topic and my concerns to him in a non-accusatory way that wont immediately put him on the defensive
 

malando

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
LoloLaRoux said:
Malando, how would you recommend I bring up his PA to him? That's what I'm struggling with the most is how to broach the topic and my concerns to him in a non-accusatory way that wont immediately put him on the defensive
I think what would work best with most men is making sure that the conversation about whether he's a porn addict or not never even starts. I think it involves sitting him down in a very calm state and a low voice and saying something like "Okay XXX, you know I love you more than anything, but I have to tell you that I'm not coping anymore with your addiction and how it makes me feel about myself. I need things to change now or I'm going to leave."

At this point he might have already started to defend himself and say it's all in the past. I would wait for him to finish his sentence, give a pause for effect, then resume. "I know you think your problem is not that bad, but on my end it is. I can't do this anymore. The only way we are going to survive this is if we are totally honest with each other and we acknowledge this problem together. I can't listen to denials anymore. This is affecting me every single day and it's making me ill. Are you heading me on this? Do you realise that I can see what you're doing and how it's affecting you and changing you?"

There's a chance you might have him on the back foot by this stage and hopefully he'll say he can see it. If he does, then you can progress on to telling him what you need - whether it's limiting his technology access, giving him a dumb phone, blocking software on his laptop - although I'm not sure that this ultimately achieves much. What you really need is for him to buy into change. Maybe you need to go to a relationship therapist to discuss this - so that you can express in a safe environment how his addiction is affect you and your relationship. And he should enter a course of counselling himself to deal with his addiction issues. In the end, he has to be motivated to change. You can't do the work for him, and you can't be his mother hovering over him.

If he's arguing against it, then I would just return to the message, "I thought you might say this. But I'm sorry, I can't talk about it in this way. I know there's a problem. You'll have to trust me that I have the evidence. I'm not interested in discussing whether you have a problem or not - only how we are going to deal with it." I think there has to be a stony determination to be in charge of this conversation. If he won't cooperate, then say you're going out (or home, depending on where you are) and you'll talk to him about it later, but that you are going to talk about changing things either way.

I hope this has been of some help to you.
 
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