a long story...

[pixiedust]

I don't even really know if what I am dealing with is as bad as what many of the other individuals here are dealing with or have dealt with....I do know however that I am not happy and that I am torn right down the middle of myself. I have been with my bf for almost three years now...it will be three years in may. It is almost as if fate is playing a role in our lives because this is the second time around for the two of us. We dated when I was 17 and he was 21..but he is a boy and boys need those years from 21 to 30 to go nuts and be bachelors. I must say here too that I am a student in a family studies program...the human brain, and human relationships with each other and how we are supposed to work with each other fascinates me. Anyways...my bf spent his early 20's living in a house with three other men which was spent in a constant party with a different girl every night. I am well aware of what my boyfriend was and what he is capable of, especially as far as P goes. I found myself curious about men and their relationships with P so I elllicited the help of a friend of mine and he proceeded to show me the ropes as far as the world of P. I am very far from being a prude and I take time to read a lot of nonfiction books about relationships and sex. Well when my bf found out about me and my night with my friend he was slightly upset and had asked me why I did not come right out and ask him about his habits. I am a very shy person and have always been the speak when spoken to type. I never really found the courage to inquire about his most deep thoughts and feelings...there are still many things I would like to know but don't....

[pixiedust]

I have to say that I am extremely new here and am not familiar with some of the abbreviations I should use so I am terribly sorry if i offend someone...

so...after the night with my friend my bf and I had a minor conversation about his habits and that was fine...he had said that it was a release for him, a stress reducer (he lives with his mother still) etc...well that night he was letting me grab some of his music from his external harddrive (which he has four of now) and his P just happened to be on the same drive. The next morning when he left for work I hooked up his drive to my lap top and grabbed as much of his P folder as I could in five minutes...I wanted to see what sorts of things he was in to. My bf has a self proclaimed breast fetish...loves them and is literally consumed by them. Most of what I found was just still photos of women/ celebrities in scantilly clad clothing...and a folder labeled friends. It turns out he had been saving pictures of his facebook friends in bathing suits, in tight tshirts and cleavage shots... i let this go on for a few months and then it got to the point where I would come over to his house and his screen would be covered in little picture icons...So I wrote him a letter telling him I wanted to understand why he did it and to let him know that it made me feel like he was still pining away for these girls, his friends, that he couldn't have or did have or still wanted to have....well he assured me that there were no late night rendezvous with these pictures and that he would delete them except for the ones he was in and that he wanted me to trust him and that was fine... well shortly after that I started to notice other strange behavior...he gets on his computer every night seemingly ever half hour...he'll come hug me for little while then hop up and get back to facebook or whatever...well he would flip off his monitor, which was very unlike him, as soon as I got there..or if he wanted to look something up online he would hit the tab button a bunch of times really quickly...he was really good at shrinking windows to cover other windows too....so naturally i started to get suspiscious...

[pixiedust]

on the mornings of the nights that my bf was acting strange with his computer I would wait until he left for work and then flip on his monitor. On a couple of occassions I found more facebook picture icons...I have confronted him twice more since the initial confrontation and he has told me that he wants me to be able to trust him and he didn't think something like this would be so hard to stop...but the truth is there is nobody there to babysit him and I still don't trust him as far as the facebook pictures go. Everytime I see that he is online i feel like he is cruising the recent picture updates. Also I would open up his browser windows and EVERY SINGLE browser tab would be a P site or a celebrity nude site, and this is what I found every time I checked. It didn't take me too long to realize that every time I found him online that he was probably surfing the internet for more pictures...I heard him say to his brother ( who just gave him a new, faster computer with more ram in it for christmas) while he was making his computer background and screen saver of these pictures( the less risque pictures that is) he saves of celebs and stuff that he has over 25000 pictures....he gets online first thing when he wakes up in the morning, when he gets home from work and late at night...and this is just pictures...I can just imagine what his "night life" stash is like!

[pixiedust]

When I stay at my bf's house for more than one day or when we come home on sunday's after a weekend away it takes all i have to get in the shower because i know exactly what he is going to do....i can't visit with his mom....I feel like I have to give him this time to get his pictures and whatever else in....i stopped calling him so that i didn't interrupt his computer time, especially after a certain time of night...i started texting him just before I left my house and knocked on his door when I got to his house to give him time to cover his tracks...everynight he doesn't call me it makes me feel like its because he needs a break from me for his pictures...
I feel like he is two different people..on one hand he tells me he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me but then as soon as I go home its back to the internet and him distracting himself with these pictures and the P. Luckily our intimate life has not really suffered because of this so far, at least not that I can detect yet but my self esteem sure has...I feel as though I am in a constant competition and will never be hot enough for him... I don't understand how you can tell someone you love them and they are your everything and persistenty distract yourself....I would be fine with it if it wasn't EVERY DAY or a hour before I get there on the days we hang out....

there are a lot of things that can happen in my future, in our future that can and will be wholly affected by him and his habits...

I don't really even know if it's an addiction yet...but for my own piece of mind....this is killing me.

[rosie]

Hey Pixi, you can reply to your original journal instead of creating new ones :) Will help keep it all in one place. x

[pixiedust]

oh lol well...i think thats all of it for now but thanks!! I will remember for next time :)

[Charly22]

Hey Pixie,

Welcome to TTF. You seem to have learned alot about what is going on, and it sounds like if it ain't full blown addiction, certainly tinkering on the edge of that.

There's alot that you have to be willing to understand and work through and same for him.

I'm a SO (significant other) to a PA (Porn Addict). I first came here with out of control emotions, not knowing what to do about my situation, and I have stuck with it, and learned alot and received a lot of support and advice, and learned alot of things that would have never come to me, had I not been here at this website.

I hope you find some support and strength here at this website.

[pixiedust]

going to see the boyfriend tonight for the first night since sunday....every time it snows I think to myself, "I should have my bf take me he has a four wheel drive truck.." and then I catch myself and say oh yeah..."I don't let him take me to school because of all the college girls with no restraints...." Anyway....it's always hard for me the first night after I don't see him for a while...I try not to notice the different position of the tissues in the box or his trash...but I know....just sort of wish he could wait for me...I can wait for him...why can't he wait for me...a text message from him at ten p.m... then nothing...is it wrong for me to always make assumptions...

[pixiedust]

you just want to sit there at the dinner table and pretend like I didn't notice what was going on right before my very eyes this morning? and obviously you couldn't wait becuase you are leaving for five days tomorrow and you need something to keep you busy while you are gone and away from me... although I know it doesn't really matter whether I'm there or not. I would really like to go home right now but its snowy very badly and you are working on my car and I can't. I was ok for a little while...had a birthday and I don't know, it was ok. I never forget what goes on while I'm not around but...this morning you weren't even discreet...and then your mom asks me when I'm going to be able to meet you up north because there is a good reason that I should go...I know you are going to pop the question and what the hell am I supposed to say....you can't stop distracting yourself and I am so exhausted at competing with these images and the fantasies they give you that I will NEVER be able to compare to...your jekyll and hyde is eating me alive...you are so wonderful when you are wonderful but then you go and do something like you did this morning...and I have been rolling through it and through it and I'm torn between chalking it up to normal and chalking it up to you having a problem...why...I spend so much of my time trying to figure out why and self loathing and thinking you should find a hotter girlfriend. I cannot help the fact that this is how my brain reacts to your habits...

I am so torn....straight down the middle...I really want to say yes...but I know what my life will be like if I do...since it doesn't seem to matter if I'm there or not...

how did I get myself into this and how do I get out? It's a rhetorical question...glad you are in the garage AND leaving for five days...and good luck gettiing me to give you the perfect moment to ask me if I'll marry you...

[TooSensitive]

Oh PD, I think you realize that marriage will not fix nor change anything at this stage. I hope you really think your answer through in advance. A marriage proposal can be romantic and wonderful, but please don't get caught up in the moment.

I am so sorry you are going through this. You don't deserve to. Please do those things which do help you feel better about yourself. It is not you who cannot compare to them, though I do understand that feeling, b/c it is one I struggled with for so long myself. It is they who cannot compare to you. Your b/f may not have an appreciation for you as he should; but you can learn how to have an appreciation for yourself again. It isn't about how we look on the outside nor our measurements nor our hair color; instead, it is all about who we are on the inside that counts, or should count, the most.

ETA: If they cannot see that, it becomes their loss in the end.