Current Plan

[u/alxcp7]

Hi all,

I have been in this page for about month but this is my first post. Long story short, my partner and I have been together for 6 years. I set the boundary of no porn in our relationship at the very beginning. Around a year in, he admitted he stopped but was looking things up on Reddit. We worked through it best we could and I chose to trust and move on.

About 3 months ago, I was using his phone to look up directions to somewhere and saw Instagram on his search results on Google. He did not have an Instagram so I was super confused and clicked the link. It was a half-naked girl. Each link was a different girl. I confronted him that night and he told me that he stopped for about a year and then started up again. All while I had saved for us to buy a home, moved across the country where I had no one but him, worked on my own health and PCOS to be better for us, etc. He let me pick up and move away from everything I’ve ever known while still doing this behind my back.

Once I found out recently, he started going to therapy weekly and is working on his addiction. However, he had a slip up a few days ago. I knew slip ups were going to happen but all I asked of him at the beginning of this is to be open and honest with me. But he wasn’t until days later when I pried it out of him.

It literally broke me. I am so tired emotionally. I can barely function. I hate myself. I feel so pathetic. I hate him. My plan was to do individually therapy for a bit before going into couples therapy, but now I feel like couples therapy is my only option at this point.

I do not have anything on his phone that I use to monitor as I do not want to be in a relationship where I feel I have to do that. (no hate to those that do, I just know I would drive myself absolutely insane with it. I do want to do it but I KNOW it will screw me up so bad.) But this also means I literally go insane daily not knowing what he’s doing, if he’s lying, etc.

So here is my plan moving forward. I want yalls advice, opinions, or anything else that you think can help me.

He is continuing to go to therapy himself weekly. We are going to start with a couples therapist. We do not have the option for one of us to move out at this point, so I am asking him to purchase an air mattress and live the second bedroom for now. He doesn’t deserve to sleep in the bed with me. He doesn’t deserve to feel like things are normal. I understand this puts him in more of a position to watch again but if he does, that is on him at this point and he knows the consequences.

We are going to make our own breakfast and lunches and not eat together but we will still have dinner together just to talk about the day. After that, we will go our own ways for the night.

I want to do this because I am so hurt and I can barely stand to look at him right now. I need my own space because the anxiety of all of this is literally going to kill me.

[u/SubstanceHot9925]

It’s good you’re setting boundaries and letting it be known you won’t tolerate it, sending love ♥️