About a year ago, I used my partners laptop to do some uni work (with their permission) and as I typed “g” for gmail, a number of gay webcam sites came up where you could masturbate with strangers online (same sex btw, not an ‘in the closet’ situation). When confronted over the phone, he became quite intense and aggressively defensive and his history magically disappeared (remotely from his phone)
“I don’t ***ing know how it got there”
“Why would I support the porn industry it’s disgusting”
“If I’m lying about this then I’m a sociopath”
I told him that this relationship was only salvageable if he cut this *** right now and opened up to me. This didn’t work. Later we went for a walk and I was sympathetic. “If you have a problem we can work it out together” I said.
“I could quite easily just come out and say I have a porn addiction to make this go away but that would be lying”
It was only the next morning that I managed to get a partial truth out of him. I had to bring it all the way back to the easiest admission - “is there a chance that this was from last year because I didn’t see the date on it”
“Why do I find it so difficult to say yes” he said
Ok, so a partial admission that he’d done this kinda thing. Only thing is, I had seen the date and told him straight away. I felt bad being deceptive but the truth was already starring us in the face and at the time I wanted an admission.
The weirdest part is that he wasn’t really overtly sorry. He seemed impatient with me for being upset at the thought of him masturbating with other men on the internet. He claimed, and still does occasionally, that it was not cheating.
This also explained all the screaming and criticism that had been thrown at me over the phone at Christmas, as he had been doing this behind my back from November through to December.
—-
Prior to this there had been white lies here and there - but he is younger than me and at times I found it quite sweet and thought that he just wanted to seem more competent and experienced than he was. Prior to the webcam mishap, I would have bet all my money that he would never do something like that to me. It hurt me deeply but I somehow rationalised that he had a problem and panicked. That he, like all of us, found it hard to reveal the darker parts of himself. I decided to treat him lovingly but I laid down my boundaries.
“I quite literally do not consent to being in a relationship with that level of deception. I can handle it if you slip up with pornography, but not with the lies. I would respect you more if you broke up with me now, if you know deep down that it’s just in your nature to lie”
We got to a point where it seemed as though he felt relieved to have had his darker side revealed. He confided in me that he felt shame towards his sexual side and that over the years, he had hidden it away and because of that process it had become further removed from healthy reality and into darker, hidden territory. I remember saying to him that “I had similar experiences, and what I needed back then was someone to know what was going on, hold me accountable and to love me anyway - so I’m going to do that for you and trust that the love & the trust will be enough to at least earn your honesty”. I hadn’t had issues quite to his extent, but I could partially empathise with it and I decided that would be enough.
Despite this progress and my decision to continue supporting him, the impatience to my feelings persisted. More and more smaller lies were uncovered throughout our relationship. The amount of prior sexual experiences before me seemed to change every time we jokingly talked about them. I came to learn that a weirdly detailed story about sucking someone off because they invited him around to help him remove his bum hair was a total fabrication. I’m not even sure why you’d want to lie about that, I find it weird.
—-
6 months later I still am uneasy, because his demeanour is still reflective of someone who is deflecting. Deflecting my feelings, deflecting questions about his porn issues. Not massively obviously, he’s a really good liar. He can comfortably look into my eyes during an intimate / vulnerable moment and promise me something that later turns out to be false.
One night we’re chatting in the car and I open up to him.
“I’m sorry but I still feel quite strongly that you are deceiving me or that I don’t know the full story. At the very least, you haven’t opened yourself up to me”
He stormed out of the car whilst we’re stopped at a red light. Slammed the door. Started pacing down the streets at night on his own. When I pulled up next to him at his walking speed he screamed at the top of his lungs unintelligible stuff about getting the *** away from him. This lasted hours. I went after him and tried to calm him down, I saw it as a bit of an emergency and wasn’t thinking too much about the conversation that lead up to it. He was screaming at the top of his lungs with no care to who was around, “***ing leave me alone” “get the *** away from me” etc. I have a heart problem and it kicked in because of the stress. Even me suffering and having to sit down with a massively irregular heartbeat didn’t stop the shouting and he left me there alone. Screaming fits like this were frequent, but this one sticks out because it was triggered by me putting something to him that turned out to be valid and fair.
I decided it was time to end the relationship.
I told him that he had crossed the line into abuse and cruelty and that I wouldn’t accept that. He broke down and apologised in ways he had never apologised before and seemed to completely understand how I was feeling. I was confused but he stayed the night and we talked. We carried on seeing each other less officially. The relationship was so strained but I had (before the lies started) committed to moving to the other end of the country with him and the wheels for that were in motion.
After months of pleading and with our relationship looking like it was ending, he admitted to me that my fears were correct. He had a secret Twitter account with an explicit name with lots of porn on it. This was after hours of my basically begging him to just tell me. The relationship was ending anyway so “please don’t let me have to wonder about this forever”. We broke up for a while. I still felt like there was something worth fighting for. I’m obviously focussing on the lies in this post but we felt so comfortable in each others arms, we were and are hopelessly in love. I want / wanted to believe that these were temporary problems from being a bit of a troubled youth etc.
—-
I had undiagnosed ADHD at the time and I must confess after the multitude of lies and then this new revelation that I had been right for 6 months, I stared to go a little nuts. I would dump him, he would beg and cry, I would cry and apologise. We would have these massive peaks and troughs. At times, how uncertain I was about being with him probably did result in some cruel behaviour. I broke up with him in a nightclub in front of all of his friends and blocked him on everything for example. There were a couple of nights where I went blank faced and simple told him that I hated him. Mostly though, I was understanding, did everything I could to create an environment where he could tell the truth, lead with love and reminded him that all I cared about was honesty.
—-
We were now living in the new city and he was a little more levelled out m, but I still just did not know how to trust him. We had a massive break and it appeared like we had both done some genuine self development. I had done a lot of work on my ADHD, stopped drinking and generally became less up and down. He had a healthy social life, seemed more capable and willing to talk about the struggle he had been through with porn.
We decided to give things another go. Things were genuinely great. We were seeing each others nice side for the first time in a very long time. We were laughing. I had stopped worrying, I felt like I could trust him. I told him that we would draw a line in the sand.
The other night, he got a notification on Telegram, which is an app I had never seen him get a notification on in 2 years of being with him (he claims that’s not true, but from my perception it is). I asked him what he uses Telegram for. I had heard from a very promiscuous gay friend that he was in all these weird porn groups on Telegram and my heart sank a bit, but tried not to jump to any conclusions.
“Oh, updates on the Ukraine war”
I felt similar feelings to how I used to feel.
“Oh I’m quite interested in all that, could you show me?” (Yes yes. We all know why I really asked that)
Deflective but he said yes, but then proceeded to carry on with the video game we were playing. 3 minutes later he says he needs to go upstairs for a poo.
I broke cover. Calmly & nicely I said something along the lines of
“After everything that happened on your end I’m really sorry to have to do this, but I’m asking you to show me this telegram app and if I’m wrong I’ll apologise - but I think it’s only fair that you’re willing to be transparent with me”
He gets upset pretty quickly and essentially accuses me of not sticking to the clean slate agreement. I remain calm, but he doesn’t. It quite quickly turns to crying and “see, I knew this wouldn’t work out. It’s not going to work out is it”
I said that we don’t have to reach such drastic conclusions and I just want him to empathise towards why I might need some reassurance and that in our particular case, it shouldn’t be difficult to work out why I need that.
He put his foot down and said that he would absolutely not budge from his position. He referred to it as a ‘principle he would not break’
He starts packing a bag so I assume he wants to go and I offer him a lift. We both cry outside his flat because it’s obvious where this is heading. I try one more time to reason with him.
“You know exactly where I stand”
He leaves and as he drives off my eyes flood with tears and I instantly call him
“I know you’re probably lying to me and I’m sorry that you’re still struggling with porn and honesty, but we clearly love each other so much to have gone through off of this and still be here. I love you whether you’re telling the truth or lying. I can’t let you walk in the door. Get back in the car and we’l work it out”
On the way home I’m trying to hard to level with him that all he needs to do is tell the truth. He doesn’t interject to deny it so I feel like I’m getting somewhere with him. When we get home he lays on the pillow and I hover above him lovingly and say “c’mon let’s not do all this ***, just tell me the truth”
“There’s nothing to tell”
What do I do?
