Breaking up with my boyfriend?!?

[LiamPT]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on here. Really looking for some advice as im going through a very difficult patch at the moment.

Basically ive been with my boyfriend for 11 months now, I've just fallen head over heels for him (he did after about 2-3 months).

I was on his iPad last week just browsing on his bed and noticed he had a half naked picture of his body on it that had been taken on grindr.... I questioned him and he denied it; saying it was from before we were together. I knew it was a lie.

Over a week he denied it, said I had to show more trust, then he started getting annoyed. I knew he was lying but started questioning myself, thinking I had a trust issue. Anyway I couldn't take it anymore and I did something that im not proud of; I checked his facebook.

There was a msg on there from months before of him trying to meet a guy for sex, it was quite explicit. It ended without any confirmation of a meet though, the guy was going to 'let him know'.

He got back to his flat and I exploded, I was devastated. We then spoke and he said he never met him, he just gets a kick out of ppl finding him attractive as he is insecure about how he looks. He even admitted doing a similar thing back in January. he gets really horny when he thinks he can meet someone then that's what gets him off. He came face to face with a guy in January then told him he couldn't do it. He said he has spoke to a lot of ppl, exchanged pictures but never ever done anything with anyone.

We spoke and he is going to see a therapist to sort out the issues that do this, but I don't know what to do. I worry that this will always be here, he's devastated that were thinking of braking up. He bottles things up and doesn't talk about anything, he loves me and feels awful that this stupid thing could tear us apart, and I cant concentrate on a new job ive started because of the stress of this.

Does anyone have experience of this? Could really do with some advice.

Thanks,

Liam

[LateBloomer]

Simply put, these are boundary issues.

And it sounds like the boundaries were not clearly defined early in this relationship.

For some couples this sort of behavior (that doesn't result in physical sex) is tolerable. For others it's not. It's a question of what works for YOUR relationship.

Speaking only for myself, my definition of cheating is ANY activity that you wouldn't do with me looking over your shoulder or being in the same room.

If your partner is doing these things behind your back (playing you for the fool) rather than being open and honest about how he's spending some of his free time, then in my humble opinion I think you have a problem.

How you handle it is up to you.

Can you handle it if it's out in the open? If so, then you need to negotiate that "boundary". If you cannot tolerate it at all in your relationship then you need to make that perfectly clear to him. In that case his response will tell you everything you need to know.

Good luck.

[Jesunrocks]

Speaking only for myself, my definition of cheating is ANY activity that you wouldn't do with me looking over your shoulder or being in the same room.

I like this definition

[Jesunrocks]

if you can't stand what he does to get off. this just won't work, will it. but if you care about him that much. i think it's better to wait to see how the therapy will pan out.

[pellaz]

-put the new employ up front, deal with the bf as a secondary issue.
-if a therapist, both of you go in separate sessions, address the communications issues
-see if both of you can delete grinder etc off your computers

[LiamPT]

I no, he feels terrible for what he's done. It was the hiding everything from me which has hurt the most. I worry he has been sleeping with people and won't tell me encase I break up with him. I love him so much, it's just I worry it won't change at he could go back to it in the future.

As I said he met a guy face to face in January and couldn't go through with it. He just told me which gave me hope as I wouldn't have known otherwise. I just don't see how he could have gone to that stage but no further?

He says he's one of the 'time wasters' that makes ppl think he wants to meet but then doesn't. Has anyone experienced this before?

[LateBloomer]

I no, he feels terrible for what he's done. It was the hiding everything from me which has hurt the most. I worry he has been sleeping with people and won't tell me encase I break up with him. I love him so much, it's just I worry it won't change at he could go back to it in the future.

As I said he met a guy face to face in January and couldn't go through with it. He just told me which gave me hope as I wouldn't have known otherwise. I just don't see how he could have gone to that stage but no further?

He says he's one of the 'time wasters' that makes ppl think he wants to meet but then doesn't. Has anyone experienced this before?

When I was dating I corresponded with a few "time wasters", but I have never dated one, how could I? They would never meet!

You need to ask yourself if this is the type of behavior you want to put up with in your relationship.

Is it cheating? By MY definition it is and I know I couldn't handle the idea of my partner corresponding and even meeting people in person even if there was no sex.

My opinion again: Being in a relationship means we SACRIFICE certain things/people for the benefit of the relationship. It's the idea that we're BETTER OFF together than apart.

So the question becomes: What is good for the relationship? It's not a question of what's good for HIM or what's good for ME! But is this good for the RELATIONSHIP.

You both need to discuss this behavior in those terms.

If you both agree it's bad for the relationship (he's sorry, blah, blah, blah, it'll never happen again, etc...) well, now you have just drawn the line in the sand (set the boundary). And if it happens again, well, you know what to do.

Good luck.

[HomeagainNYC]

If a relationship is solid then there is no reason to look outside of it for any sort of stimulus - unless of course that was your foundations from the beginning.

From what you have posted I can't seem to detected that. Did I miss something?

Unfortunately an "alleged" time waster of this sort is a self absorbed person. So - if he has described himself accurately then that's another issues to consider.

How self absorbed is he and how do you factor into his into his self absorption?

[Vigilias]

"I was on his iPad last week just browsing on his bed and noticed he had a half naked picture of his body on it that had been taken on grindr.... I questioned him and he denied it; saying it was from before we were together. I knew it was a lie."

Just browsing? Are you sure you didn't go looking? You won't be the first and you wont be the last jealous partner to check their boyfriends pockets/phone/computer/laptop/ipad/bed sheets.

How do you notice a half naked pic of your boyfriend? It's my guess that this is the sort of thing he wouldn't have set as wall paper or a screen saver etc, it wouldn't have been so obvious for you to notice

Partners have been checking up on each other since Adam came home from the office to find Eve making Apple Pie.

I'm not bashing you here, I'm simply wondering if things have gone in exactly the way you tell us. I couldn't help notice those little linguistic clues; the adverb, just. I was just. We often use this word to minimise the culpability of an action we know is morally frowned upon - like reading someone's diary.
A relationship is founded on mutual trust. Then the verb "Noticed" with the clause "that".

If you're going to save this relationship you have to be honest with each other. Do you accept his explanation?

Can you live with it?

[LiamPT]

We've spoken a lot.

A big issue was we both never told each other things that bothered us.

An example, when I first met him there was a hygiene issue with him. He's a head chef, got really sweaty and it put me of sex a lot, I didn't want to tell him though because I didn't want to hurt his feelings.

He saw it as me having a really low sex drive, and he felt that I always had the final decision on sex, which I guess was true. We've now made these issues aware to each other. He showers a lot more and always before sex and that makes me a lot more happy.

I took me a while to fall in love, before I had met him I had been in a 12 months relationship (we had broken up about 3 months before I met Neil) and I was dating Neil for about a month, and I had previously agreed to go to an awards do with my ex, which I asked Neil if he would be ok with. He said he was, and in my head I new there was nothing between me and my ex. Neil even came tuxedo shopping with me for it. But Neil hated it, he was really unhappy about it, but never told me until this all came out a few weeks ago.

We both lived about 20 mins away when we met, and I told him I was moving to Manchester for a job and that was my main priority, he moved to Liverpool and were both about 50 mins away on the train now. He felt really let down that I didn't say he was the most important thing to me (which I now understand, and I was wrong to say that) but at the time I wasn't in love and I didn't really think about how what I was saying would come across. I wasn't really giving him the attention that he wanted (or deserved) and we think that might be why he was always on grindr talking to other guys.

When we met we both stayed on grindr for a while as well. We never really told each other that we shouldn't be on it even though we didn't like it, again because we didn't want to seem as if we were forcing each other to change.

I told him a month ago that I was in love with him; I thought he would be delighted. But he was annoyed because he felt that now that I had moved to Manchester and got that sorted that I was now saying 'ok we can be in love now because now I want to be'.

I always got the feeling over the last month that something had changed with him, cant put my finger on exactly what it was. And I think Vigilias is right, I went on his pictures on his iPad looking for something.

With regards to his explanation, I think in my head I've almost decided something must of happened and until he confirms that something did happen I won't accept that. I know I need to accept what he says as the truth in order to move on it's just hard at the moment because im still a bit shocked by the whole thing.

He wants to go to counselling either by himself or as a couple as well, which is huge for him because he was always a closed off person. Weve learned things about each over the last few days which can only improve the relationship. I just need to learn to trust him in what he has said and believe it in order for things to get better on my side.