Am I Jealous or Should He be Doing These Things?
Visitor's Question from a 21-30 year old FemaleI am truly in love with my mate but I do not trust him. My mates past is pretty active. He has had alot of partners and continues to have urges i guess. I also had a point when my mate cheated on me. Yes at the time we were not in a commited relationship but i still felt very betrayed because we basically lived together.
The other thing I am bothered by is the Porn and chatting. I am so scared that he will do this. Scared to where i always search log files and snoop. What it comes down to is I am afraid. When someone watches porn and makes it such a big deal then why do they need me? He also says that it keeps him from cheating. I am uncertain and hurt.
Do I have strong morals, and beliefs that I should sacrifice? Or do I stay strong with my beliefs and leave? I absolutly hate the computer now. I am also afraid that it will go farther than that. They last thing is I have been lied to. Can this be fixed. He is mad because I snoop and am nosey. I dont feel that this is as bad. HELP PLEASE
RomanceClass.com AdviceThis one is a bit complicated! OK first, trust is KEY in any relationship. It is VERY VERY important and as you know when you can't trust someone it just eats away at everything else. Honesty and trust are far more important than just about anything else you have in a relationship.
Let's ignore the fact that it's porn for a moment that he's doing. Let's just say he's doing something he knows you dislike. That he's lying about it, deliberately deceiving you. He knows it would hurt you but he does it because his desire to do it is greater than his desire not to cause you harm. This could be fishing or bowling or anything else. I just wrote up a long response to a question about core differences for someone else, but in essence if two people feel strongly and differently about a key issue, it's not something you can just talk about and resolve. Either you find some way that both people are HONESTLY satisfied about how they feel about that issue, or you need some find someone who IS honestly happy sharing your point of view on that issue.
Otherwise one of you feels "put out" that you are giving up something you feel is important to you - and the other person becomes the "daddy" or "mommy" who is always having to be on the lookout for whether the other person is being "bad" and indulging in something forbidden. That just causes the relationship to fall apart, as one person is sneaking around and trying to do it and the othe person is trying to catch them at it. Recipe for disaster.
So now, to make things worse, the issue is porn. Some people love porn. Some people hate porn. It's not innately good or bad. Lots of couples watch porn films together and it adds a lot of spice to their life. It's the same as them playing with sex toys or something. But for other people, porn seems degrading and harmful. So they don't watch porn and are happy. They might see sex toys as unnatural and not use them. That's fine. But if one person loves playing with sex toys and the other person thinks they're evil and unnatural, then neither person is going to be happy. And even if you find a compromise, one person will feel "tainted that they have to be *near* the evil stuff" and the other people will feel "left out because they could be doing something *really fun* but the mean spoil-sport won't let them."
As a final comment, for ANYONE to say they need porn to keep from cheating indicates there's a serious problem. You should be true and faithful to your partner because they are important to you, and because you value and respect the relationship that you are both working on. If you need to "do things to trick yourself into staying", it's wrong. If he feels "I really want to be out there sleeping around, but I'll make a saaaaacrifice and only sleep with you because it's what you want, but I have to watch porn films to make me feel less bad about this sacrifice I'm making," it's just the entirely wrong frame of mind for a happy relationship.
So anyway, don't make porn out to be the real issue. Porn is a symptom. If you argue about porn, you can always say that Porn is Icky, and he can say Porn is just Female Bodies, and it gets you nowhere. The real issue is trust. And it comes down to you saying "I can't trust you. You know this hurts me, you want to do it anyway, and you lie to me. So I can't trust you, which is the foundation of the relationship." And in response he can say "I really want to do this, and I feel justified in lying to you because I think my feelings on this are more important than your feelings against it. If I changed what I am to meet your needs, you wouldn't love me for ME - you would love me for me being WHAT YOU WANT YOUR GUY TO BE LIKE." Which are both valid thoughts - but they mean that your ability to remain partners is just not matching up. You should have someone that you can love *as he is*. And he deserves to be with someone who loves him *as he is*.
-- from Jenn
One of Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com
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