Last year I had a feeling my husband was watching gay porn. One night while we were on our couch, he got up to use the bathroom, and I wanted to listen to music while I was studying for my grad school exam. I accidentally used his airpods instead of mine (they look identical) and instead of my music, I heard men having sex. I thought it was a weird pop-up on my phone, but then I realized I wasn’t even connected, and that it must be whatever my husband is listening to in the bathroom. Well, I go confront him and he says he has no idea what I’m talking about, and that maybe his airpods connected to a neighbor’s device. I obviously didn’t believe this, but had an exam the next day so I let it go.
Fast forward to this past Sunday, my husband and I were meeting up for dinner after work, but my phone died and I didn’t have a charger in my car, so he let me take his phone for directions to get home. As I’m driving home from the restaurant, I wanted to look up something on the internet, to which I then find my husband’s last opened tab—a private, incognito search of naked guys on X. I thought, oops, he might’ve accidentally opened something, and hit back page, but as I kept going to previous pages, it was more and more naked pictures of men.
I knew he would probably try to deny it, so I left it on the X webpage and gave his phone back to him. I confronted him again. He denied it again, and said he wasn’t sure how it got there. I open his incognito page in front of him, and it’s empty (he closed the page). At this point I obviously know he’s lying and call him out. He walks out, and comes back a few moments later and admits to it. He’s been watching gay porn/looking at naked men and masturbating during our entire relationship (we’ve been together for 9 years!). He then comes out as bisexual, which he admits he didn’t know until I confronted him.
I was shocked. My husband’s biggest pride is being an amazing partner (kind of like Ned Fulmer vibes, IYKYK) and we both agreed at the start of our relationship that watching porn crosses our boundaries because it distorts people’s views on sex. He has also never done anything to make anyone question his (previous) heterosexuality.
I know it may not be a big deal, but it felt like such betrayal because he lied to me straight through his teeth about something we agreed we wouldn’t do, and I didn’t know he was attracted to men. I just feel like I don’t know him. He’s has always treated me well, but keeping this kind of secret from me has obviously ruined my trust in him. So I’m asking, if this has happened to you, what did you do? How do we move forward?
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Now you know more about your husband, which is part of growing and being together. At this point I think you need to decide can you live with a husband that has these different dimensions and how would you accommodate them. If you can, go tell him that you love him for what ever he may spring on you and you want him to be happy. If you can’t, go tell him that you love him so much that you are going to set him free from your relationship. Which ever you choose do it promptly. Please don’t paper over this crack. It is not going to go away.
You need a real, straight, god fearing man.
This must be seriously such a huge shock. I can imagine you might be in shock and probably in the early stages of grief of your relationship. I hope you are ok. It’s ok to be angry and upset about this. My heart goes out to you.