My (31F) husband (32M) and I have been married for 1.5 years and together for almost 3. I left my home country to join him in the US for his PhD, but we’ve now moved back to Europe. We’re currently living separately.
From early on, there were red flags, now I’m wondering if I’ve been manipulated or just naive. Here’s a breakdown of the most concerning issues:
– He used Tinder while we were in a relationship (“just looking at profiles on the toilet”, he claimed)
– Followed half-naked girls on Instagram, comparing it to “looking at nice cars”
– Has a long-term porn and games addiction (DOTA) and made some disturbing, racially fetishizing Reddit searches, like:
– I lust for black girls Reddit
– I obsessed with black girls
– How to hit on female Uber passengers
– Met a girl on Facebook Marketplace… now what?
– Married men cheating on business trips
– He said “every man fantasizes, it’s normal” and I shouldn’t have looked through his devices if I didn’t want to see that
– Blames stress, ADHD, lack of sex, but never takes actual responsibility
– After failing his PhD and losing his teaching job, he started working illegally as an Uber driver and went into serious debt
– Never cleaned, left dishes/clothes everywhere, poor hygiene and said I should do everything because I didn’t pay for housing
Any time I bring up these issues, even jokingly or sarcastically, he gets offended, I’m “stressing him out” and I end up being the one apologizing. He claims that because he already apologized, I should move on, and if I don’t, it means I’m emotionally immature and just trying to make him feel guilty.
It’s been six months since I discovered those Reddit searches and I still can’t stop thinking about it. He wants to act like nothing happened and close the topic, but it keeps eating me alive.
Will this kind of behavior escalate, or will he just become better at hiding it? Do people like this ever change for real, or is it all just damage control?
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Have you ever considered you’ve made a mistake around choosing the person you thought you were spending the rest of your life with? Things don’t work out and people reveal things that if you known before you would have never stayed.
sounds like your garden variety cheater
Can I ask the obvious question why are you still with him??????
A behavior, especially if it’s an addiction it will likely to escalate, but it doesn’t mean that’s it’s a bad thing as long as it doesn’t damage anyone. I’m talking about his fantasies here. On the other hand in my opinion lacking of sex and intimacy could lead to you know Reddit search like you mentioned. He might be looking for something to fufil his needs. However, blaming you, showing signs of control, and even telling things that you should have done things in a certain way is not the right thing to do and it is disrespectful. We humans should be able to make our own decisions. Nobody likes to be told what to do or live a certain way. We want someone who understand and accept us the way we are. It sounds to me that he’s a man who lacks of responsibility and doesn’t own up to consequences of his action. So you might have to ask yourself what you wanna do from now. Do you wanna stay stuck like this? Or do you think there’s still a chance that he can change even if it’s the slightest.
Ali Wong made jokes about porn addiction saying that you start out very vanilla and you get progressively more degenerate. The internet will always keep up and offer more.
It was funny, but in my experience, it is also true. People with porn addictions will escalate and pretty soon the act of watching no longer satisfies them.
This is especially true for the cheating “fantasies.”
Every person fantasises about something. In a lot of cases, fantasies become goals. That is healthy fantasy.
Not every man has degenerate fantasies. Also any person who thinks they can speak on behalf of 4 billion people is an idiot.
I have adhd but I am not self diagnosed and am medicated. I am nothing like him so if it’s not consistent behaviour then how can it be an excuse.
The difference is I use my diagnosis to improve my behaviour and he uses it to excuse his.
I am not going to go through each point but there are enough red flags in this man that should send you running and screaming from him.
He will continue to manipulate you into feeling bad about his actions.
He will not get better. Change without accountability is practically impossible. He can’t change if he doesn’t think he is doing anything wrong.
He is poisoning you and it will affect your future relationships when you eventually have had enough.
Do yourself a favour and respect and love yourself (and future self) enough to walk away.
Got to say this is overall scummy behaviour on his part. I guess you’re reaching the conclusion yourself, but there doesn’t seem to be much here to keep you in the relationship.
I think all his excuses are BS to put it lightly. Going through them:
(1) Using Tinder Whilst in a relationship: emotionally cheating and very scummy.
(2) Half naked girls on Insta: again very scummy and nasty behaviour.
(3) His addictions and Fetishes: All are possibly linked to stepping out on the relationship.
I can confirm every guy does not fantasize about cheating on their partner and all of the things you’ve listed. I doubt he would empathise with this point, but imagine his reaction to you being on Tinder, liking half naked guys pics and searching effectively “how to cheat on my husband”
He would flip.
Only he’s the one doing this, and is trying to gaslight you into taking his nasty behaviour…
If you couldn’t tell my advice would be to leave him and find someone who is going to give you the time of day, and not put you through this…