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My boyfriend goes on chaturbate , overreacting? I don't mind if my boyfriend watches porn. But I honest to god accidentally got into his history and saw chaturbate. To me that's an entirely different thing. Him watching a live girl and chatting with them just bugs me so much. I will admit I have self esteem issues and it makes me feel less desirable. But to me that's like cheating? I really don't know how to put it. What should I do?
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Have you and he clearly discussed this topic ahead of time, where both of you have set down agreed upon rules, boundaries and expectations for your relationship in All areas, not just sexual or porn? If not, you can not rightly hold him responsible for breaking a rule or crossing a boundary in the relationship.
A parent training a child will tell them what is off limits. As a mom, I would have to teach my daughters what my expectations were and why. Such as, not robbing the cookie jar any time they wanted. If they did eat cookies whenever they wanted, and I had never explained my reasoning, that it would spoil their appetite for dinner then I could not blame them for doing something wrong and eating cookies before dinner simply on the grounds that I assumed they should be able to figure it out.
We too often go into relationships full of assumptions and that's just asking for trouble down the road!!!
After a failed first marriage, I had by later in life finally learned that I had to be clear Beforehand on what was acceptable to me and what wasn't. I had my ground rules. I had maybe 5 idiots on the dating site write that my expectations were too high. But others respected my list of requirements and found it refreshing that I knew what I wanted and shared it up front (before even a first date,) and many guys said they felt more secure to interact with me, knowing what was expected up front, and they were willing to comply, agree with and live by my rules. I did find my 2nd husband through there and we have not had any problems. Kids too need boundaries, they feel insecure without them and thats why kids will test to see if the boundaries are still there. The problem is not spoiled kids but parents who do not consistantly hold to the boundaries.
You may think you have communicated by saying something like, "It's okay to watch porn". To me, thats like telling the kids, sure, its okay to go down to play BY the creek." I know how kids think and I also know that if I don't specify ahead of time that playing by, (next to)the creek is okay but they are not to wade in and get their clothes and shoes wet, then I can't expect them to follow my expectations. Technically, they aren't breaking rules or my trust until they have chosen to go against my wishes that have been clearly spelled out.
You might be thinking, Isn't there some kind of sense of right and wrong that a guy should have where they Should be able to figure out ahead of time that one kind of porn is okay and another not because it crosses the line? What line? Who placed that line or boundary? Did you? Did you verbally inform him or was he supposed to be a psychic or mind reader? A nude shot in Penthouse or on line, a porn movie, or live females on line to chat with phone sex, topless joints, it's all one and the same for the guy who is doing it for sexual gratification, its porn.
So I vote for having an in depth discussion about what your expectations are, explain why you see it as off limits. Explain why as you told us that to you that's entirely a different thing. If a man loves a woman, he will not want to do anything that he knows for sure would hurt her, break trust, or jeopardize the relationship, right?
But on the flip side, Razhie, and you and I are looking at this as you being cheated on. And we need to take a step back and realize that for the most part, this is just theater of the mind, that ours brains are the biggest sexual organ we have. What I mean by theater of the mind should be self explanatory. But i will give examples to make sure we all understand.
What woman hasn't seen a photo or a movie or a passion scene with an actor she considers handsome and imagines briefly what it would feel like to have him paying her attention, kissing her, holding her and some will imagine more. Did I really kiss Brad Pitt? (or pick your choice actor) Whats to stop my mind from imagining the face of another guy when I am having sex with the husband? How do I know what person is in his mind when he's pleasuring me? Is it only about you? Is it just all about him?
Hubby and I will role play being different people, maybe some random person from another period, and act and speak the part and carry it into sex too. Are my husband and I mutually cheating on each other at that moment because I am a medieval princess to him in love with someone beneath my station, a knight. We are so good at the imagining part and our mind creating the sexual pleasure because of it. I have read that some women like to have the husband role play with her that he is a stranger, forcing her, raping her. She would never in real life want to experience the real thing. But she enjoys it sexually with her partner who is known and safe to her, so she can enjoy the danger element that excites her sexually but when it comes down to it, she knows in the end, her partner would do nothing to really hurt her or harm her. This is theater of the mind, total imagination, a great part of our excitement and pleasure coming from the part that was imagined, not the actual sex. If one or both of us imagined anything sexual with other people all the time and never took time to love, and pay attention to the needs of each other, then we would have a problem.
Here's another example of the imagination/theater of the mind:
Often I hear from gals concerning an LDR, some guy they met on line and have been in a relationship with for some extended period of time, 1 to 5 years. I tell them the same I am going to tell you, while it may seem real to them, it is not in fact a full blown relationship anywhere but in their minds, its just a fantasy. The internet is a great tool for finding a person but once found they need to take it to face to face because on screen is a flat one dimensional thing, its too easy to misrepresent or lie and its hard for example to know what the person is like 24/7 when sad, angry, worried, happy and knowing whether you can handle that. There is no opportunity to experience life together and build trust , experiences you have solid proof of by going through together. ON Line, you can only suspect trust having been broken but cant know for sure. Those types of LDR's are nothing more than a fantasy in ones mind. The mind imagines and fills in the gaps of what it can not experience in real life.
Guess what? The same thing is going on with pornography. The only problem is when some people consider the internet more real than real life. And they give it that priority and that status and things get out of balance and then real life and real girlfriends or wives get neglected.
"Real life should always come first", something a friend who plays "Second Life" online says. I agree. Real life should always come first. The question now remains, is he truly taking care of all your needs, emotionally, mentally, physically and sexually? If not, that is the real issue to be addressed.
My husband is as much a male as the next guy and enjoys nude shots of the female body. Looking at porn got him through after a divorce when he had no girlfriend. Then he met me. He wakes up way earlier than me and though I've repeated said its okay to wake me up sometimes for morning sex, he'd rather let me sleep. What he does instead is go on the computer and look at naked female shots....all of me....photos he took himself and sometimes he just looks at them and imagines and sometimes he'll masturbate. The key factor here is that he focuses first on making sure all my needs are met sexually and of course I reciprocate and do the same for him. Still, as much good sex as we have, there's always going to be a time when he will need to do this. I know he looks at my pics because I came up behind him early one morning when he had the screen up with photos of me. This is how it should be but not every relationship is as perfect. Has he seen porn clips while I've been with him? Yes, occasionally some of his old childhood guy friends will send links to funny stuff sexually, sexual jokes but sometimes the odd nudity clips. He doesnt know til he opens it. He'll usually call me over to share it with me. Nothing is kept hidden. I liked one of nude males and females on the beach posing as a group in artistic formations, like a slow changing dance, holding each position for a while. The human body can be a beautiful art form. One does not need porn to masturbate. A nude real life, non nude photo or painting or statue can be sexually stimulating too if a persons mind was open to that. At what point do we regulate and police what goes on in a persons mind...yours or his? This situation is as much what you make of it in your mind as his reasons for doing it. If my husband had a higher sex drive than me, met all my needs and still wanted more from me than I wanted to be bothered to give, I'd be perfectly happy to let him look at porn. You see, it would be in balance. Its a rare thing in 5 years together, but the one or two he has viewed he will ask me later if I want to see what he looked at. The only times that happened is when my poor husband hadn't began taking nude shots of me yet to ogle while i was still asleep and the one video he actually viewed was a nude female model posing, not doing sex but he liked it only because her body was the exact shape as mine. All he really wanted to see was me. I had to agree he was right, she did look just like me body wise.
I hope that you and he will be able to work something out together. What is going to be okay for both of you depends on the individual, where you are at in life, past experiences that may influence your interpretation of it that determines the stance you take and that is okay. So depending on where each of you are coming from and for what reasons, perhaps both of you are in the right. What you need to do is talk, lay down boundaries and come to an agreement or some compromise you both can live with. I wish you both the best. ]
It's a betrayal.
You had a perfectly reasonable expectation that he wasn't haven't sexual contact with other people. As much as a there was no touching involved, video-chatting is not the same as watching porn. He has sought out a sexual interaction with another person. That's very different. That's a huge breach of trust.
So don't make this all about your feelings, and your self-esteem. Women often fall into that when it comes to porn, but that isn't the core of the issue here. The issue here is that you thought you had one kind of relationship agreement (the kind that would exclude sexual activities with others) and that he broke that agreement.
He'll probably want to justify his actions - he may honestly feel this is no different than watching porn (he'd be wrong, but he may still honestly believe that) but he can't really argue that your expectation wasn't reasonable. It was totally reasonable of you to assume that he watches porn, but that he doesn't seek out sexual activities with others. You self-esteem has nothing to do with it. What he did was try to get off on a technicality when it comes to trust, and trust doesn't work that way. He doesn't get a pass because of the 'fine print'. On some level, as much as he may enjoy this behaviour or justify it in his own mind, I suspect he recognizes that doing this behind your back really sucked.
Let him know this behaviour is not the same as porn, and isn't what you signed up for and that you feel betrayed by his attempt to 'round down' video chatting to the same as 'porn watching', when it is in fact far closer to flat out cheating to bring someone else in the mix, even a stranger, even just online. ]
I would honestly just sit down with and talk about it. Express how it makes you feel insecure. Just be honest. I hope this helped to some extent. Good Luck :) ]
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