Partner support and fetishes
Hello community. I am really struggling with my fiance. He used to watch porn but has replaced it with lingerie models, young girls doing yoga on YouTube, etc. A handful of times, he has taken screenshots of young girls out in public. The absolute worst part is that he has an attraction to my daughter who is 18. For almost 2 years, he viewed pictures of her through through his gallery on his phone and texts. Through screenshots, I can see that he zooms up on her private body parts. I have confronted him on this but he denies it up and down. He usually tries to change the subject and tell me my faults of being messy and always being late, etc. Also, he says I have to learn to forgive and says I need to move forward or that he grew up with that or men are prewired to look or I'm extra sensitive to it since I was sexually abused. It's confusing because he treats me well and my daughter well. He doesn't make her feel uncomfortable but I am beside myself because I know what is going through his head. The porn was hard enough to deal witj but the attraction to my daughter is beyond words. Any guidance?
@sunnyWheel2300 This seems like a delicate situation and I can tell why you are struggling with a decision. I should start by saying that I have never been in a situation like this before. So I'm providing a bit of a naive opinion in how to move forward. Therefore, if you don't think I'm qualified to respond, I understand.
My initial thought when I read your post was "what about the daughter?". If your partner is getting worse with these habits rather than better, if he is not willing to admit he has a problem most days, if he refuses to get help, then he sounds like he could become a bigger threat to your daughter. As hard as it is, I think that there needs to be a change. Either he needs to get help or he needs to remove himself from your daughter's life before he hurts her. The most important thing in this situation is protecting your daughter from a potential threat. Once she's protected, then you can decide if it's worth fixing the relationship with your partner. Once she is safe, you can discuss couples counseling, you can discuss treating his porn addiction, you can discuss whether you want to work to keep the relationship going or cut it off now.
I also wanted to say that it has been unfair of him to invalidate your own feelings and concerns because of your previous expereinces. I'm sorry that he has been confusing you that way. After I left my last relationship, after I started talking about him with a counselor, I realized he did that to me a lot too. As I think back, I can think of many times when he was emotionally manipulative. I think in the moment I knew something was wrong too but I always chose to doubt my feelings rather than doubt his words. That's why the manipulation lasted as long as it did. I would hate for this to happen to you too. I think it helps to talk to someone about these confusing thoughts. A counselor might be able to help you figure out if you need to work on processing previous trauma or if you are being manipulated by your partner. My guess is the later based on your post but I don't have enough information (or training) to say for sure.