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Did I handle this correctly?

User Profile: powerfulFriend1590
powerfulFriend1590 July 13th, 2025

My boyfriend and I 17F, 17M (been together almost 2 years) were having an innocent conversation on our experiences with p0rn and how we dealt with it when we were younger. I am very against watching it in our relationship and I have made that very clear, but I am confident he has not done that. However, we were on the topic of nud3s and he was talking about how guilty he feels for asking that of girls when he was middle school aged and all that. And he said that there was one girl he became friends with that he had recently apologized to for being so disrespectful in that way. Apologizing wasn’t my issue. In fact, I was very proud of him doing so and it made me proud that he was such a good person now and has grown so much especially because he is still technically young. It is very rare nowadays to find a man that not o lu doesn’t lust over other women, but can also see the damage of his own actions. Very respectable imo. However, what bothered me was the fact that he did not tell me he had contacted this woman. I also had never heard of this woman before. I was very hurt by the fact that he did not feel comfortable coming to me with his past and that he had also contacted this woman that he had known in this intimate way without me knowing. We had a long conversation, he explained every detail of how his apology went (very short and respectful), he told me he felt the need to apologize because of the overwhelming guilt of his actions and was scared to tell me because he thought i would think less of him for acting that way in the past (which is totally untrue). I reassured him that i am here for him and would have even encouraged the apology if he had just told me. I have BPD, so i tend to overthink things a lot. I asked how I would know he wouldn’t do something like this again. He promised to be more vulnerable with me and that there were no ill intentions in this situation. We have talked it out and I do forgive him, but I would like to know if I handled this correctly.

2
User Profile: Spiritriver
Spiritriver July 14th, 2025

@powerfulFriend1590

It sounds to me as though you handled it very well. In fact, I'd stay that you handled it with admirable wisdom.

Although it has been a couple of years, it's not unusual for a partner to be reluctant to share something they are not proud of. Sometimes, it takes a few years. It's not necessarily a reflection on you, but he may care for you so much that he's afraid of risking, if even there is the smallest chance that you would feel shaken or hurt if he did tell you.

It also sounds like this experience may bring the two of you closer and improve both your communication and your level of trust with each other.

1 reply
User Profile: powerfulFriend1590
powerfulFriend1590 OP July 15th, 2025

i appreciate this. i also took this exact post to reddit and they are flaming me over there. i struggle with overthinking and mental health in itself, and handling this in such a calm way is great improvement of how i used to be. even though it has only been a couple of days, our relationship and communication has shown so much improvement so far. he takes my feelings into more account when making decisions, he asks me how i feel about even small things he does, he realizes i cannot control my overthinking but he reassures me and helps me get over it, he shares his opinions and thoughts with me. i am happy that this has helped prove our relationship so much. thank you for the advice as well!!

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