How do i leave
I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about 3 years now. I’m currently living with him. He has a major porn addiction coupled with consistent watching/looking at naked or half naked girls online. At the start I had no idea, and when I realized the full extent of what he was doing (dming *** models, ***, msg other women on both *** and snap, his entire *** was girls dancing etc) I obviously asked him to stop. It had really really hurt me. One day, I went into his camera roll and realized he had hundreds of photos/videos of *** from many people we had gone to high school with or he knew before we started dating. This was months into the relationship. He told me I invaded his privacy, and he would delete them and nothing bad would happen again.
Flash forward to this morning as I’m laying in bed at 4am unable to sleep, and I get a gut wrenching feeling something is wrong. At this point my trust for him had gotten better so I hadn’t been feeling this anxiety for a bit. But his YouTube, (the only social media app he has after deleting them all because I asked him to stop liking photos of girls) and what’s he watching? Lingerie try on videos. Confronted him got messy he’s working and I’m at home (day off luckily) like what am I supposed to do? He has completely destroyed my self esteem. I want to leave him but he is my best friend.
@l03 I'm sorry to hear about your situation. It sounds very difficult and painful. First off. I believe that being in a relationship that harms your self-esteem is not healthy for you psychologically. I also know that people's behavior online, specifically porn addiction, is harmful to most people involved. It sounds like you have tried to address the issue with him before and he still is not honoring your requests.
So it is time to make a decision about what you want out of this relationship. I know you said he is your best friend but do you really want to be in a relationship with someone who does not value you and your feelings?
Is he also making an effort to address his porn addiction in therapy or through a support group?
@l03 with a "best friend" like what you described, who needs enemies?