Triggers
Hi everyone! I’ll try to keep this as short and straight to the point as possible-
My current boyfriend has done many things to ruin trust, look up naked women online throughout the entire relationship in which I had just found out Jan of this year.
I have also caught him looking up his ex
He has also (from what he told me) thought a coworker (worked at a gym) was “good looking” and “caught a vibe”
-keep in mind all of this happened from December 2022- February 2023-
…
So, from all of this hurt that I’m trying to move past on and he’s claiming to be better and not make these mistakes again, I find it super hard to not be triggered by social media and specific apps he’s used to look up women (***, ***, YouTube, google chrome) I can’t even use these apps myself anymore because of these triggers. And when I try to, I find myself imagining the things he’d do on that app and what it was.
The other trigger is the name of that coworker including another one that he texted and deleted chats.
+ Does anyone have any tips on dealing/getting passed these triggers? Please if you have any recommendations, please share!! Thank you!:)
@powerfulPlum3916 I'm willing to talk about it
@powerfulPlum3916
Heyy there. I'm really sorry to hear you're going through this. After what he's done, I can understand how trusting him would be difficult.
It's positive that your boyfriend claimed to be better, but healing takes time. Perhaps you can talk to him about how you feel, express your need for reassurances and transparency.
Remember, you deserve care and love from your boyfriend, and to be in a relationship where you feel safe, respected and valued. 💜
I hate to say this, but (based on my experiences with my soon-to-be ex-husband) you'd do well to let him go.
I found the first chats my husband had with hookers and other strange women 2 years ago, about 6 months into our relationship. He swore he would stop. He claimed he did stop.
In November of 2021, he gave me syphilis that he got from one of the girls he had sworn he would "never ever talk to again." He waited until I was asleep, took my car keys, and got a *** from her in my car. Then he came home and broke my nose.
I stayed.
We had the same fights over and over about the same things... His online infidelity and how much I wanted him to stop. Or even just..... message chicks who were too far away from us to be any real temptation.
The night before we got married, he actually took responsibility for the *** in my car (rather than blaming it on me, which he had always done before). And he promised me that nothing like what we had gone through before would ever happen again. So, we got married.
3 months into our marriage, I found the first dating apps on his phone. From then on, every time I looked at his phone, I found something new. A new online dating account, a new Snapcheat profile, text messages between him and other women, asking them to come get him and offering to meet them for sex, *** messages, ***, Google searches for local hookups, Tumblr, something.... and the more I found, the more he promised it would never happen again. And the more he resented my presence and how I reminded him of his infidelities, his guilt.
On our one year anniversary, I had my husband arrested for aggravated domestic battery. He reached across the car and hit me in the face for questioning why he had factory reset his phone and what he was trying to hide from me.
He is still awaiting trial, and I am filing for divorce. I have a no contact order so that he can't hurt me again.
But.... since he has been in jail (since June), I have found even more evidence of his continued perfidy and deception.
I'm not saying that your boyfriend is going to be the same kind of abusive, manipulative piece of crap that I married..... But it's unlikely he's going to stop looking elsewhere. As long as he knows you will tolerate it, he will do it.
For your own well-being, I hope you have the strength and self-respect to leave and find someone who will love and respect you.... because that guy doesn't.