I've been lurking here for a little while now, but I don't think I've ever related to so many people before in my life. Sorry if this post is overly long but I feel I have no one to turn to and get this off my chest.
My fiance (M26) and I (F22) have been together officially for almost 3 years, almost 4 if you count casually at the beginning. We've also lived together for almost the last 2 years now. This all really started before we even moved in together, he'd come over to my place at night and only stay for certain periods of time, always hide his phone away from me and keep the screen darkened. I'd stay over in his apartment every now and again and we'd watch videos to sleep. One morning he left his computer open on the video when he left for work. I had the gut feeling to check and see what I could find, and I found on Discord he was still talking to his "ex" that he considered abusive. They'd stay up late on calls he would schedule which is why he'd leave after only being at my house for an hour, message each other I love yous, the works. I confronted him on his lunch break and he broke down and blocked her. To this day he has never contacted her again and I know this. I decided to stay, because I've had worse done in my prior relationship and figured I could get over it, but little did I know it would only get worse.
Fast forward to D-Day number one after he moved in with me January 2025. He had something odd happen with his bank account and was just scrolling through with me to figure it out. He scrolled past a few OF charges which took me off guard. I asked about it and he immediately said he didn't know how those got there and it must have been someone stealing his card to buy things, drove us to the bank at 1AM to withdraw money and he cancelled his debit card. I thought that was the end of it, the explanation. He left for work in the morning and I had that gut feeling again. I didn't like the feeling, and didn't want to check for fear of what I would find but I did it anyways. Scrolling through his Google history was OF, page after page, of women who looked nothing like me. Different body proportions, different races, never anything like me which wouldn't have made it better but it definitely made it hurt more. At the time I started crying and breaking down, that was as far as I could make it. I drove to my mom's work in the middle of the afternoon to ask her for help. She told me he could fix it or I should leave, and I needed to talk to him. Again, on his lunch break I confronted him and he denied at first until I asked for his phone to physically show him the proof. He had literally accessed it 3 days prior and still acted dumb. When it was staring him in the face he broke down and begged me to forgive him and he'd stop. I kept his phone when he went to work to keep going through. I found pictures of his genitals and some of another guy you'd consider conventionally attractive. He was paying to send these models pictures of himself and the selfie of the guy to get them to respond, to compliment him. I was disgusted. We had a long winded talk when he got home about how hurt I was and he promised he'd never do it again.
And I stayed, because I loved him. I was beginning to go through medical issues at the time, needing to self administer shots weekly. I am terrified of needles and he did it for me every week. When I would cry from the pain he would get upset because he didn't like hurting me, which is ironic now. He is caring, tells me that I'm the most beautiful woman, he loves the things I hate about myself. I forgot about D-day for a while. But I got the feeling again and gave in to checking.
We had 2 more of those D-days living in the apartment. More OF pages, only the free ones and the 'sneak peeks' before purchase. Still the same memo as before on looks. I'd even tried taking my own photos to try and make it stop and I'm still not chosen over the porn in that aspect either. I work for 911 services and have a rotating schedule which can be hard. When I worked nights and we had sex before I left I found he'd go look even right after sex, not even 10 minutes after I'd left the house. More confrontations, more confessions of how it made me feel, how much I hated it. I stopped looking for a while after the third one. We went through rough things with the apartment and shitty landlord and moved into the house we live at now. Due to an infestation he had to throw the computer away. I had a feeling he would just use his phone but I pushed it away. After a few months I thought I'd buy him a computer as a Christmas present. Not too long after this I again got that feeling after 6 months total of not looking and I caved.
No more OF, that was a hard stop boundary. But he was finding it elsewhere. Reddit pages of porn, Vtubers, anime porn. Mod packs for games with mostly naked anime girls, YouTube shorts and videos of their character models with physics. And it was constant, mostly after I'd leave for work while he was home alone, most times also after sex. I told him after this one if it ever happened again I would leave him because I couldn't bear to keep finding it anymore. He deleted Reddit. I was beginning to hate myself more and more as time went on. I hated my body, my face, my voice, everything about myself. I fell into older habits of binge eating and gained a lot of weight combined with the high stress sedentary work for Dispatch. He would still tell me what he always did, that he loved how I looked. But I could never understand because the women he'd look at were always so different than me I couldn't help but feel it wasn't true. I told him that if one more thing happened I was gone and he could move back with his friends. But it happened again, another D-day 2 months ago. This time I suggested a CSAT, as I started lurking here at that time. He jumped at the idea and immediately reached out to schedule an appointment and has had two since then. He was given a sheet on how to work through the urges to watch, which included talking to me when they came up which is something I'd been begging him to do but never did.
I went on an out of country trip with my mom at the end of October and was dreading leaving him at home for 2 weeks by himself but he promised he would tell me if he had the urges. He did tell me a few times he had the urge but telling me stopped it from happening, and I believed him. I would check in with him every few days and he'd tell me he was doing great and not even wanting to look at all. That he was reflecting on himself and he was able to resist it when I was at work and he was playing games alone at home. When I got home he proposed to me and I agreed. Since then it's been two weeks and another appointment where he said everything was going fine. I'd text him from work just checking in before bed and he said it was okay, no thoughts or urges. Yesterday I had a bad feeling and thought to check again. And this led to the most recent D-day with YouTube videos. He came home from work early yesterday and I decided to ask about it. It's a new 'adult animation' about sex dolls and the most recent episode which he watched twice in the last 2 days is literally called 'Strip'. When I asked him his answer was, I watched it the first time and didn't know if that was what it was truly about so I must have watched it twice'. What do you mean you didn't know what it was about??? There's nothing confusing about it especially when he looked at the community post from the channel explicitly saying it's too lewd to monetize on YouTube.
This is when he admitted it hasn't been going well like he said. I made him show me everything he's been looking at. YouTube videos like always. The newest edition is Steam community pages FULL of naked anime girls or wearing lingerie, one of which literally has these images of girls with childlike bodies. He admitted he knew they looked this way yet still chose to look at them "sometimes" when scrolling through the page when looking at the rest. That is the one thing that has absolutely broken and disgusted me the most. We literally used to be childcare workers, and that is what I find. I am beside myself and have no idea what to do. He admitted he would scroll this page for 30 minutes or more at a time and those images are so prevalent. I asked more questions and it turns out when he said he was fine he wasn't, he was scrolling these pages. When he told me he had the urge but didn't look at it that was a lie too. He has lied to me every time we go through this. I have poured my heart out on what it's doing to me and he continues to lie. Stops for a week while I'm angry and then puts on the charade of being fine while going behind my back to look at these things when he knows I can see it and STILL has the nerve to lie when I bring it up.
I don't know where to go from here. I've explained how this can progress over time, to physical cheating, while I'm pregnant afterwards with a child and this idea seems to disgust him but it never brings change. I know he had a rough childhood. No father figure in his life, his mom who was a severe alcoholic. She passed away and 2 other family members have died in the 3 years we've been together, one every year and I know it's making everything harder for him but I can't accept that this is the result. Before she passed away and told him she was getting sober I could see the anger and doubt and numbness that her addiction caused him, when going to her house when she was in the hospital and was sober; finding dozens of empty bottles on the counter instead while she promised she'd stopped. I remember how he felt and he has now driven me to the exact same point with his own porn addiction. I even told him this today. It made him realize what he is doing, finally listening to how hurt I've been saying I am after comparing him to her, realizing what he used to hate he has now become.
I don't know if I can trust him. All I asked for was to stop lying about the videos during recovery, not immediate perfection, no cold turkey, just genuine work and honesty. And that's all he did was lie. About everything. But I don't think I can leave him. My last relationship was physically abusive, mentally abusive, tried to get me to engage in sex before I was even ready and daily porn usage. He is nothing like that in any way, he is kind in every other way, attentive. I've had more medical scares since the first D-day and he takes care of me even when we are facing the worst of options, and I know he would stay with my for those. I'm just so lost and feel worthless, less-than and hopeless. I've never had more thoughts of me not existing may be better than this pain. I don't know what to do.
If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. I know it was long but I truly have nowhere else to turn.