DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have been in this relationship for almost 5 years and it has been great. It’s actually been wonderful. There are alignment issues though…
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I’ve always felt the love he’s had for me to be raw; its undeniable. Even those around me confirm this when they gush about how he looks at me or treats me. We have intimate strong connections and a lot of fun together. The problems that arise in our relationship are always communication, perception and honesty issues. Let me explain:
For context, we are 21. I am an INFJ and he is an ISFP which means when it comes to certain topics we simply do not see it the same way (not a big deal until it is) which causes perceived problems to look different for each of us. We also communicate differently and can misunderstand each other even if we agree on something (doesn’t happen often but does happen). Not to mention I tend to be straight up and he has a hard time expressing how he feels (big problem for me since I come from divorced parents & wanna talk about everything [he’s a child of parents who aren’t divorced but definitely should be so avoidant]). This is all leading to our problem right now.
He is my best friend and someone I see myself spending the rest of my life with. We value the same things where it counts and differ where it works and yet here I am dealing with infidelity.
I have always been the girl where cheating is not only a deal breaker but an absolute huge RED FLAG about the persons character in general. The problem is, I always viewed that as having sex with someone else. There are obviously sub categories but that’s mainly what I categorized cheating as. I also am a strong believer that cheating is not a reasonable “up and DOWN” in a relationship. It’s completely disrespectful and he’s always agreed with me so to my point…
Basically, he watches porn. I’m not big on porn but I understand the general need for it. I did read smut growing up and masturbating is not uncommon for me. Even though him watching porn didn’t bother me it was still like hmm… however I found out that he stopped watching traditional porn and moved onto live webcams and sex chats which to me is more real and intimate. Its sharing sexual thoughts or desires with a REAL life person, not an actor who is un-interactable. So naturally I felt completely betrayed. “You’re basically cheating… just online.” His justification is its just porn, my argument is it’s not only about the porn, it’s about the hiding & lying about it (charges on his card) and the fact that it’s not really porn in the traditional sense (premade videos).
Yes, we live at home and yes we both feel like we’d like to have a more exciting sex life daily but would hate to be disrespectful to his family (being loud and obnoxious) sex is great though and honestly has evolved beautifully over the past 5 years and we make time to spice it up so again I’m feeling betrayed as to why he needs to fulfill himself with webcam girls or whatnot… he says he only wants me, would only ever f--k me and love me, and that this is simply masturbation (has also expressed this is not something he wants to do lifelong) and I’m having a hard time accepting this as truth. What if this is a lie? What if he’s just fallen out of love and doesn’t know how to tell me? What if he’s not attracted to me anymore? What if I’m stupid for staying? What if we break up? I’m just feeling so uncertain and I don’t know what to do. I feel like cheating is about underlying problems but considering this cheating would be me admitting to staying with a cheater. I can’t justify cheating when other people describe it so what if justifying this makes me naive?
The biggest thing I tell myself is I’d never do this to him. The biggest thing he says is he wouldn’t care if I was doing the same. My relationship with masturbation has nothing to do with external stimuli so while I can get off to videos, smut and so on, I can simply masturbate and that be enough so it’s hard for me to “do the same”. I have no problem with masturbation and not too much of a problem with porn; it’s the secrecy I have a problem with, it’s the intimacy I have a problem with. He’s been calling me his wife for forever and always talks about our future and getting married. Am I entitled for feeling like I should know every time he watches porn? Am I in the wrong for questioning my relationship as a whole? Am I wrong for questioning his character as a whole? Am I wrong for considering this form of “porn” & masturbation as intimate as cheating?
My INFJ brain just wants to throw everything into categories even if it’s in the grey and right now I don’t know where to put this and Its making me anxious. I just want to be doing the right thing, for the both of us.
Thank you.
– Feeling Romantically Hopeless
DEAR FEELING ROMANTICALLY HELPLESS: Oh God, you and your boyfriend are so very, very young, FRH. This is very much the sort of problem folks tend to have when they’re very young and have little relationship experience and even less life experience.
Alright, so. Cards on the table time, RH: my overall feelings on cheating, porn use and hell, even Briggs-Meyers tests are pretty much diametrically opposed to yours. I say this because I’m going to try to be as fair as I can here, but I’m inclined to disagree with the premise of your question from the jump. Just keep that in mind as you read this.
Now I do want to say that, my opinions on what constitutes cheating etc. aside, your feelings are your feelings. How you feel is how you feel; there’s no right or wrong to the way things are making you feel. But I think it is worth exploring the why you feel a particular way and – importantly – how what you feel affects how you choose to act.
There’re a few things here that leap out at me. The first is that you and he have very different communication styles and communication needs. That’s something you need to keep in mind, because poor communication is going to be a much bigger issue than almost anything else. It doesn’t do any good to relentlessly talk things out if you’re not being understood. But by the same token, it also doesn’t work well if you can’t work with the way other person communicates. You say you’re very straight up and he has a hard time expressing himself. That’s fine… but if he has a hard time expressing himself, it’s possible that your communication style makes it harder. If you’re wanting to talk everything out right then and there, that can put pressure on him to say something when he may need more time to sort out how he feels and how to express it.
I’ve seen a lot of couples with issues like this, and this disconnect in communication styles often gets treated as the less-expressive person trying to dodge the discussion when, in reality, they need a little more time and a lot less pressure to put what they feel into words.
Understanding your communication style also means recognizing that what works for you doesn’t work for other people. Not everyone wants to discuss everything, nor do they feel it’s always necessary. Trying to get a person to take on your communication style or vice versa rarely works well when it’s just not how they are wired. It works much better to find a way that works for both of you, or to find ways to accommodate the other’s communication style. For you, it may mean giving him more room to work on how to express himself. For him, it may mean “figure out what you want to say and how to express it then start the conversation.”
This is one of the reasons why I recommend the Awkward Conversation structure – agree to a time to talk, explain what you’re feeling, what your ideal result would be and how it would make things better, speak your peace without interruption, then allow them to say their side of things the same way. This gives more leeway for people who may not communicate the same way, while also giving more room to let someone who needs more time to sort things in their head, first.
I bring this up because it sounds like the conflict you’re having around his porn use is being exacerbated by communication issues as much as different outlooks on porn itself. It sounds like there’s a lot of talking at, but not a lot of hearing.
I also think that being wed to the idea that cheating is a black and white issue and an automatic relationship extinction event is causing issues. Now, again: I’m on record that I don’t think cheating is the worst thing that can happen in a relationship, that not all infidelity is equal and that it doesn’t always merit a break up. In my experience, this means a lot of relationships end when they didn’t need to. I think, for example, there’s a significant difference between “had too much to drink, failed my Wisdom saving throw while out of town” affair and “don’t give a f--k about commitment, I do what I want”. I think breaking up over a one-time, not-to-be-repeated mistake is a poor choice. But I also think that in many cases, cheating is a symptom more than a cause; by not treating it as a one-strike-you’re-out situation, the couple has an opportunity to figure out what is or isn’t working in their relationship and repair it. To quote Esther Perel: the victim of the affair isn’t always the victim of the relationship.
But more than that, I think if you’re going to declare that cheating is a relationship-ender, full stop and you define cheating broadly… you’re going to end up blowing up an otherwise perfectly good relationship. You, specifically, talk about being prone to black and white thinking. Well, look at what’s happening in your letter. You start off by talking about how your boyfriend unquestionably loves you and you have no doubt about that. But since you define cheating broadly and a black-and-white issue, you end the letter talking about all the questions and doubts you now have. This is an unnecessary conflict within yourself, in part because you want to define this as a black-and-white issue and it’s steadfastly refusing to be.
Put a pin in that. We’re going to come back to it.
It also isn’t helping that you’ve broadened what you’re angry about over the course of your argument with him. It’s not the interactivity or just the interaction, it’s the lying (incidentally, you don’t mention how he lied) or the secrecy.
Now, I’m going to be honest: I don’t think the cam shows count as cheating. I don’t think it’s cheating any more than going to a strip club and getting a lap dance is cheating. I don’t think that being aroused by another person is cheating and if you’re going to define it that way, you’re going to end up dating a lot of cheaters. But that part’s strictly my opinion. You obviously disagree. But so does your boyfriend, and therein lies part of the disconnect.
I think what “counts” as cheating is something that people should discuss with each other and a definition should be mutually agreed upon before they make a commitment to each other – especially a monogamous one. Otherwise you end up precisely in this situation, where you think cheating means one thing and he thinks cheating is another entirely, and made more complicated because it clearly wouldn’t be an issue for him if you were also getting your rocks off watching a hot cam show of your own.
Now, I am going to say that getting mad at him about the secrecy is unfair – especially considering this is how you responded. And yes, I think you’re being entitled if you feel like you should know about when and how he jerks off and to what. Quite frankly, unless he’s breaking laws or hurting people, that’s none of your business. Relationships aren’t depositions, you’re not owed every detail of your partner’s life and quite frankly everyone has a right to erotic autonomy and privacy. The idea that you should know what he’s doing and what he’s thinking when he does it is both invasive and controlling.
But for argument’s sake, let’s break down the “keeping secrets” part. If he told you he was watching cam sessions, would this make a difference? Would it be less of a betrayal? Would it be ok if he said that he was going to go subscribe to someone’s OnlyFans or buy one of their PPVs and told you how much of his own money he was spending on it? Would that make it better? Or would you still feel just as bad over it?
I ask because it sounds like you’re still processing how you feel about this and why. If I’m being honest, it sounds more like you started off being hurt but then had to go back and create reasons for it while you were arguing about it. That suggests to me that this is less about the act itself and more about how this made you feel.
I think that your black-and-white thinking is a big part of what’s causing issues here. You’re quickly discovering that such binary thinking is lovely in theory or when it happens to other people, but falls apart when put into practice and especially if it involves you and your relationship. Now that it’s personal, it gets very grey indeed.
If this is cheating and cheating is always bad, then you should just break up with him because this means he’s a bad person. But if the only thing that makes him bad is he masturbates to cam shows, does that undo everything else about him that’s good? If you don’t break up with him, then you’re condoning staying with a cheater. But clearly you don’t want to break up with him. But if you don’t, does that make you a hypocrite for having said that about others?
This is one of the reasons why binary, black and white thinking is incredibly limiting and unhelpful. It creates situations and scenarios where you treat things as being equal or equivalent when they’re inherently not. It’s why the “I can’t do this to him” isn’t working for you – because it’s not about the act, it’s about the feeling. And feelings – as you’re discovering – are neither rational, nor are they binary.
So now you’re in a position where either you have to work yourself to a place where you can justify breaking up with him… or accept that maybe this isn’t as black and white as you think.
That, to me, is precisely why I would say that this isn’t an area where a break up is necessary. I think that you have talked yourself into a position where you feel like you’re supposed to break up, but don’t want to. I think part of the conflict you’re feeling is that, having judged so many others for what you saw as a clear-cut, binary good/bad situation, you’re now in a place where you can see that maybe it wasn’t like that. And so either you have to admit to having been wrong about something that’s been a core of your identity, or break up with him.
However, I don’t think that’s the only thing hitting you though. Clearly it’s touched some areas that you’re worried about. This is why I also think that it would be helpful to ask yourself why you would consider this cheating and why it’s hitting you in this way.
It’s important to explore this further than just “because another person is actively involved”, and ask his why watching a cam session specifically is affecting you in this way. I think this is tapping into fears or worries you have – either about yourself, him or the relationship – more than the act itself. There are hints in the latter third of your letter: worries that he’s not satisfied or needing to go elsewhere and what this means about how he feels about you.
Well, I can tell you that being in love and being turned on by someone else, even wanting to f--k them, is not mutually exclusive. The fact that he has desires that go beyond just you doesn’t say anything about you, your relationship or his feelings for you. It just means he’s a primate with a sex drive. Humanity is a novelty-seeking species, especially when it comes to sexual novelty. You’ve undoubtedly experienced this yourself. You don’t masturbate to just one fantasy or to just blank thoughts. You’ve masturbated to all kinds of smut… that in and of itself is an example of novelty. I rather expect that you’ve fantasized about more than one person. Again, that’s an example of needing novelty and variety; it’s variety that’s entirely in your head instead of in the flesh, but it’s still variety.
So to answer your questions: yeah, I think you’re wrong for questioning his entire character over this. I think that questioning your entire relationship over this is naïve. I think that this is equal parts anxiety over the relationship mixed with the sort of exuberance and desire for moral certainty that only comes with a lack of experience and the realization that the way you were thinking of others who may have been in situations similar to yours was uncharitable at best.
If this is literally the only thing making you question both your boyfriend’s character and his feelings for you, then I think you’re choosing a belief structure over reality. If nothing else about his behavior has made you feel like he doesn’t love you or isn’t attracted to you, then I think you’d be much better off letting this go and taking a deep examination into your feelings and anxieties and how to address those. If this is going to be a situation where the idea that he’s attracted to other people – as everybody is – gnaws at you so much, then your options are either break up with him now or make your peace with it, one way or another.
And yes, he deserves his erotic privacy, just as you do. If you’d be fine with telling him every time you masturbate and what you were thinking of… well, that’s great. But that doesn’t obligate him to be fine with it or to tell you. If that’s going to be an issue for you, then you’re better off finding someone else who feels the same way.
I know this sounds harsh. I’m saying all of this because I think you’ve ended up in a place where you’re causing unnecessary hurt – to yourself and to your boyfriend. Recognizing that this isn’t cut and dry or as easily divided into “good guy/bad guy” as you’d prefer is going to be important, now and going forward. And not only will recognizing that but learning how to roll with it and grow with it is going to be what makes the difference between ending a relationship that doesn’t need to end and letting this one continue for its natural lifespan.
You’re not going to be the last person he ever gets turned on by, or the last person he wants to have sex with. I feel fairly comfortable saying that this is true of you as well. That doesn’t mean he’s going to. But the desire isn’t going to go away just because you’re both in love. That’s not how humans are wired. While there will always be exceptions on the individual level, we don’t stop being attracted to other people just because we’re in love or in a relationship. Monogamy is a promise to not sleep with other people; it doesn’t say anything about not wanting to.
I think if you can talk about that with your boyfriend – talk about your worries about how he feels about you, about your relationship and so on – you’ll find more ways to resolve things and work this out. Even if it’s just asking him to be a little more expressive about how he feels about you or to cover his tracks a little better so it’s easier for you to ignore things when he’s off rubbing one out.
Oh, and one more thing: one thing you’re going to discover over time is that what people think or feel on certain topics will change over time. What makes sense or what is true for you at one point will evolve with time, experience and perspective. That’s not hypocrisy or moral weakness, that’s growth. If you find that you’re no longer as opposed or bothered by something you were vehemently against, what that means is that your feelings and opinions have changed as you’ve learned more, experienced more and gained more perspective. So those times when you feel bad about choices you made in the past? Recognize that you made the best decision you could with the information you had at the time. Now that you have different information, you make different choices.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com