Bloody Instagram

[yips]

Been with new boyfriend a few months, he is lovely and makes me feel very secure. However, he was scrolling Instagram a few weeks ago and scrolled past a picture of a girl which I noticed he'd liked, which really upset me.

My judgement may be clouded here, because my ex always liked photos of the same girl and said I was overreacting, then I found out that they were sexting while we were together.

I don't think new boyfriend would cheat, and seemed genuinely confused when I brought up the liking, as he said he does like photos of girls he's met travelling etc and who he's friends with, and it's not in a flirtatious way at all.

I haven't brought it up in a while as I hoped he'd taken what I said on board, but today on his explore page there was a photo of a model and it said "based on photos you've liked", so I asked to see his 'posts I've liked' page and he refused.

AIBU to be upset by this?

If you don't trust him, there's no relationship. Regardless of whether he's done anything or not.

YABU and you will push him away. He’s not your ex so stop punishing him for your ex’s behaviour.

He’s liked their picture, it’s not the end of the world! It’s not like he sent them a unwanted dick pic. You sound very insecure OP and should work on that.

This whole jealousy over likes this just mystifies me. I broke up with the man I thought was the love of my life over this last year, it broke my heart, but I could not fathom why he was obsessing over me liking peoples’ photos (in this case not even photos of them, but photos by them).

In 99.9% of cases it means fuck-all. A lot of times it’s just being polite and supportive, and just mindlessly box ticking. Liking any kind of photo is not to be interpreted as “I am secretly shagging or attempting to shag this person”.

You need to let this poor man go, work on your issues, try again.

Like PP said, I think it depends on what the photo was actually of. If it was a sexy bikini shot, I wouldn't find that tremendously respectful of him, but that all depends on your own boundaries. If it's just a normal photo then you're reading way too much into this unless his behaviour towards her has been in some way inappropriate, which you don't mention.

I can understand why it's upsetting if this is the woman that your ex was sexting (think I understood that correctly) but that's not your current partner's fault. You need to try an find a way to separate what happened with your ex with this issue, because you're viewing your boyfriend's probably innocuous behaviour through a skewed lens. I understand it, but it's not fair to him and won't bode well for your relationship long term.

This is one of the reasons why I completely came away from all social media.
Something as innocuous as a 'like' of a photo is enough to throw people into a twist.
It's ridiculous.

You're judging him by what your ex did to you. He probably refused to show you because that's a huge invasion of privacy, but he also may have refused because he knew you wouldn't like what you saw.
It's impossible to tell.

It's early days, if you feel unable to trust him then move on. It shouldn't be like this already.

Work on your insecurity also. It's tough to face it head on but incredibly important.

OP you sound very controlling. It may well be that he makes you feel secure, but how do you make him feel with this need to have surveillance on his Instagram? Relationships aren't all about how your partner makes you feel, as a part of that, you also have a responsibility to the other person to make sure they feel happy and secure. Do you think you're providing that for him?