Last night, after an evening out drinking, I used my boyfriend's phone to look something up as mine had run out (with his permission). I saw some things that really spooked me, we had a massive row about it and I ended things quite dramatically. I'm now trying to work out whether I acted too rashly, or whether in fact this was a reasonable reaction (if somewhat dramatised by alcohol). Please tell me what you'd do.
I'm female, 36. Boyfriend 42. We've been together for 7 months and were talking very seriously about our future together, moving in, having children etc. So this has really pulled the rug from under my feet.
I was on his chrome app reading an article and I pressed something accidentally which made the screen disappear; I don't have an apple phone and don't really know how they work but swiped across as I thought it might come back (as it does with mine).
An app appeared (I can't remember if it was the whole symbol or just the name) but it was for finding people to have threesomes with. I guess this kind of raised my suspicion (I'm generally very trusting of him and have never had any reason to doubt his trustworthiness or indeed be tempted to check his phone).
I then kind of instinctively (and drunkenly) opened instagram (I know this was bad) and looked at his messages. I'd noticed a few times that whenever he showed me something on instagram the first stories that came up would be of young, bikini clad massive-boobed instagram models. I thought it was a bit creepy of him to be looking at them a lot but hey, it's really no different to porn which I have no issue with. I did though have a hunch that he messaged these women, because he had accidentally showed his messages before and I saw them. I kind of ignored it as I didn't really want to know and felt it was probably before we were together etc. However, in my drunken state I looked, and he had been sending emojis, comments and even a creepy voice note saying someone looked good in a bikini - whilst we've been seeing eachother. Not only do I find this behaviour odd and creepy, especially for a man his age, but I also don't like that he did it while we were together.
I wouldn't, however think it was the end of the world if he had admitted to it and said sorry and that he had been insensitive and wouldn't do it again. Instead, when I immediately confronted him about the app and the messages, he told me off for 'policing' him, said he didn't think he'd done anything wrong and was just 'passing on compliments to a friend of a friend' (aka they\re not random women, so it's ok. They ARE random women). He also said he did't even have the threesome app on his phone, and searched for it - he was right. So I was confused by why it came up, and I asked him to show me what was in it when he downloaded it to put my mind at ease, and also said I wanted to see what he had written to women whilst we were together.
He then made a show of downloading the threesome app, going through the first logging on stage and then stopped and said 'see? I don't even have an account' whilst also refusing to click the 'login to facebook' button. I said that I know it seems over the top, but as it had come up and I'd seen these messages while we were together I felt I needed to see inside the app, and if he didn't show me I felt he had something to hide and it would be the end of our relationship. He still refused to show me, whilst also saying he loves me / shouldn't have to show me / don't do this, we need to work this out etc.
Then he went to the toilet for a while. I told him I knew what he was doing, deleting things, and he said he wasn't. When he came out I said again that I wanted to see what he had been messaging women, and he bought up his messages where had deleted a couple of threads. He then said it was because I'll 'analyse everything' and 'make something out of nothing' etc, making me feel like I had an issue.
I have never once in our relationship been suspicious or jealous of him. I am definitely over analytical (see: this thread) but it's not like I've ever 'policed' him before. I was drunk, followed a weird instinct, and then reacted when I found things I was uncomfy with.
I told him to leave in no uncertain terms, after he kept trying to persuade me not to end things. He went home and sent me a very resigned-sounding, rambling voicenote which was just completely emotionless, saying I was the first person he'd trusted to meet his friends and his parents in over a decade, that I had meant so much to him, but also 'maybe you're right, maybe this wasn't working, we tried, maybe you deserve better'. I'm sure it was partly out of pride and wanting to save face, but there was no remorse for hurting my feelings, or breaking my trust - just, 'I should have listened better and realised you wouldn't like me doing that'.
I just feel so blindsided and can't really believe this has happened. I also feel stupid it's all been so dramatic and that I ended a reasonable-length relationship over something like this. Interested to know how you would react if this were your serious boyfriend. Did I overreact?