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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Aibu about partners social media habits? Also mentions sex and self esteem

31 replies

TheWolfTheRamandTheHart · Yesterday 12:51

This morning me and my partner were both sat next to each other doom scrolling and glancing at each others phones to look at the occasional video.
My partner's social media feed was full of half naked woman (probably more accurate to say young adults) wearing underwear/bikinis and gyrating about jiggling their breats.

I felt irrationally angry and disrespected although I can't fully explain why. I know he uses porn, and I don't like that either, but he's never done it somewhere that I can see and we have never really had a proper conversation about it.

For further context, and I believe this is relevant, I do not have great self esteem to start with. I am late thirties, he is in his fourties and we have been together for 6 years. We are getting married next month.

Prior to me, he was single from being 18 due to having significant caring responsibilities for a family member. I had children young - he had never seen naked or slept with a woman who has had children until me. He has always struggled with sex - about half of the time he can only finish by using his own hand.

I think he does love me in his own way, but he has never really given me any sort of compliment aside from 'I like your tshirt' or anything romantic or thoughtful. He even proposed to me at a concert, during a song that is notoriously known to be a breakup song (it's even called 'I don't love you') and he has loved that band for 20 years so he knew that!

Today really hit home that the bodies he is looking at, are very different to mine. I am not one of those women who 'bounced back' after babies. I've had vaginal and csection births, two of my babies were over 10lb, and I breastfed for 9 years. I have recently lost a few stone but I have loose and stretchmarked skin. There is nothing about me that is perky.

I don't really know why I'm posting this, I keep crying at the thought of having sex with him now I know what sort of women he likes to look at. I really love him, and I am so attracted to him, I do not look at other men.

OP posts:
Loloblue · Today 15:41

TheWolfTheRamandTheHart · Today 15:17

I just broached the subject again with him and he said it's the same as looking at a car he can't afford. So I said, what like something better than what you have? And he said yeah. So now I know what he thinks of me

Urgh. Leave him!

JustPassingTime · Today 15:45

Porn is an insidious cancer. No one should be okay with it nor accept it as normal. There is so much wrong with it and you are feeling the effects of it, first hand by, unfortunately, being a victim of the damage it does to men and their perspective on themselves and women. You keep brushing the porn off, as though it's not an issue, but it is clearly the issue. It will continue to be an issue as long as you both live in denial about it.

OtterlyAstounding · Today 15:48

TheWolfTheRamandTheHart · Yesterday 15:22

I am marrying him because I love him. He is great with my children. We have the same sort of interests and enjoy the same sort of activities and holidays. I like being around him. He makes me laugh.

The porn isn't the main issue for me, maybe because I've not had it shoved in my face. The more I think about it, I think I am more hurt because I've seen first hand that the women he wants to look at are so very different from me, they have big boobs and are slim and have lots of obvious facial fillers (which he told me he doesn't like, when I was considering it).

I think the feeling I have been struggling to name, is humiliation.

Perhaps you should think about why you're investing your love into a man who can't even be bothered complimenting you, doesn’t do anything romantic or thoughtful, struggles to finish during sex, lechs over very young women online, and wanks to unpleasant sexual exploitation.

You need to have higher standards – you can do better than this man who makes you feel insecure and humiliated.

Planesmistakenforstars · Today 16:22

TheWolfTheRamandTheHart · Today 15:17

I just broached the subject again with him and he said it's the same as looking at a car he can't afford. So I said, what like something better than what you have? And he said yeah. So now I know what he thinks of me

Oh OP. I don't see how you can go on like this after those words. Don't marry someone who hurts you like this, don't marry a man who's idea of a "better" woman is a half naked teenager on instagram, and don't marry a man who's all but told you he'd be off like rat up a drain pipe if one of said women would have him. And that's apart from the porn and the shit sex.

TheClocksFast · Today 16:29

TheWolfTheRamandTheHart · Yesterday 13:24

I don't know if he's addicted as I don't know how often he uses it

Who cares about the details! He’s not making you feel good and you will REGRET marrying him.

MrMucker · Today 16:33

TheWolfTheRamandTheHart · Today 15:17

I just broached the subject again with him and he said it's the same as looking at a car he can't afford. So I said, what like something better than what you have? And he said yeah. So now I know what he thinks of me

Ah that's it, that s the deal breaker.
You've been afraid he's looking in a sort of aspirational way, which reflects poorly on you.
And he's gone and said actually yes, you're right.
Really dim, and you sound really smart.

You can do better. You should.

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