DP wants to end relationship over old videos on my phone

[July26]

NC’d for understandable reasons.

DP went through my phone last night, and found very old videos I hadn’t deleted of me and my ex. Extremely stupid I know, both to have taken them in the first place (not something I was keen on, and my face isn’t visible), and to have not deleted them. But honestly, I forgot they were on there. I’ve got stuff on my phone going back nearly 10 years, it all carries over when I’ve upgraded my phone and I’ve never looked back at it/got round to deleting things.

He went mental, said we are over and he doesn’t want to listen to my ‘excuses’, he considers it a betrayal and questions whether I’ve still looked at them regularly when alone.

I am distraught, I love him and can’t imagine my life without him in it. We don’t live together but he was staying here this weekend and stormed out last night. He has ignored me today but I don’t seem to be blocked.

Do you think ending the relationship is over the top? Would you give it a day or two before contacting him again?

There is not one single, solitary woman on planet Earth or beyond, who would be happy about finding graphic sex videos with an ex on their partner's phone.

Add to that, if videos in question show the partner, say, performing oral sex on this ex, an act he now refuses to do for the current partner.

And to further add to this, she now has to apologise to him for going through his phone! 😂

Couldn't fucking make it up in this place sometimes!

He isn’t pressuring me into doing anything, he just explained that he found it hard to begin with going without something which he always had in his past relationships and seeing such a graphic video stirred these emotions.

Pressurising doesn’t necessarily mean pestering and cajoling you to do it. I’d argue that what he said is pressurising, and not particularly subtle either.

That said, I can understand why he’s not happy if all his previously partners have done this (oral by any chance?) and you did this previously with an ex, and now you won’t with him.

Obviously it’s your choice whether you do anything, and you shouldn’t do something you’re uncomfortable with, but I fear that now he’s seen those videos, he can’t unsee them, and this sex act, or lack of, will become a wedge between you that moving forward far more than anything else in this sorry affair.

And what about women who expect sex because if they dont any their partner must not love them or like them or be cheating or any other made up thing women complain contsantly about how hard done by they are, it can work both ways

Men and women have wants and needs but I am sure there is millons of women who have no issues with a man having sex videos of them with previous partners

I am sure there is millons of women who have no issues with a man having sex videos of them with previous partners

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

What about if he didn't enjoy the act in question, so he'd only kept six videos of him doing it? Surely that would change things?

This thread is mental. So far off the mark.

His response bothers me OP, as others have said. Fair enough he was upset, but he was upset because your preferences have changed and he thinks he’s missing out…..you don’t owe him dinner, you haven’t really done anything wrong beyond forgetting to delete some old videos. Be very cautious going forward I think he may use the sex act he wants and you did for someone else as a stick to beat you with. He doesn’t sound very emotionally mature and his response was to punish you by withdrawing rather than discussing in a rational manner. Just keep your eyes open, you are not at fault here.

I am worried he is looking into your phone in such detail. Dp and I would never do that. Don't feel you have to grovel to make the peace. Everyone has a past and he should not have been looking. Also that is a very shaming response to the videos and must have upset you. That isn't great.

Op, I think you need to take a step back and consider why you need to ‘make it up’ to anyone for something you did 10 years ago, 8 years before you met them. And that’s not even considering a) the invasion of privacy of scrolling back that far to look at private material on someone else’s phone and b) applying sexual pressure to do anything contained in those videos.

He sounds controlling, unreasonable and bang out of order. Personally, I would consider this a wake up call and a clear insight into a man who is sneaky and controlling. Not someone I would want to spend any time with and certainly not one to consider having a family with.

Take a step back: what would you advise a friend in this situation? Then apply that to yourself.

He’s given you a very clear indication of the sort of person he is. Respect yourself and don’t ignore it.

Totally disagree, this wouldn't particularly bother me. When moving house recently, in a box, in the loft I found some sexual Polaroid photos of myself and my first husband taken about 35 years ago. I has totally forgotten that I had them. My only reaction on seeing them was "ooh wasn't I thin then!".

I told my current husband about finding them (obviously didn't show them to him) and he just thought it was funny.

Obviously I destroyed them, but they meant absolutely nothing. They'd just been forgotten about.

When I told my DH about this thread, he thought the OP's partner was an over reacting,, paranoid, controlling nutter.

I agree, but OP won’t take a blind bit of notice as her boundaries are non-existent and her self-esteem is in the 🚾…

@July26 Interesting that he is not annoyed at the videos but at things in them that you've denied him as you don't want to do them but that he feels he's entitled to now missing out on...... I'd get rid. He will keep pestering you for it.

@Enrichetta ,

‘I agree, but OP won’t take a blind bit of notice as her boundaries are non-existent and her self-esteem is in the 🚾…’

What is that post intended to achieve? You know next to nothing about the OP, her partner or their relationship.

Someone posts for advice when at a low ebb and all you do is attack her.

LTB isn’t always the correct advice and, even when it is, the poster needs to be ready to hear it.

I hope her and her partner have sorted out their difficulty and are happily back together.

"Maybe if people are reading the same from this guy behaviour, there is a reason?"

It's called confirmation bias.

There is actually very little detail to go off so people love to fill in the gaps. Notice everyone saying OPs behaviour is fine and DP is a monster are not saying they would be fine with the sexes reversed. There are plenty of threads on MN where women advocate going through a partners phone (as long as it is a man) and these same people would say it is a red flag if a man held on to videos like this.

There are so many blanks in this story that anyone reaching hard conclusions is not trying to provide helpful advice and is only acting out their own prejudices.

Where are the blanks ? OP had some explicit video on her phone from a relationship ten years ago. She forgot about it and her partner of two years found it and said it was the end of the relationship. There are no blanks to fill in - she clearly had no problem with him having access to her phone so entirely believable that she forgot they were there.

But his behaviour was appalling and in no way comparable to a reverse of the sexes. Why ? Because his problem wasn’t the actual video, it was the fact that OP engaged in a sex act in that video footage that she will not consent to now. And that’s been his problem ever since. To the point where he’s now got her grovelling and taking him out for a meal to show him how sincerely sorry she is. Sorry for what ? For having a life before him ? And we all know what will come next, so let’s not pretend we don’t.

It would also depend how someone explained that they won't do certain things.

Very easy to be a bit embarrassed at having done somethings in the past and rather than say:
"I tried that and didn't like it,"
"I don't like to do that any more" or
"when I did that it was not a healthy relationship so I don't want to do that now."

Instead to say:
"I wouldn't do that sort of thing." or similar.

What seems in the moment like very close explanations much later could sound like a lie in an emotionally charged situation. We don't know the full context. Particularly if, as you say, it is something that is seen as not unusual. It would suggest some thing rather different when not just done, but done on film...

To be fair, lots of gaps have been filled in about the BF badgering OP to do the sex act. He did mention that he was upset to see a video of her doing that particular act with a previous partner.

Maybe he will end up badgering her forever if they do get back together, but based on OP’s posts, that hasn’t happened yet.

He scrolled back over ten years of photos/videos etc. I am guessing that the video in question is x-rated which is not ideal but going back in someone's phone that far when you did not even know them then is a massive massive red flag. Personally I would be blocking him and not worrying about when to contact him again. Walk away.

Leaving aside the likelihood of forgetting about the existence of videos of engaging in sex acts you are not comfortable engaging in and were uncomfortable making (more likely they are held on to out of fear than forgotten). If someone recorded me having sex and I was uncomfortable that memory is going nowhere.

A few obvious blanks:

But how did the conversation go when the bounty around that particular act was drawn? What feels like the easiest thing to say in the moment, when replayed later can actually be a lie coming up in an emotionally charged moment.

We don’t actually know what level of “normal” using the partners phone is, my DP and I are fine with it picking up each others phones, and scrolling back through photos would be fine, often we don’t both have the same photos of events and holidays.

What was actually looked for, when I go to look for an old picture I can stumble across all kinds of things from photos of an infected cut (who knows why you would keep that) or an image sent by someone from years back about some event or other. Videos are even easier to end up going back further.

That excludes all the mind reading of intent people are doing on here about his motivation with regards everything. I appreciate so many on here seem to live in a world of genius master Svengali men, but most I come across are often fairly clueless and bumbling, very few are aware of emotions the have the skills of the manipulator men in the lives of so many on here. I’ve met a few skilful manipulators over my life but the are few and far between. I certainly know there is a difference between when someone is trying to pressure me compared with the vastly larger category when I “feel pressure.”

“But his behaviour was appalling and in no way comparable to a reverse of the sexes. Why ? Because his problem wasn’t the actual video”

Wasn’t it.

So it is not possible that there could not be an issue with both? The effects could not be cumulative, you find your partner has held on to home mode porn, then you find out something else that you find upsetting but the second item doesn’t make you more upset at all?

“And we all know what will come next, so let’s not pretend we don’t.”

Well, we know what the men in your life would do. I have no idea what the OPs DP/ex will do.

The ‘men’ in my life (there have been two, my late husband of forty years and my present partner of ten) wouldn’t think of trying to coerce me into a sex act or anything else I wasn’t comfortable with, just because l’d done it with another partner years ago. But thanks for the not very well veiled insult. The men in my life have never displayed the same controlling and coercive traits so evident in OP’s description of events. To suggest that that’s not the case, based on what she’s actually said, is disingenuous at best.

@ThreadGuardDog ,

What aspect of what he did makes you label him controlling?

How has he tried to control her?

I can see an angry and upset man, maybe an overreaction, but he removed himself, hardly a way to control someone.

And then, when they reconciled, he explained what made him upset, surely a good thing to be able to communicate.

We haven’t had any updates. But I don’t think that you can infer anything from that.

Oh he was never going to end it, OP! He wanted you to apologise, feel like you were permanently in the wrong (he'd bring this up whenever he was in a bad mood) and then you'd feel you had to carry out the same acts with him, under threat of being dumped.

He shouldn't have been looking at your phone, ffs. Those videos were a decade old. It's absolutely none of his business what you did back then.

You're making a huge mistake by apologising - now wait for him to put pressure on you to do whatever it was you were doing ten years ago.

Um sorry but he wont consider you “making it up to him” until you do whatever sex act it is

post the videos here, we can let you know whether YABU

Yep. Until .your next thread OP. Good luck.