Anyone on here use the Reddit app?

[CoffeeAtCentralPerk]

Was unsure where to post this, but I've always seen lots of good advice via the relationships board so figured I'd start here - If the thread needs to be moved to a different board for better advice that's absolutely fine!

OH uses the Reddit app every day. Browses memes, jokes, current news etc.

We have no qualms about each other using each other's phones - neither of us have anything to hide, we know each other's passwords etc.. so tonight I used his phone whilst mine had low battery.
I unlocked it and it opened straight to the Reddit app.
Figured I'd do a search for funny shit after having a slightly miserable day, and to my surprise (and disappointment) the first search in OH's search bar was a subreddit called RealGirls.

Intrigued, obviously, I clicked on it. And let's just say, the thread was bloody gross. Fannies all over the shop. Women bending over whilst wearing nothing. None of it was tasteful. Just normal women taking nudes in their bedrooms.

OH and I had had a discussion about the likes of porn and 'dirty images' almost four years ago and I said I wasn't completely happy about it - I know some women are chill about it and thats fine! But I'm not - OH said he rarely, if ever, looked at that kind of stuff, but upon knowing I wasn't totally okay with it, would stop it completely.

I asked him tonight why this search was showing in his app and he was bewildered. He seemed genuinely shocked but I told him if he'd searched for it, to just tell me. I'd rather know and just deal with it and get on with it rather be than be lied to. Honesty goes along way with me. But he spent almost half an hour on the app (in front of me) trying to figure out why or how this search came up.

So, does anyone on here use Reddit and has experienced random searches in their search bar which they haven't searched for?
My logical brain tells me that a search bar is exactly that - a search bar - things you've actively searched for will be displayed. But there's a small part of me that believes he didn't.

Anyone more clued up on Reddit than I am and can shed some light?

@Myotherusernamewastakenagain I'm not sure. I feel like porn stars are completely unobtainable, whereas a normal woman posting their nudes feel easily contactable if you see what I mean? I dunno. The average woman's selfies are harder to stomach than a porn stars videos who has millions of subscribers.

Have you checked the pm feature to see if he's been trying to contact them?

There didn't seem to be anything in the messages or comments area, so I guess that's good.

I think for women, like myself, who aren't entirely comfortable about this sort of thing, it's always going to be shit discovering your OH is doing it anyway.
But for me, I would actually rather him watch a 5 minute porn video than spend god knows how long (possibly every day!?) scrolling through real women's nudes. It feels more personal and I don't like that they can be easily contacted and interacted with.

The lengths he went to to try and prove he didn't search for it is really stupid too. I completely get he was probably embarrassed that I'd found all of this, but he knows about my past insecurities stemming from a previous relationship (ex used to turn me down for sex all the time then would watch porn in bed next to me after I'd fallen asleep - but would then swear blind he had no idea how the porn searches found their way in to his internet history each night 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️) so he's aware I'd rather him be honest rather than drive myself crazy wondering whether I should believe him or not.

I use reddit all the time and items in the search bar are definitely manually typed in. If he'd accidentally clicked on the subreddit it would appear in history but not search bar. You should have checked his history too to see if he'd clicked on loads of posts.

@CookPassBabtridge yeah, I did feel like I wasn't crazy for thinking that things showing up in a search bar had in fact been searched for. It's definitely not fun for him to have been caught out, but it's also not fun for me to be lied to.

When he was frantically trying to show me that he hadn't looked up that specific subreddit and had no clue why it was in his search bar - I said to him about going through his history if he was that adamant on proving himself - but he told me that Reddit doesn't have a 'history' feature. I thought this was odd, but after downloading the app myself after he went to bed, I can see there is a history bit. I guess anything that might've been in his history has since been erased as he went to bed a few hours before me, so perfect opportunity to get rid of other searches or whatever.

Yep, my dh did exactly the same thing, used reddit all the time, on it for hours in the bathroom everyday, minding our kids, etc. Same thing I used his reddit app because my phone had died and was charging and I was bored feeding our baby. Massive history of a subreddit called gone wild, basically college girls all showing nude pics, boobs, vaginas, everything. I could see the posts he'd clicked into because the captions were greyed out, to show he'd seen that already. He's a 45 year old and he was looking at girls showing their tits because they were bored studying for exams. It made me so sick because it was so very personal, we have a 20 year old daughter and he was looking at girls her age naked in their bedrooms. Give me a porn clip any day over this. Tbh it's really damaged our relationship because he lied when I confronted him, but I had screenshots. He had also previously said that he was against any porn usage in our marriage, for various reasons, so it was a huge shock. The lying basically means your trust in him is broken and will be very hard to regain, since he's continued to lie. I'm sorry op. It's been a nightmare for me, I genuinely hope you can handle it better.

Also if it's an app on his phone he would have to go out of his way to go into settings on a desk top version of reddit and enable nsfw material, which is basically the porn subreddits for them to show on his phone. Otherwise these subreddits are not searchable. And yeah, reddit doesn't auto suggest porn either, you have to seek it out yourself as you don't need to be over 18 to have a Reddit account.

@Orillia93 so sorry to hear you've experienced something similar, it's horrible isn't it. The lying is a big deal for me, sadly.

I did say to OH that a lot of the girls (can't even really call them women!) looked so young.. my OH is 35 so to think he's been looking at photos of people potentially 15 years younger than him is awful.

I said to him last night that I believed him - but after I spent some time on google trying to see if any other Reddit users have encountered this app 'malfunction' and seeing that literally no one has, plus the comments on here confirming my suspicions - I do now know he's fully lied to my face and the whole "I'm going to go through this app with a puzzled look on my face to prove I've not searched for it" was all just an Oscar worthy performance.

Since I downloaded the app last night, I too have noticed that you can't view the NSFW subreddits without actively going on to the desktop version and 'ok-ing' them, and it is quite clear that porn wouldn't randomly show up of its own accord... so I think another chat may need to be in order.

I'd definitely rather him watch porn once in a blue moon as opposed to looking at those images all the time

He's lying OP, but I do think you know that. I use reddit (not for that!!) He's very specifically searched that out. If that's what the search terms were verbatim you can see he's typed in real girls looking for the subreddit (which is what the name for the specific little bits on reddit are, bit similar to the boards on here and typing 'relationships'. He's obviously not got the link to it in the Google results with that search so has typed r/realgirls. Reddit web addresses work similar to mumsnet in a way. We have mumsnet/talk/relationships or whatever, reddit has 'reddit/r/realgirls (or whatever else, there are thousands).

In addition I can confirm 'real girls' is amateur real women uploading their explicit nudes to get 'upvoted' by strangers and listen to their flattery basically. If you can get back on his app or login to his reddit on a device of his and click his profile you'll be able to see what he's subscribed to and any posts he's commented on/What hes upvoted. There's also a private message feature so he could also be PMing people.

He sounds pathetic and I'm sorry. Even if I were ok with him objectifying women like a desperate perv, I could not be with someone who's happy to lie to my face. He's shown you who he is, I would say.

The biggest issues for me is the age group being so young, college girls are potentially 18 years old, and grand if he was that age group himself but now it just shows him to me as really sleazy old man I used to laugh at when I was that age and some man in his 40s leering over me and he would seem ancient. Now I realize I'm married to him and it's so disappointing. Also the fact that these are real everyday girls, the waitress's that serve him, secretary's in his office, his nurse, I know it sounds weird, and perhaps I'm not explaining well, but these girls are potentially girls he could encounter on his day to day, whereas porn is segregated to a clip on internet and likely hood of meeting or seeing a porn actress randomly is highly unlikely. Then the lying about it means it's very hard to move past it because what else has he lied about? And how can I trust him in the future? It's an awful thing to discover really and I feel really bad for you being at the start and having to process it all because he won't be truthful about any of it.

Yep I'd take porn anyday over nsfw subreddits. Looking at a young girls naked shots is so personal and pervy, but porn is about getting off on seeing sex.. it's not really about the people in it.

So I brought it up again when he woke up and as I already knew, he admitted to searching for it himself.
I told him I'd rather him watch porn than use Reddit to look at girls which he could easily contact. He told me he's only been on that subreddit twice - quite obviously another lie.

Not sure I can get past the blatant lying to my face. He hasn't apologised for lying either. He was so believable the whole time he was lying (even though I did suspect he was bullshitting me) that there was a part of me that genuinely started to come round to what he was saying. It's scary how easily and plainly some people can lie with no remorse afterwards.

Obviously there's no respect here if I'm not worthy of a shred of honesty until the moment i drag it out of him.

I'm really sorry to hear he hasn't even apologized for his blatant lies op. Expect the defensiveness and minimizing to begin now.

@Orillia93 he ended up grumbling an 'I'm sorry for lying' after I tried dragging one out of him, and that was literally it. As a result, I got annoyed by the sheer lack of sincere apology and no evidence of actual remorse. He then flipped and got mad at me, told me he'd 'leave because that's what I wanted the whole time'. I told him fine, pack a bag and go if that's what you want.

He packed a bag, I told him to leave his key, he left. Didn't say bye to the kids.
It's our youngest DC's 1st birthday tomorrow too so it'll be interesting to see whether or not he comes back tomorrow with his tail between his legs apologising for acting like a twat. Or if he's genuinely throwing all of this away because I got mad at him for giving me a fucking terrible excuse of an apology.

None of it was tasteful. Just normal women taking nudes in their bedrooms.

The way you make it sound is like it's people pooping on each chests or whipping each other.. it was some nude women!

Of course he lied. You made a fuss of it earlier in the relationship so he knows to not let you know about it. But he doesn't see looking at some nudes as a big deal.. so happily looked at them and didn't see a big thing to apologise about. You have then turned it into a big thing and kicked him out which you are entitled to do but this is all of your own doing.

And no, people can't be remorseful for things they don't think are wrong. So if you think this is wrong and can't tolerate that difference in view, you are incompatible and splitting is the right thing to do.

Has he returned yet op? The defensiveness and minimizing was predictable, he'll come home and apologize but it will be shallow and he won't mean it. Men can be extremely selfish when it comes to realizing how hurtful doing stuff like this can be. All relationships are different, with different rules, deal breakers etc, what's ok for some doesn't mean it has to be ok for you. If it hurts you and makes you feel bad then it's valid and he's legit done something that has jeopardized your marriage and family life, so don't let pp tell you how you should and shouldn't feel in your own marriage. This will be a very long and painful process op, dealing with all the emotions you will be feeling and his lack of honesty and remorse will be detrimental to everything. I just hope it was worth it for him. Hugs op

Thanks for your message @Orillia93 no he hasn't come back. I don't think he's going to either. His old phone (which we let our DC play with) is synched with his current phone and I can see that this morning, he was googling spare rooms to stay in.
So clearly, it's easier to walk away from me after he's hurt me, than stay and fight for me and our family. I can't believe it's escalated this badly.
I told him yesterday before he left that I was unsure I could get over the blatant lying, but I didn't think it would go this far. Lying is detrimental to a relationship as are insincere apologies, but I thought he'd want to fight for what we had, I really did.

It's our youngest DC's first birthday today so it looks like he's going to miss out on that. I'm just so confused and upset and frankly, angry. I don't see how anyone can walk away so easily

I'm very sorry that it escalated to that degree, OP.

As someone who regularly posts on those subreddits, and has quite a bit of popularity, let me just say that about 95% of the PMs we receive are just random people (both men and women) sending the same generic copy and paste message to everyone. I can say that in the 5 years I've been posting, I've replied to maybe 3 PMs.

There is a private subreddit for poster of the GW subreddits and from speaking to the girls, none of us are out to seduce random men. We post just because we are exhibitionists and it's a fun thing to do for us.

You've said that your husband hasn't been sending any PMs, so he is really just looking at pictures. I think it's stupid that he lied to you about that but I imagine he knew you might get upset and wanted to spare your feelings?

Either way, he fucked up by lying to you and shouldn't have just walked out. The only way really to salvage that is the same way to most of the problems we come across on the Relationship threads - you just need to openly and honestly communicate with him.

I do hope he came home for LO's birthday, because no argument should get in the way of that.

Daisy. Well lets see you have the same opinion when its you with babies and your dh is spending family time staring at fun pictures of exhibitionist women like yourself. You are naive and foolish.

What @Feckers2018 says.. it's great when your in your 20s with an amazing body untouched by pregnancy and breastfeeding and self esteem for miles, it's easy to be the cool wife and not care about porn nudes. Try having a couple kids, sleepless nights, saggy boobs, stretch marks, all the things that come with motherhood, and then find your dh wanking over pictures of what you can't possibly compete with now and not take it personally.

Yeah, I'm not here to defend myself or any other woman for doing anything. I'm simply giving insight into the other side of it.

I'm fully aware of the fact that finding this kind of thing leads to you filling in the blanks with your own imagination and I'm saying that this is very, very rarely the case. OP is absolutely within her rights and o be upset, as PP has said, what's okay in one marriage won't fly in others, and that's absolutely fine.

I said that her DH is an idiot for just walking out over something like this, instead of just staying and talking about it, like a grown up.

No need for the naive and foolish statement. I didn't tell the OP to not take it personally and I am in complete support of her.

The last thing the OP needs is being reassured by a woman who posts on Reddit. It really doesn't matter that you hardly ever message don't you get it?
What you do for fun impacts the lives of other woman not always in a good way thats why you are being naive. You seem to get your self esteem from being a popular poster? Thats why you are foolish.
Please leave this thread alone.

Yeah, you're right Feckers. It's absolutely the thousands of women who have ever posted a nude photo's fault, and not the men who lie to their wives about what they're doing. By all means, please continue to judge me from the one fact you know about me.

OP, I hope your DH has returned for the birthday and that you can both talk about this and find a resolution.

I don't blame gw girls, tbh without trying to offend, posting your nudes online to 1000s of sleazy men to wank to screams of desperation and serious self esteem issues, and I actually feel bad for women looking for a false sense of validation needing to do this. It's the posters that come on threads like these, men, and women that blame it all on the op, telling them men will be men, just a bit of wank fodder and make op feel stupid for being upset about her husband making her feel like she has to compete with the impossible and lying and deceiving and jeopardizing his marriage so he can continue to look at other women's nudes. OP's dh was well aware he was doing something his wife wouldn't be happy about, but continued and blatantly lied. He had 3 choices, he could of said looking at porn is more important then his wife's feelings and left the marriage to all the porn in the world. 2nd would be, realize it's a deal breaker in this marriage, put his wife first and just not look at things he knows upset her.
Or what he did do, continue on looking at whatever he wanted, being a sneaky fucker and lying blatantly when caught and then acting like a 15 year old and walking out on his dc birthday.
Posters that make excuses for men like this obviously have the lowest standards.