on tinder when you are in an exclusive relationship

[SenselessUbiquity]

If a man did this he would be eviscerated on here. I suspect I will be, too.

I have spent most of my life since 17 in "proper" relationships - exclusive relationships with boyfriends, 12 years with a partner who was the father of my children and then we separated a few years ago.

There has been a pattern where I fall hard for men my friends / family don't think are amazing; I get all defiant and "we don't need them anyway"; I deny all the cracks appearing in the relationship, often lose a lot of myself fighting to keep it going, losing friends, hobbies, sleep, eating and drinking crap, failing to exercise etc - then it all eventually falls apart and I look in the mirror at who I've allowed myself to become and swear "I am never doing this again".

Until I do.

I dated casually for a while after the end of the big LTR a few years ago and it was the first time in my life I had ever done this. It was a huge thrill; I loved the fun, the variety, the validation, the sex - even the bad dates were hilarious in some ways. Nothing bad happened to me, I didn't get into any nasty situations and the whole thing was really fun and uplifting. I lost weight, I started to think I was cool and sexy, I tried lots of new things I had always wanted to do (that had nothing to do with men or sex), I got new clothes, I felt good and free and healthy.

Then.... I met someone. He's lovely. we fell in love. I didn't mean to but that's what happened. We've had the Exclusive conversation. I have no problem whatsoever giving up other men for this one, because he's the only one I want. BUT. sometimes.... I can't stop myself going on tinder.

It really makes me feel.... safe. I feel as if I am not trapped, as if I'm not losing myself again. I don't message, or reply to messages. I just swipe. It's occasional and every time I go back (probably 5 times in 9 months) there are lots of messages and attention. I feel physically relaxed, then. I feel a kind of tension and panic recede.

I don't have the app on my phone. I'd be horrified if I found out my boyfriend was doing this. If I saw one of my friend's partners on there I would loathe him and think him a complete bastard.

I think .... I think I might be some kind of a .... not sex addict, as I will never have sex with these men. But a sort of sexual attention addict.

Not sure what I am asking here. Is it harmless? If not, what does it mean that I don't stop? That I really hate the idea of stopping?

When I was dating, I used to line up dates almost compulsively when something bad or unsettling happened - perhaps nothing to do with dates, although if something didn't work out with a guy the next thing I'd do would be to get another one lined up. I lost my kid in a supermarket for the longest few minutes of my life one day and that night was swiping away till I had a few guys lined up. It really made me feel better. Swiping on the train after a shit day at work.

Tell me to grow the hell up and stop doing this.

Better still, tell me what would make me feel better instead.

Hi OP, sounds to me like you're using it to boost your confidence but I also think it goes deeper than that. The good things is, you are only looking and not doing anything so technically you're not doing anything wrong though.
I genuinely think some therapy is in order here to look at the reasons why you feel you need to do this in the first place. The last thing you need is for your boyfriend to find out and the relationship to run into trouble because of it.

What about therapy, OP? Sounds like you would benefit from it.

I did find my ex on tinder. We were in love. I adored him. We’d had the “exclusive” chat. And then I discovered he was on tinder, with a recent photo. It broke me and I ended it immediately.
In retrospect I realised he was probably doing it as a confidence boost for his chronically low self esteem and his depression. So we made up (via text and phone call) but I made it clear to him I couldn’t get back with him because it was a deal-breaker for me and would inevitably keep happening until he addressed his problems (which he didn’t).

Please sort your issues out OP, for your sake and the sake of your relationship. It’s good that you’ve got lots of insight into your feelings and patterns of behaviour. You’d be able to benefit so much from good therapy to unpick this tinder thing and raise your self esteem. Good luck with it all.

Tinder is addictive! It does something to the reward centres in our brain when we ‘seek’ and ‘find’. Even the repetitive swiping apparently has an addiction quality that does something to the brain and then not to mention the reward centres that light up in our brain when we get a match.

I think this is your problem more than a sexual attraction addiction have a look at sone videos on YouTube about it :)

My partner of 7 yrs was on tinder in Feb i discovered as a notification was on his phone when i went to borrow his charger while we were away for a wknd. I just dont feel the same any more...

So stop before it ruins your relationship. Find another outlet to cheer you up! Running? Gym?

It is wrong.

OP, looking for validation from other men WILL eat away at your relationship.
More importantly though, you simply cannot be in a healthy, mature relationship if you do not have firm boundaries and a solid sense of self worth.

Although you may not be physically cheating, you ARE being disloyal, and you are disrespecting your partner enough that he would be justified in ending it if he found out.

Well done for admitting it- next step is getting help.

Good luck

You need therapy OP. You're using OLD as a plaster for the wounds in your physche. If your current partner finds out he would be totally justified in washing his hands of you.

You need to learn how to self-soothe instead of seeking external validation.

thanks everyone. I know you are all right.

I have had therapy and stopped it as I didn't think it was helping. What took me to the therapist was a sense that I had a "hole" - that there was a part of me that feels empty where self confidence and security should be. I know everyone has self doubt, but there is something yawning and horrifying inside me that just makes me feel physically sick sometimes with loneliness, inadequacy and just sort of - tiny in the universe. Unstable, bobbing about, useless, unwanted. It's a physical panic.
I didn't solve it. I don't think I ever will.

I know you are all right and I have to stop doing this. I can't delete the app because I already have. I've got to find some other way of dealing with it when this aching horror just pours over me.

Sometimes the aching horror is triggered by a sense that dp doesn't care about me. He does, he really does. Sometimes a small thing just makes me think "oh right, of course, obviously he doesn't give a shit, they never do, he's "got" me now so I'm just nothing to him because he's "won"" and I feel horror and vertigo

I can't bring this crap to him because a. really not his deal. He isn't doing anything wrong, this is my shit. b. he is really busy. I feel stupid disrupting his genuinely busy and stressful life saying "ok I know you can't talk now because you just told me but please say something really sweet becuase I am going mad here."

If it was the other way around you'd hate it. If you love this guy as you say you do stop before it's too late and you loose him

Yes, I would hate it. I will stop.
I don't know what to do when I feel like that instead of this, which is really stupid.

I've name changed for this, but I am a regular poster.

I have done this exact thing in the past. For context, I am separated (pending divorce) but dating someone who I am absolutely head over heels in love with. It is the best relationship I've ever had, and I know he feels the same about me. My marriage failed, in part, because my ex had an emotional affair with someone he worked with, and for the last four or so years of our marriage he sort of checked out, and didn't show me any love or affection at all. My partners marriage failed because his wife had a physical affair with someone she worked with.

On occasion, earlier in our relationship, if I felt him pulling back or if we had any sort of upset, I would do exactly the same thing. I would put myself on Tinder, and just swipe. I had absolutely no intention of ever messaging or meeting any of the other men I matched with, but it made me feel, I don't know, maybe reassured that if things went wrong with this man that I love dearly, that there was hope of other relationships. My STBXH really damaged my confidence, self-esteem and left me feeling that I don't deserve to be loved, and I think it stems from that.

The thing that stopped me, was that my partner told me something really heartbreaking about the day he moved out of the home he had shared with his STBXW and kids. I just couldn't bear the thought of someone hurting him that badly. So every time we hit a sticky patch, and I think about Tinder, I try and remember that I never, ever want to hurt him like that, and thankfully it has been enough to stop me from doing it.

Oh gosh thank you for that understanding post.

Do you mind me asking how long you have been in this new relationship?

I used to be like that too. I can 100%recognise myself in what you say.

I also had counselling but it didn't help.

The change for me was finding that recognition and attention elsewhere. I'm a dj so I upped my game doing that and got loads better and now have a sizeable local following. I also do extreme sports and I volunteer at a local charity. All stuff that gives me that same calm satisfied 'validated' feeling.

It's still early days really, only six months, but I have never felt the same sort of connection with someone before. My previous relationship was 20 years, and as I said for the last four of those my STBXH had checked out, emotionally speaking. I suppose I feel like I don't want my previous relationship to ruin what I have now, because what I have now is just so much better and happier.

I hear you all so hard.

Jennifer - I think I need to do what you do, and find the recognition elsewhere. I think I've read a lot of stuff that implies that you can be fixed - independent - emotionally strong - etc. I don't think I ever will be. I don't think I will ever eradicate the need for admiration; or love, in fact. I love being loved. People say: love yourself, then you will be ready for a relationship. I think it's a bit mad to imply that people (or maybe just me) can be happy without love. I think it's good to be stoical when things go wrong but living without love isn't going to make the need for love go away.

And yes ITry this EXACTLY - "I don't want my previous relationship to ruin what I have now"

I will copy you and locate a thought to act as an emotional block to being a dick on tinder. In my case it will be this: he trusts me. He's a good man who hasn't had an easy life and shows an incredible warmth and beauty of character where some people would have been embittered by their experiences. I've known bitter men and suspicious men and he just isn't one. He trusts and he deserves his trust to be honoured.

Senseless my parter is a good and wonderful man, who was hurt in his previous relationship. I love him enough to be patient when he has a wobble, but I need to remember to hold steady when I have one.

OP - Just as an aside: therapy doesn't fill that hole you feel. You will never fill that hole. It can't be filled. But what you can learn to do is to own it, and to live with it - it can be a really beautiful and productive kind of acceptance.

AFistful - thank you. that is interesting.

Does everyone have it? And the most well adjusted people learn the acceptance you are talking about?

Or do some people not have it?

I want to talk more aobut this - maybe not here? I have always thought that there was something wrong with me and more recently, had hoped it could be fixed. It would be interesting to think about another angle on this - that it can't be fixed (this is what I am experiencing tbh) but there are other things you can do.

I'm feeling a massive wobble today of the kind that, in a more extreme form, has been the "get me on tinder!" panic. I'm not going to - partly because I know it's wrong, partly because today is not the worst day I've ever had. It's a beautiful day and I'm stuck inside my miserable head.

senseless, please don't go on Tinder. You know it's not the answer.

That feeling you describe - the tiny pointless/useless dot in the universe thing - I get it sometimes, usually when I'm in a crowded place seemingly full of couples (last time was on a big cruise ship with a female friend). I'm long term & resignedly single but living the happiest life I can in the circs. You've described it very well, it's an unpleasant feeling, but it will pass. Perhaps it's a question of reflecting what might have triggered it, and by understanding it, manage it.

Thanks, walkacrossthesand.

Delores
I kinda think you can fill the hole. Maybe not all the way, but loving yourself goes a long, long way