Partner went through old phone.. again

[doireallyneedaname]

My partner and I have been together for five years and share a 1 year old.

A few years ago he went through an old phone of mine and saw some historic text exchanges between myself and other men that quite frankly, made him feel like shit. I was a different person back then with the main difference being I was a very open sexually and was a huge flirt.

Anyway, yesterday evening I noticed something was off with my partner and found out he’d been through another old phone going over the same messages.

He was in tears saying that it’s clear I just don’t want him the way I did those other guys, because I don’t talk to him like I did them, or act the same way.

I reminded him some of those messages were a decade ago but he says he feels jealous that I had all these wild experiences with other men and have no desire to do anything similar with him.

Our sex life is pretty standard; although it’s definitely decreased over the last couple of years. Once a month, maybe.

The thing is, we are both quite submissive and I am sure he wants me to make the suggestions. Last night he told me he’d once sent me a photo of something a bit frisky and I ignored it, so he didn’t try again. He said he felt knocked back, but I can’t even remember the photo nor did I know that was an attempt at suggesting that whatever it was.

He says we are not close intimately anymore and that it’s clear I’m just not attracted to him. I am, but I have a lot of anxiety surrounding other issues which he knows about, and honestly that overrules everything and leaves no real desire for any intimacy.

I feel bad but equally I can’t understand why he’s comparing me today to who I was 10 years ago.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

I should add he is a very loving and caring partner, a far cry from my previous relationships which were awful. He said “ do I have to be an arsehole to make you want me” and that makes me sad because he’s such a sensitive, sweet soul. The dynamic is different between us and the people in the conversations he read, I didn’t love those people and I was just a young girl showing off and talking rubbish.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation?

You have a Right to a past

He’s either got some kind of martyr complex, is a controlling weirdo, and/or is really getting off on this. He enjoys having something to berate you with (otherwise WHY go looking) or he has some kind of cuckolding fantasy, he’s reading the texts for kicks and then can’t cope with feeling grubby afterwards and takes it out on you. Bleaugh.

Either way, It’s feeding a need inside him.

Not at all. He’s very passive and he is definitely the more grounded and rational one of the two of us.

There are various things going on here.

Don’t dismiss @5pForAPlasticBag’s input. You didn’t cheat but he’s telling you how your husband feels knowing how passionate and sexual you have been with other guys. Yes, he shouldn’t have snooped and yes, he decided to rub salt in his own wounds. And yes, a long-term mature relationship is often different from what people get up to in their 20s (though my 20s were very quiet sexually so my journey was in the other direction).

But you’ve also said anxiety about other things is meaning that you’re not really interested in intimacy. That can’t be helping your husband’s confidence and it sounds like he’s feeling rejected. You shouldn’t have sex you don’t want to have but it sounds like intimacy has become rather rare between you and he’s allowed to have feelings about that. Unless the anxiety is related to something he’s doing, it seems a bit hard on him to have manage without intimacy long-term and you only have to look at the anguished threads on here from women in long-term sexless relationships to know what a damaging effect it has on relationships unless both parties are happy with it. It’s common for couples to have mismatched sex drives - my DH and I did (less so now) - but some compromise should be possible.

5pForAPlasticBag False equivalence and not helpful to the op at all.

It's like deliberately poking yourself in the eye with a stick and then blaming the tree. What a muppet.

Trouble is, his feelings are genuine even if self inflicted. Would counselling help?

How is feeling of sexual inadequacy false equivalence?

Men who try to slut shame you for your life before they met you don't make good partners. Or fathers.

Think very carefully if you want your child to grow up thinking that men are entitled to snoop through women's private correspondence and berate the woman about their history.

@5pForAPlasticBag

I didn’t claim my experience is exactly as the OPs. Mine involved betrayal whereas hers does not. Where it is similar is that he is judging himself against her previous lovers and specifically her sexual persona with those men. He feels insecure because, on the evidence he is presented with, he is “less” in her eyes than they were. He fails to spark the same lustful response as her previous partners. This is corrosive knowledge.

There are no similarities. The dynamics in relationship with different partners are different . Op previous partners are not clones. People do grow and change over the years. It's absurd you stating that the op should be the same person she was years ago.

The op partner is wrong to be snooping through her things and trying to reprimand her for things when he wasn't even on the scene.

People are allowed to have a past before their current partners .

This is true. I’m aware some of my issues surrounding anxiety are affecting my relationship because they affect my daily life quite severely.

Saying that, the only solution is to show my partner more intimacy, but I just don’t feel like it at all at the moment.

I’m sorry you went through that.

I definitely think my partner feels similarly, as he has said things like “this has been consuming me since the first time I read them but I put it to the back of my mind” - he definitely feels inferior and rejected but to me he is the most attractive man I’ve ever been involved with (and actually is, no doubt about it.)

But he's not a loving and caring partner:

1. He manipulates you by saying does he have to be an arsehole to have you sleep with him

1. He invades your privacy and wants you to explain yourself

1. He is not understanding of the issues surrounding your anxiety

1. He plays mind games about pertaining to have sent you a picture that you cannot recall

Ugh, the more I write the more awful he sounds ... immature and needy .

There may well be a huge backstory that justifies the withdrawal of intimacy but it’s very hard on your partner. Emotional and physical intimacy (not necessarily full sex but cuddling and snuggling) are very important in a marriage.

As I said, he was very wrong to snoop but unless you’re responding to things he has done (which may be the case), it seems harsh to withdraw intimacy entirely and expect him to lump it.

Are you seeking help for your anxiety? Have you and he tried therapy? Do you want to save your relationship or is it more stressful than its worth?

OP what I’m getting from your OP is that your partner is using very old messages that pre-date your relationship by a significant amount of time, which he has accessed by snooping through your property without permission, to guilt trip you into providing him with the sort of sex he has imagined you had with other men. And not only has he done this once, when presumably it didn’t provide him with the outcome he wanted, he’s done it again.

The reason your are feeling bad is because it was his intention to make you feel bad. He knew what those messages contained and has chosen to read them, again. He knew you were unhappy about him invading your privacy and looking through your old phone yet he did it again. If he was so guilty about looking at your private things, again, then he would have a, controlled his impulses to do so; or b, tried to hide it from you out of shame. The reaction of a guilty person is never to c, use the information they have gained by invading your privacy to make you feel guilty enough to give them something they want, in this case I’m assuming it’s sex acts.

Think it through OP, it’s manipulation, pure and simple, top to bottom, and it’s a repeat offence, so it’s not even like a first time where you can think it was a mistake.

Whether a broken arm is caused by an abusive spouse or simply falling off a ladder, the pain is the same. Granted, one comes with emotional pain as well as physical but a broken arm feels like a broken arm. And so it is with sexual jealousy. The OP’s DH has, to his mind, evidence of his wife being sexually “X” with other men and “Y” with him with “X” clearly being better. This creates a state of permanent emotional discomfort to say the least. It acts as a barrier to intimacy and the couple’s sex life hits a downward spiral.
Would the OP be the first woman in history to “settle for Mr Reliable”? Someone who doesn’t float her boat but ticks enough other boxes to be worth being with? I’m not saying that is the case here, I’m saying that that idea has probably occurred to him. What woman would want to be thought of as “good enough, not much of a looker but good with the kids”? How long before that notion became an all consuming paranoia that drove out all the other positives in a relationship.
Intimate trust is extremely delicate and when it becomes damaged the effects are often devastating. Was he wrong to snoop? Probably. Old phones message are perhaps the modern equivalent of old love letters from ex’s. No current partner wants to find those but can’t resist reading them when they do.

As you say, you have anxiety around intimacy that has limited things at home. You can hardly blame the guy for blaming himself - blaming himself for not being good enough in your eyes.

@doireallyneedaname

This is true. I’m aware some of my issues surrounding anxiety are affecting my relationship because they affect my daily life quite severely.

Saying that, the only solution is to show my partner more intimacy, but I just don’t feel like it at all at the moment.

Just to highlight the obvious... You have a 1yr old baby. You are caring for another human all day, every day. That has an impact on anyone's sex-life just on its own! He's being a dick, end of.

If my DH did this I'd be furious at him. How dare he snoop through your private things and how fucking dare he paint himself as some sort of victim for not liking what his snooping revealed. Tell him to grow the fuck up or fuck off.

Honestly OP my top two pieces of advice for dealing with this man would be:

Preferred: LTB. He’s manipulating you into sexual activity you are clearly not entering into willingly by invading your privacy then guilt tripping you in order to coerce you into it. That is never the hallmark of a good partner.

Effective as long as there are consequences for him transgressing again: Tell him that his feelings of inadequacy are not something you can or should be taking responsibility for, and that he should seek counselling to work through whatever is causing him to feel insecure. You will not accept him invading your privacy, then using his own insecurities to guilt trip you into taking responsibility for fixing them.

He shouldn't have snooped, but he did, and he did that probably because he became insecure through not being intimate.
Do you think he supects you may be having an affair.?

The snooping would certainly indicate that he's hyper vigilant.

If you love him and find him extremely attractive, show him, I don't know what anxiety problems you have that prevent you wanting sex but discuss this, explain why you cannot be intimate.
Only then can you start to resolve that problem... by talking.

Yeah, he actually said he feels like I’ve settled for him because he’s a “nice guy” and he’ll “do” but it’s obvious he doesn’t turn me on. Apparently.

I can understand how he can feel like that and I am a very different person sexually depending on who I am with. I am also quite submissive so need some pushing to be less vanilla. It has to be led by them and that gives me permission to show another side.

@5pForAPlasticBag I had a fwb and it was full on sex messaging, dressing up etc which was fun and it was sex. But what I experience now with no need for dressing up, the pure intensity, is lovemaking and 100x better. However, if in the future I feel we need to spice things up, then I will introduce other stuff, but for now there is no need.

Oh and @5pForAPlasticBag

I think stating that the op's husband will have similar insecuries and lack of self confidence is perfectly resonable and a good point.

I'm very sorry 5p you have been through so much.

It’s a viscous circle.

The messages he read were on Facebook messenger so they go back years.

But why? Just delete them. Unless you are keeping them for a reason, I don't understand why you didn't delete them when this first came up and he said how they made him feel.

If it was a man who had "kept" messages like that he would be slaughtered on here.

That aside, it sounds like you need a long, deep conversation with each other.

@doireallyneedaname

Yeah, he actually said he feels like I’ve settled for him because he’s a “nice guy” and he’ll “do” but it’s obvious he doesn’t turn me on. Apparently.

I would not get into trying to talk him out of this thinking. You will inadvertently validate it. I suggest dismissing it as ridiculous thinking and if he keeps on in a slump then suggest he get some counselling (not joint counselling, just for him).