DH checking out other women on FB

[Rosieposie79]

My DH is a member of a FB group dedicated to a particular outdoors sport/lifestyle. I've been aware for a while that he looks at fb photos in the pages of women who are members of this group.

He checks out different women, so it is not a particular person and he doesn't know any of them.

They are all fit, good looking ladies of roughly our age. Their photos are pics of them posing on mountains, running or swimming in rivers etc. Generally looking beautiful and aspirationaly outdoorsy. The kind of lifestyle we'd both love to live all the time - but with small children and jobs we are frequently a bit more boring and less beautiful!

Generally our marriage seems good to me. He would like sex more than once a week and I am trying to work on this. We have fun date nights. We've had the usual stresses of any family over this last 18 months but things seem to be easier and more relaxed now.

It bothers me because I obviously don't want my husband checking out other women (creepy, gross and rude).
Also I can never live up to the standards of someone else's curated and filtered photos so I feel bad about myself.
Finally, I can always tell when he has been doing this because it puts him into a foul mood! As if the photos give him a big case of FOMO - grumpy and cross with the day-to-day things of our life and telling me that we/I need to do better. Which makes me hate social media generally - some people just can't handle it!

I am wondering what to do about all this? Do I let him know that I've seen his internet history and try and have a conversation about it? I can only imagine he will be super defensive about being caught out and this isn't going to go well.

Do I just make a bit more effort to be less of a frump and hope he gets bored of this habit?

Should I ignore - it was a bit snoopy for me to check his internet history (on a shared computer) and maybe this is just a normal part of someone's private life?
Is anyone else in a similar situation?

I’m really sorry you’re feeling this way, but (I may be a lone voice on this), I don’t really understand it. Being in a relationship/married does not mean we aren’t allowed to find other people attractive. He gets to look. You get to look. Everybody checks people out, surely? I’m not seeing the harm.

Your feelings are always valid. You feel what you feel. But, I don’t think he’s done anything wrong re the looking. I also don’t think you should be looking up your partner’s search history.

Being in a foul mood with you is something else entirely, and I’d have a conversation with him about that.

Everybody checks people out, surely?

-Nope.

Why doesn’t bolding work?**

One one end and one the other

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(If this works, thank you.)

@Buggritbuggrit Is it normal? I thought checking out other women in real life was not on - so doesn't the same go for online too?

Not normal IMO to check out lots of pictures of other people regularly and then be arsey afterwards. What a dick.

It's one thing clicking on someone's profile - I know both me and DP do this sometimes when someone's being a bit of a prat on a local page for example. We'll have a look and scroll through their posts for our own amusement, see if we have mutual friends etc.

It's another thing going on their profile to specific look at profile pics and then get moody for days afterwards...

Are you sure he isn't doing the former?

I don't think that looking the women up on fb is that big a deal, it's just idle curiosity, most of us do it. Him getting narky afterwards however is not normal, so that's where I'd have an issue with it

Finally, I can always tell when he has been doing this because it puts him into a foul mood! As if the photos give him a big case of FOMO - grumpy and cross with the day-to-day things of our life and telling me that we/I need to do better.

Having a browse around attractive people's images esp if not way younger etc - ok (ish) but the above; well, it'd term that a type of abuse.

It's very objectifying isn't it, to them.and you.

His."my object is not performing as well as these objects so I'm not happy" thing.

(Note that he doesn't actually have a clue about the ,"objects" on fb, it's a filtered, superficial snap shot).

Do I just make a bit more effort to be less of a frump and hope he gets bored of this habit?

I wonder if the women he's looking at dress in tight sportswear at home? Doubt it.

Is he well groomed and dressed all the time? (Even if he is, probably easier when the kids tend to be the default mum responsibility, even if she works outside the home).

There's unrealistic expectations here. And, as above, objectifying.

Just for clarity: in what ways should him / you “be doing better?”

No, its nor normal for people to in relationships to check oout other people in social media and be grumpy 'with their lot' afterwards.
He's a dick. I'm sorry.

But I do think you should bring it up and ask why he is checking out these other women on facebook and what hes getting out of it.

If he dismisses you and your feelings about then he is basically saying that his kicks are more important to him than his disrespect and hurt towards you.

I wouldn't necessarily say it is you he is comparing them to you, perhaps just that life that you both enjoy but don't have as much time for.

Regardless of the reason he needs to recognise the way he is behaving is not helpful to him or fair on you. I don't think it will be easy to help him see it though.

Aww its a bit shitty OP and your feelings are valid, I think I would feel start to feel slightly insecure if this was to happen to often.

@EL8888 I think just spending more time outdoors and less time house work/working/sitting on sofa...

@sleepingbunnies21 Very well put - this is exactly what bothers me. I feel like I have to compete with a social media feed.

If he were to have a conversation with one of our DCs that he would explain in an adult way about social media not being 'real' and people giving curated versions of their lives. I just need him to start applying that adult mentality to his own activity!

Unfortunately you can't ever change them if there're like this, it just eats away and makes you constantly unhappy because you know there're always looking, destroyed my marriage in the end I could never trust him. I'm an attractive woman so I never understood why he had to but I learnt that is just the way he is and I won't put up with that again so if I never meet anyone else then so be it. Weirdly his now gf Is rather unattractive in comparison to me and most women which at least makes me feel secretly chuffed that he can't
obtain the ones he ogled over anyway.

Don't think it's your fault or you should change your way of thinking, he's a creep.

So he looks up the personal profiles of women who are in a group he’s part of?
Hmm I mean, I sometimes check out people who are in groups I’m in - but this is balanced across sexes - and it’s snooping (I certainly don’t “like their photos” or anything like that - is he doing that at all?

The getting grumpy would mightily piss me off though. It sounds to me more like he has “lifestyle envy” than is checking women out maybe? Hard to say without understanding the history - but surely these women’s entire newsfeeds are not just aspirational photos?

By ‘checking out’, I meant noticing other people and thinking they are attractive. I think most people do this every day. Staring/gawping at people in public is something entirely different (whether or not he’s with you, that’s clearly unacceptable behaviour). Clicking on social media profiles and having a snoop, I wouldn’t have a problem with.

His treatment of you - the bad moods and what sounds like belittling behaviour - I don’t consider at all acceptable. Like I said, I think you should tackle that.

It is not my intention to invalidate your feelings in any way, so I hope that’s not how I’m coming across. You feel what you feel. This is just my personal view of the situation you’ve described.

[quote Rosieposie79]@EL8888 I think just spending more time outdoors and less time house work/working/sitting on sofa...[/quote]
Work needs done. House work needs done.

If you have kids, they create a lot of housework (and other work).

In your free time, yes, you have the opportunity to get outdoors.

But what are the circumstances of the people whose images he's looking at ... they could have different working circumstances, different childcare arrangements, or no children, or shared custody of kids where they get EOW off, or loads of family support..... does he even know?

It's a little bit creepy to begin with, but the moods and unreasonableness .....