Hi all. I was wondering if I could ask for some advice about this situation - and maybe even someone has been in the same situation and can relate. I feel really alone because nobody I know has been in this situation.
Been with boyfriend for about 1.5 years. First year was fine, not fantastic. Always felt like maybe he was 1 step behind on feelings and that played in to behaviour. However, not objective bad treatment, spent lots of time with, affectionate etc - just always not quite at the level I was giving.
At almost exactly the 1 year mark, I discover he has been compulsively looking at other women online - real women that he knows, not celebrities. Variety of sources - women he works with, women he does hobby with, even a neighbour. About 30 women all in all, and he'd look at at least 1 a day, for roughly a fortnightly rotation of all the same names. Some particular names appeared extremely often though, and particularly hurt because they are young, extremely skinny, blonde etc - replace each of these words with their opposites for a description of me. Also discovered he'd lied about the timeline of his previous dating history (not so much that it was an issue i.e. cheating - but why lie?)
Confronted him immediately, and he proceeded to continue to tell half-truths for around a month. Did eventually come out with the whole truth, but it had to be really dragged out of him. However, finally comes clean and admits to stuff that I didn't even know about. Find out that while he would really often speak about his previous girlfriends with his friends (she is gorgeous, she is so funny...), he has never mentioned me to them apart from an initial message to say he is now dating somebody.
Now, I know factually that he hasn't cheated - a lot of the women he was looking at are women he asked out on dates before we dated that declined, exes etc. I fully believe he didn't cheat and can fully vouch for it. However, this has affected my self-confidence a lot.
However, we're now 6 months on from that, and while I've moved on to an extent, I feel like he is really unempathetic. I won't lie - it's been a hard 6 months, with the first around 3 months having almost weekly tears, moving on to fortnightly. However now, I sincerely don't get upset unless if there is a trigger. For me there's 2 issues - not liking me as much as I like him, and liking other women.
An example of a recent scenario is that we recently visited the restaurant we went to on our first "proper" date (relationship blossomed over lockdown). I ask him if he remembers coming with me, and he says no. He sincerely doesn't remember our first date. He says this is because to him, our walks and coffees were the first dates - however it still hurts. He immediately feels very defensive, and he just disengages with the conversation. I'm actually the one trying to move the conversation along by changing the topic, but he's frozen and closed off and will barely engage. We go to his flat and I start crying (more from the silent treatment than the lack of remembering our date), and he is just emotionless.
He's emotionless whether or not I have a (fairly) valid reason to be upset. He says it's because he's at the end of his tether and he just can't cope with months more of this. I completely understand and i'll admit there were times I was just trying to argue in the first 3 months of this. But I feel like at this point he uses the past to dismiss me having any emotions whatsoever - which is crazy, as he was the one in the wrong. I will add that he is under extreme stress at the moment at work, and will be for the next 3 months-ish - and this extreme lack of empathy has exactly correlated with his work stress.
We don't have any finances together or children. Honestly, is it time to end this?