Argument with DP about group chat

[ChristinaDm]

My DP and I have been together just over a year. He has a group of friends that he has known since school. They are all in their early 30s but they seem to have the mentality of teenagers. My DP rarely sees them and turns down invitations to their dinners and nights out. He says they bore him because they only talk about money or women.

At the weekend we went for dinner with his parents and he got a message from their group chat. It was a picture but I didn’t see what. He hid the phone very quickly.

On the way home he said that the friends had sent him a stupid picture that he didn’t want his parents seeing. I asked what it was and he said ‘just a stupid picture.’

I asked if it was a rude picture and he said yes. Was it a woman? He said yes again but when I didn’t reply, he said it wasn’t. He then said it was a photo of his friend’s arse. I asked to see it and he said he’d deleted it.

I asked why he’d lied about it being a photo of a woman and he said it was a joke to see my reaction. This upset me because he knows I don’t like things like this. I am very anti porn and things like that. I already disliked this group chat anyway because I’ve seen the display photo and it’s of a woman in a bikini with huge boobs. Not very good especially as on first glance it looked like he was speaking to another woman. Also quite misogynistic.

I still don’t know what the photo was. He has completely wiped it from the phone and has left the group chat, even though he says he’s sure they’ll try to add him again.

I have an issue with him lying because I don’t understand why he wasn’t honest with me. He may have thought I would be upset (if it was a porn type photo) but at least then I’d know what it was. I’m sure it wasn’t what he said because he’s shown me stupid photos they’ve sent him of someone showing their arse before.

I have never met these friends because my DP doesn’t even act like they’re important to him. I still feel unsettled about this as we’d had a nice evening with his parents and this soured it a little. I am also worried that he can’t be honest with me about something so small. He completely shut down about it after a while and said I made a big deal over nothing and it wasn’t his fault that they sent him a photo. He thinks that I don’t trust him. It’s just that honesty is very important to me because I was cheated on in a previous relationship and I care a lot about this man and all I wanted was the truth.

Thank you for reading. I am feeling a bit down about it tonight and I know I should forget about it but I wonder if why some men have to act like immature teenagers.

You'd had a nice evening with his parents.

He lied about the content of the pic because he (stupidly) wanted to avoid spoiling the mood.

You persisted and uncovered the truth. And now can't let it go.

He doesn't socialise with them,has left the chat, has deleted the pic.

I don't know what else he can do. By continually raising it, your making it into a deal breaker.

The ball is now in your court ...

You can judge someone by the company they keep.

If I was in a group chat that frequently sent round jokes that were racist, homophobic, or victim-blamey, I would leave that group. I wouldn't stay in it and just roll my eyes and go "Women, eh?!"

Staying in a group like that is tacitly endorsing the content.

So OP it's up to you. If you're happy with a man who is so cowed by peer pressure from people who he apparently no longer socialises with that he can't even leave a whatsapp group or apparently is too dumb to know how to prevent being re-added to it... that's up to you.

I don't monitor his messages. I can’t even fully understand them because they are not written in my first language. I have no interest in reading them so I feel it’s unfair that people are saying I don’t let him have any privacy. I only found out about all this because he told me.

I’ve let this go and I did apologise to him the day after about making a big deal of it. I feel bad about it. Now things are normal between us. I posted here because I still feel unsettled and a bit down because I wish it hadn’t happened.

Exactly this, DH has cut contact with most of his old friends because of this type of behavior, off his own back I'll add before anyone starts with the controlling comments.

But I do think your DP has done what he can, he has left the group and doesn't socialize with them, I think that's fair enough and doesn't warrant any more conversation, although I do think a clearing the air conversation might be in order.

You have been with him for a year and already think you can control how he communicates with people he has know for years. He may not be close to them now - but it’s his choice, no? He is an adult.
if you don’t trust him to be making choices like this in his life - there is no future really.
If he posted here - I’d tell him you are only going to get more controlling and he needs to get out now.

to summarise:
He has done nothing to warrant this massive overreaction and emotional manipulation you are putting him through.

No, she's been with him for a year and is puzzled by his backtracking and then his lying after he'd already said it was of a woman.

Nah, he’s in the group, he still meets with them.
He hasn’t matured at all, he’s part of it.

You work really hard to try and sanitize he’s behaviour.

Sounds like he lied because he was embarrassed by the photo or told the truth but then you went silent and icy so he lied because you were mad.

If he's left the chat I'd get over it tbh. You can't control what people send you.

If the group chat image is of a woman with big boobs then I think that sets the tone of the kind of content, OP.

IME it'll most probably be an outlet for a bunch of outwardly nice guys with girlfriends, wives and kids to share porn, make misogynistic 'jokes' and comments and generally behave in a way they would never get away with at home or in the workplace. All neatly stored away in a chat as 'lads bantz', with no humourless women around to tell them off. I'd personally be really unhappy at my DP being active in a chat like that. It's very much showing one face to you and another, much more unpleasant one, to their mates.

Thing is though you don't know if that is the case. You also don't know if your DP is/was on there regularly or if, like he says, it's just a bunch of old mates and he stays out of it.
But I totally get where you're coming from. No one wants to think their lovely DP is sitting on the sofa next to them commenting on a porn clip or making rape jokes or whatever. I think all you can do is let this instance go, but make clear to your DP that misogyny is a deal breaker for you.

I'd bet your DP would have a massive problem if you were in a group chat with your female friends, comparing dick sizes and sending each other naked photos of men.

Agreed. So she should vote with her feet? It's no rocket science is it.

He didn’t tell you because of how you would react.

and what a fuss!

it was a picture and it is a shame that he has left the group due to you giving him such a headache over a picture of a bottom or woman!

you do realise that celebrities who pose in their bikinis or barely there dresses like to attract the attention of other people and are happy about it?

is it porn when KK tweets to her 20 million followers?

you ought to be careful about impressing your views onto other people - it doesn’t bode well……..

I don't understand why this is an issue. I have absolutely no idea who my husband chats to, group chats included - and he would say the same about me. We never look at each other's phones because we're just not interested, not to mention the fact that whatever he looks at is none of my business! I mean, just give folk a bit of privacy, please.

Also O P, you shouldnt have apologised if you plan to hold it over him. If you want to end your relationship over a group chat so be it but you don't get to stay with him, apologise for overreaction and then wallow in how dreadful a person you think he is for having privacy over his own phone.

I think you're getting an unnecessarily rough ride here.

You say your DP quickly hid his phone when he was sent the picture, then later on changed his story on what it was. That's bound to make you feel uneasy. I do think under the circumstances that if he'd been able to show you the picture, it would have put your mind at ease. Even if it wasn't a nice picture, at least you'd have the truth after DP fibbed about it.

I'm obviously not saying that DP should always show you his personal messages, but he put you on edge and showing you would have resolved this!

Oh lighten up!
He didn't show you because he knew it would offend you and you'd go off on one about it. He is being respectful of your feelings
You can't control what his friends send on a group chat or police what he sees!!!
My DH has a work group chat and some of the posts are not what I would approve of but he is his own person and as long as he doesn't show me or send them on to me I couldn't give a fig about it.

This thread is good reminder for anyone asking relationship advice on here, to always remember what kind of standards other’s have for men and relationships.

Certainly, some women even treat men like autonomous beings, horror of horrors!!

Don’t play obtuse.
It’s the downplaying and excussing sexism.
I know men are individuals, that’s why I know there are men out there who aren’t part of the problem.
There’s a horror for you!!

Some men are so lucky to have these types of women. Thank you for enlightening me and for your assumptions about my character based on one thread.

You can keep going with that but eventually you're going to have to circle back to the fact that OPs partner isn't up to her standards and expectations (whereas other people might be fine with it) , so she needs to end it, but probably wont.

I think like others have said, because he was worried that his partner would make a big deal about it (rightly or wrongly) and he wanted to try and avoid an argument. My partner gets sent dirty photos or other drivel from his friend, sometimes he shows me, but I don't get offended by it, some of it is funny, other times its a little insulting to women, something that would have been funny 30 years ago and laughed off probably wouldn't be now, the world has changed. I just think his friend is a bit strange or ignorant, but I don't blame my partner, they don't socialise outside work. But I guess we are all different.

@ChristinaDm If its still playing on your mind, because of him lying about it, and it was sent via whatsapp you can still see what the picture was, even if he left the group and deleted the chat. If he realises he shouldn't have lied, is sorry, he'll have no issue with you asking to check this. If you go into his whatsapp on his phone, into settings, into storage and data, then into manage storage, it shows all images and videos sent and received through whatsapp. You can see all images/videos sent and received by each chat group (even if the chat has been deleted in the main whatsapp chat section). Once you select the chat group, you can filter by 'newest' images/videos by clicking the little 3 bar icon in bottom corner.

Such a mountain out of a mole hill. He didn’t tell you/lied because you’d already gone on about how you don’t approve of porn etc - probably abundantly clear that it would have caused a huge fight which he wanted to avoid. He can hardly control what he has sent and he has deleted it and left the chat (effectively isolating himself from his friends because you don’t approve of them). If you want to date only saints who are only friends with other mythical saint like men then you’ll be looking for a long time. Also by imposing your own anti porn views you probably just cause men to hide porn use - much better to pretend to be chill about it to weed out the truth faster!

^^This