So sorry for the long post. I’m not even sure where to start with this, but right now, I just feel so low and so alone, I don’t even know what to do other than reach out to a bunch of strangers!
Yesterday I saw a few things in my partner’s search history that worried me and sent me on a bit of a spiral, and today I found something even worse! I know i should NOT be looking at my partner’s search history, but i think I get a bit paranoid, and then if I’m feeling particularly low, I do have a bit of a snoop. I wish I could just trust my partner enough not to do this. But I think I just worry and then think, I’d rather know than not know. Anyway, the reality is… it’s wrong, but I did it. Firstly, I know most men and lots of women watch porn, myself included, but I saw that he was frequently watching trans porn and ‘shemales’ —I know that term is derogatory, but hey, that was literally in the search terms. I guess this send me in a bit of a paranoia spin, for some reason, that maybe there are bigger things he’s not sharing with me? But then, maybe it’s just a porn thing and doesn’t translate to real life at all. Fine. But today, already quite panicked and low about this, paranoia not letting me sleep etc, I looked again, on another browser on his phone, and saw that a few months ago, he had searched for erotic massage in our home town as well as local sex sites, for local hookups. Annoyingly, i couldn’t check if he’d made a profile or anything, or investigate if he’d acted on it, since it needed log-in details which i didn’t have. For context, this already happened a few years ago about 2 months after I had our baby. I was already feeling low after having a baby, and accepting that my body had changed quite a lot. He also didn’t touch me through the pregnancy and I cried many many nights feeling very rejected. When I found these kind of sites on his computer then (pretty much the same thing, local sex and looking up erotic massages), I went absolutely mad, but he assured me that it was just a thing he was looking at when he was a bit stoned and had no plans to do anything. He was apologetic and said he wouldn’t do it again, knowing how it’d affected me. I don’t know why but it still affected me for months afterwards. I still kept feeling sick thinking about it, and it made me feel even more rejected that he was looking for something else, even if he never acted on it. Our sex life never came back fully after our child was born. He never wanted to go down on me, which made me think that I was no longer attractive down there after having a baby. I confronted him about it, hoping for some honesty, but he denied anything was wrong. He finally admitted years later that he was a bit freaked out by the birth. Anyway, my self esteem in this relationship has just got lower and lower and today it’s absolutely on the floor. We have had sex a handful of times in the ten years since having a child. He has NEVER gone down on me in that time, so i stopped going down on him! Sometimes I get really angry about this, that I’m still young and I’m wasting time with someone who really isn’t attracted to me. Sex is non existent now, and has been for a few years. The last time was approximately 5 years ago and i got pregnant with our second child. I know there are major issues here, that I don’t even know how to deal with since I simply don’t feel attractive in any way to him, so it’s really difficult for me to instigate anything in that regard. I’ve put up an absolute block, because i just feel repulsive to him, in my heart of hearts. We don’t kiss, don’t touch. Nothing. When we’ve dared to talk about this, he suggests we share a bed again (we are in seperate rooms at the moment) to build intimacy, but I really feel like it’s too late in some ways. It would take a monumental effort for me to feel attractive let alone sexy again. I’ve absolutely suppressed this part of myself the last few years, though every now and then I really feel a longing to be with someone else, just to feel loved and desired again, and fantasise about just breaking up and getting with someone who desires me. Is it even possible? Would anyone find me attractive with this undesirable body that even my partner rejected? That’s where my head goes. Anyway, after finding these things on his phone I’m at a loss of what to do. We get on great outside of our sex problems, he’s a great dad and does a lot of the childcare while I work and study part-time. I know I’m not around loads, so there’s little chance for us to connect, but we are definitely more like flatmates/co-parents than romantic partners at the moment. It feels crazy to break up the family, as it works well in all other respects, but everything is pointing to the fact that that ship might have sailed for us, romantically. I just had to vent, because I still feel like crying after seeing this stuff on his phone and literally don’t know what to do, especially as we’ve been through this before. I am considering breaking up with him, but am daunted by the upheaval this would cause. Would love some balanced thoughts on this!