Should I be worried, I found my partners internet activity

[jellycatlover]

I'm 44 and with my partner 41 who is an amazing man in so many ways. We have a wonderful relationship, but I've always had trust issues, due to previous relationships where my trust was broken due to cheating. He has never cheated and we have a healthy sex life. But every now and then I get the urge to "keep tabs" on him, find ways to see what he's up to online.

A few days ago I checked his deleted emails on our laptop, and discovered that he has used a site to create AI nudes using photos, multiple times. When I asked him he said he used my own photos to do this and it was just curiosity and messing around, and even sent me 2 photos of me that he created in these sites, I suppose to put my mind at ease, as my first instinct is that he has been uploading other womens photos, like of attractive women he knows/works with. He denies strongly that he has done this. But I have a feeling thats he's lying as I find it so hard to believe that he's used these sites that many times just to upload a few images of me. and to clarity, it's not like he doesn't already have photos of me already.

am I right to feel worried that he might have used other womens photos also? also part of me is pissed that he had admitted using my own photos, firstly without my consent, and secondly, why would he want to alter my body in images to make it look better?

My head is hurting so bad thinking about this, and trying to find a way to move on from it, and I'm trying not to over react, but I feel so hurt. And I also know that it's really wrong to check up on him like this.

This, really.

Some of the responses to this are batshit. Are we as a society just accepting this? I don't mean using other women's photos, I mean using yours. It's completing demeaning, and a data nightmare- who knows what he's creating and what happens to the image. You might as well star in a porn film, because he can and will make it seem like you have already.

Everyone who is weirdly chill about this- I hope you realise that up and down the country teenage boys are doing this with their classmates' photos. Are you also OK with that??

If it was some randomer - someone you occasionally sleep with or you’ve just started seeing - of course not. You don’t know them well enough, have no reason to trust them and no knowledge of whether they’ve shared them further. I’d be having some sharp words with them and there wouldn’t be a future.

But someone you’ve been with for years, and love and trust (as much as you can when you have massive trust issues thanks to an ex-dickhead) - the situation is completely different to me. You know they won’t have shared it, you’re aware that they’re generally an all-round lovely human being and they’re just messing about with something new on the internet.

In essence, the motivation and context is different to me. But that’s just to me - my boundaries do not have to be the same as yours, and yours don’t have to be the same as anyone else’s. Everyone’s comfort level is different, and is rooted in upbringing, culture, the society you’ve been surrounded by and the era you grew up in. You don’t get to dictate to others what their boundaries should be, you can only express what yours are.

If this crosses a boundary for the OP, then that is fine and she needs to make him aware of that, and enforce it. However, from her posts, it feels like the OP has very weak and shifting boundaries - when someone says ‘give over, it’s fine’, she responds by agreeing that she was in the wrong and needs the tough love. When someone says ‘oh god, this is terrible, bin him’, she then flips to agreeing with that viewpoint too.

That’s entirely understandable. It’s common when trust is hugely broken, especially if you’ve been through the manipulation that accompanies cheating, to be unsure whether your reactions, instincts and boundaries are reasonable or valid. So you end up looking to others to steer you on that. But all people can tell you is whether it would be acceptable for them.

I’ve been there and it takes time and hard work to relearn what your personal values and red lines are but hopefully the OP will find them become clearer over time.

OP - genuinely, I wish you all the best with this situation. It’s a really tough one but in the end, you know your partner and his motivations. Trust yourself on this.

I suppose you haven’t heard of the recent French trial where a woman’s husband of decades drugged her and passed her around for decades without her knowledge or consent? I suppose you haven’t seen the recent posts on here about a husband sharing pics of his wife without consent on swingers websites? Just because you’ve known someone for a long time or are married to them doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t do terrible things with your images without your consent. You would hope not obviously but it happens and it’s prob more common than we know because the women aren’t told. And using the OP’s pics without consent is a violation of her privacy rights. If it was so innocent why didn’t he ask her if he could use them to do it? Because he knew she’d say no?

@LaughingCat you said,

But someone you’ve been with for years, and love and trust (as much as you can when you have massive trust issues thanks to an ex-dickhead) - the situation is completely different to me. You know they won’t have shared it, you’re aware that they’re generally an all-round lovely human being and they’re just messing about with something new on the internet.

The OP doesn’t know any of these things, for certain. He could be a dangerous or disrespectful or creepy man who is just hiding it well.

You know they won’t have shared it, you’re aware that they’re generally an all-round lovely human being..

OP doesn't know what he's being doing with the images - she had no idea he was manipulating images of her. She hasn't agreed to it.

If he was an all-round lovely human being, he'd have asked and shown her what he was doing.

my first instinct is that he has been uploading other womens photos, like of attractive women he knows/works with.

Why are you dating this man if that’s your first instinct?

But someone you’ve been with for years, and love and trust

Does he deserve love and trust?

He didn’t have the op’s consent to use her photos in that way.

What he did with her photos is almost ghoulish - some young model’s naked body transposed over hers.

He minimised and dismissed and patronised her when she was naturally upset on finding out about his use of “undress me” and then when she saw what he’d done with her photos.

And I don’t know how you can possibly say that the op knows exactly what he’s done or would do with her photos (or anything else).

I’m guessing the op wouldn’t have had any idea that her partner would be doing what he’s done with her photos so far, so I’m afraid I don’t share your belief in the op’s (or anyone’s) omnipotence in knowing what their partner is doing or capable of doing. Unfortunately there are many many examples proving women don’t.

Also he sounds manipulative and someone who knows the op is, in a way, vulnerable.

So the whole “trust him, you know what he’s like, you know what he’d do” etc. Schlick is a fallacy …. And irresponsible advice imho.

Ahh, so consent doesn't always matter? How many years does a man have to put in before he can disregard her consent?
I'm glad you acknowledge this is just your boundary though and we're entitled to have different ones, as that's not how your previous post came across.

Using your photos for that purpose without your consent, I would consider to be the worst thing about this. Violation of trust. Violation of privacy. Of course they can be accessed by hackers. They are in the AI machine now.

I suppose you haven’t heard of the recent French trial where a woman’s husband of decades drugged her and passed her around for decades without her knowledge or consent?

Yeah and he was an apparently model supportive husband, and attended all those drs appointments with her when she was experiencing symptoms from all the drugging and all the rapes.

Probably making sure the drs didn’t discover anything without him being there to hear it.

Incidentally those crimes against his wife are the tip of the iceberg, he’s been caught for an attempted “sedation” and rape of a young estate agent and highly suspected to have raped and killed another young estate agent in identical circumstances. He was originally arrested for upskirtng (a “minor” sex crime). And look at what he’s actually done, it looks like he’s murdered a woman he raped. On top of everything else.

This is why “minor” sex offences should never be minimised …. as has commonly been the case to date.

Are you mad? Would you be happy for someone to use a photo of your child's face and stick it on a photo of an adult ? You can't have it both ways.

Back on this thread, even if what the op knows is “all”‘ he’s done…. There’s enough about it (on a number of fronts - the lack of consent, the discarding of real nude photos shared in intimacy’ & trust by his 40s partner; in favour of creating fake nude photos using a younger woman’s body ), the gas lighting and the attitude of patronising reassurance when caught ….. it all gives me pause re. his character, and the dynamic of the relationship.

It’s not even like he showed you the images or suggested you generate them together for a bit of fun, which I would find marginally more tolerable. It’s the fact that presumably he didn’t intend on you finding them.

I also think a lot of women like the OP are misled that they have ‘trust issues’ because they’ve felt the need to dig deeper into their partners phone/laptop/whatever, when actually they’re probably just well tuned into their instincts that there’s something off. Which in this case turned out to be true!

@TipsyJoker - that was an abhorrent case, truly sickening. But also an outlier (hopefully, or I’ll lose my faith in humanity). I think 99% of us can trust our partners not to be drugging and assaulting us with the rest of the region’s men while we’re out of it. Likewise, 99% of us can trust that our partners are not sharing our nudes with anyone else. I certainly wouldn’t ever think my other half is because I love and trust him. If he was doing either of those things then he would have crossed a boundary which I would find very hard to repair, if at all.
But then again, to me, mocking up some nude photos to jerk off to as a bit of fun and drugging/assaulting or sharing photos without consent on a public website are two very different levels of severity. To me. Referring you back to my previous essay on boundaries being unique to each of us.

@category12 - if he was putting it in the same mental category as watching porn, he may not even think there were consent issues. I could see how it could not occur to someone if it was for his own private viewing - it would have been mentally filed under ‘nudes’, which she’s sent him before. He might even, god bloody help him, think that it’s actually somehow better to use that tool as it’s her face, not some porn star’s that he’s masturbating to. People can be dumb and clueless. I’m not saying that was his motivation, just saying that I can see that it might be. But again, if that crosses a boundary for the OP, then she needs to verbalise it and enforce it.

@ByRealSheep - I didn’t say trust him…I said to trust yourself as you know him. If she really thinks about it and goes, you know what…I don’t think he was goofing about, I think he knew damn well that this was something I’d have an issue with and would never consent to and he did it anyway because you know what? There have been a few red flags which I’ve ignored because they’re nowhere near as bad as my ex’s. But I deserve better than this. ⬅️ That is brilliant, she’s thought it through and considered his behaviour in the context of her experience with him. If she does the same, and goes ‘he’s been a dickhead, but I genuinely don’t think he meant any harm by this and didn’t realise how much it would hurt me or that it would cross a line of consent but he needs to know that i don’t think it’s acceptable’ - then fine, they’ll probably find a way forward.

The thing I’m saying is that none of us know - we don’t know the OP and we don’t know her partner. We don’t know his motivation, or his character or anything we need to know about him to make a reasoned judgement. We just know one action in isolation. It’s a piss-poor action but it is just the one action. The OP knows him and is the one qualified to make the judgement. So she needs to trust her instincts on this, not ours.

Regardless, this is turning into a pile-on, which I don’t need just for expressing my own take on the situation, especially after a 16-hour day at work. Chill out people and accept that others have different views and opinions to you that you might not agree with but are equally as valid. Less drama and let’s not derail the post for the poor OP.

I’m also having trouble believing that a man’s first and only use of an app called undesss me, that creates fake pics of nude women from pics of clothed women - would be to use it on his partner’s clothed pics - when she’s already shared nude pics with him.

More like, after using it on photos of women online and seeing the results, he thought if would be “fun”/interesting to see whaf the app did with clothed photos of a “real” woman and see who’s they compared to the real nude photos.

I have a feeling he was doing a lot more with it than solely creating a couple of fake nudes of his partner (for whom he already had real nudes) as his first and only “foray”.

it was just curiosity and messing around

He's insulting your intelligence with this. He knows full well he's creating sexual material without your consent, which he clearly wasn't bothered with obtaining, and goodness knows where that will end up on those A.I systems.

This would be a dumping offence for me and many other women. Proceed at your peril with this man.

@Sashya What a bullshit, you're-silly-to-have-sexual-boundries kind of answer. Her own partner used her photos to produce digital sexual content.

I don't condone checking up on people, but without women following their intuition, there would be thousands of them living a lie right now and being exposed to their partners risky sexual betrayals.

The absolute fucking cheek of you to calling objecting to this 'controlling'. Go back to the Manosphere, Incel, misogynistic depths of Reddit where you belong.

What a creepy immature bastard. I’d get him the fuck out of my life. Don’t be gaslit by people saying you’ve done something wrong. Your instincts are correct. He’s a wrong ‘un. This isn’t him just messing around with a new toy FFS. I bet he’s a shit father too.

I said to trust yourself as you know him

People are fallible.

And quite honestly, he sounds manipulative…. No one decent needs to be saying “aren’t I a great partner who is loving and supportive and great”’

accept that others have different views and opinions to you that you might not agree with but are equally as valid

Not all views and opinions are equally valid.

And no-one has to accept they are.

Consensus matters. You are not within the consensus.

That’s not other people’s problem to accept.

@LaughingCat it’s not a pile on, it’s just that you said something and more than one poster disagreed.

The whole point is that it wasn’t an outlier. As well as the husband himself, an unthinkable amount of men making up a sizeable percentage of the local area were complicit, and even participated, in the most hideous crime.

More men than we would like to believe are sexual abusers, or would be. I’d have to dig out links, but studies have shown that over 30% of men would rape someone if they had a guarantee they wouldn’t be caught. NAMALT is bollocks. Most of them are exactly like that.

Likewise, 99% of us can trust that our partners are not sharing our nudes with anyone else

Lol, just pull a figure out of a hat.

You don’t know that.

None of us know how many men would share a partners photos.

Anyway, unless the op’s partner is a tech wiz who knows her images are secure at every point on that app ….. he can’t be trusted not to share them with others; because he disregarded any risks there might be …in his pursuit of “fun”.

(Or he was unaware of any risks, in which case he’s a dumbass on top of everything else).

But in any case, he didn’t seek or have her consent and he didn’t give a fk about that. And he completely minimised and doubled down on that when confronted.

The sheer amount of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual coercion etc that a large percentage of the female population experiences from childhood upwards …. Certainly seems to indicate so.

It's creepy as absolute fuck that he does this. With anyone's photos. Creepy as absolute fuck.

Utterly controlling, dehumanising and sick attitude to other people. Instead of actually enjoying you in the flesh - he sits there and furtively does this, like an incel.

Do not start falling over yourself apologising for having checked his deleted emails. Don't let that be the focus - your instincts were clearly justified, and you sound like you've preemptively DARVOed yourself because that's been done to you so many times. You're not the absolute creep generating fake nude images of unwitting women.

P.S. Oh fucking hell, I just saw that he's a father. Tell me he doesn't have a daughter.

It is disturbing how many people here think it is bad that she checked his computer but it is ok for him to create sexual content based on her likeness. I know that all this is fairly new and we need time to get used to it and create opinions, but I would not wanted anyone to create naked "things" with my head attached to them weather for his own use or to distribute.