Sensitive Topic- Boyfriend told me he’s attracted to minors

[MorrisHer]

I’m aware I’m going to be ripped to shreds for this post and I probably deserve it but I’ve figured I couldn’t feel worse than I do already and if just one person can find it within themselves to hold my hand and offer me the tiniest bit of kindness and safe advice it will be worthwhile.
So I was married for 29 years, two grown up children. Met a guy who seemed like the full package, kind, warm and gentle.
Ex husband stated he wanted the house sold but insisted on moving in in the interim period as he had nowhere else to go so .. bf asked me to move in with him after a few months so I accepted, albeit all a bit rushed things seemed to go ok.
You know the saying if some thing seems too good to be true it usually is? …well
When we were out and about I steadily noticed he was checking out girls, like it wasn’t something I imagined .. it was a real vile gut instinct I’d had for a while.
During a recent argument I raised it with him and he made the foulest admission he was sexually attracted to teenage girls and often as a single man he was drive home from work and masturbate thinking about them.
He said he would never act upon those feelings as in harm them in any way but surely this admission IS a form of harm isnt it??
This man is 63 years old!! I’m sickened to the very core and sometimes I don’t feel I can go on .. he seemed a nice guy .. he has his flaws but never in a million years did I think he was that man!
I need to move out but I’m still waiting to sell my house and I have huge debts and apart from pitching a tent on the marsh nearby my housing options are limited so I’m biding my time til my house sells …
Please understand I’m a good person, a decent person with strong morals and this has destroyed me … please help!

His brain is not wired in the slightest from existence thousands of years ago, it really is not.

Yes it is. And so is yours. The brainstem, the basel ganglia, and the limbic system. All ancient.

The higher functioning newer parts of our brain work with them, explain them, write stories for them, and can control / override the ancient parts. But we can be more effective at this if we understand what's going on underneath.

You have an embarrassingly poor understanding of how the human brain has evolved and operates.

Please tell me you don’t have any teenage grandchildren?;if so make sure he steers well clear of them

Some probably do, yes. Many won't. There's a lot of variation amongst people.

Why are all the creepy men sympathisers pretending to be neuroscientists 😂

Why are all the neuroscience deniers revelling in their own ignorance? 😂

Personally I find neuroscience and developmental / evolutionary psychology absolutely fascinating... and not really something I'm ashamed to be interested in 😊

Is that a "not all men" reaction 🤣😂🤣?

True, of course, but nature works that way for both sexes.

This post is a minority of replies, but it’s exactly what I was thinking as I was reading all the responses.

i think a lot - a very significant minority - of men, if pressed, would admit that late-teen girls becoming women, so ages 16, 17, 18, are sexually desirable. It’s the combination of a youthful physique and face, with lack of experience, and a lot of them now are confident enough (and self-involved enough) to make a massive daily effort with clothes, hair, makeup.

if he’s unlikely to act on his thoughts, surely this isn’t an absolute moral wrong. It’s more like a questionable, best-kept-to-himself preference (very ewww, but slim late-teen girls do look great. This isn’t disrespectful to older women. It’s just a fact).

If he’s talking about girls that are 12, 13, 14, then it’s a different story altogether.

I think a lot of replies are a bit hysterical tbh.

They really don't

I did not and no longer am allowed to engage further 😪

You should! Looks like my comments got deleted for speaking the truth. Guess we all should know by now that MN supports those who have questionable behaviour around children/teens rather than those who call it out

Honestly, it’s not worth it, the advice was given and it’s up to whomever to take it or leave it

omg some of these posts are utterly sickening and I’m fairly sure are men posting justifying their personal tendencies. It’s not normal to fancy teenagers. End of.

They really do.

Are you a woman in her sixties who doesn't find a buff 20 year old sexually attractive, because there are some, or just talking with no experience of being 60?

I find it really amusing how a lot of younger people seem to think being sexually aroused should only be the preserve of the young.

Explaining simple biology is not absolutely sickening. Don’t be such a snowflake.

Well I'm 53 with a 19 year old son so not too far off.

I certainly don't go around fancying his friends FFS. The thought genuinely wouldn't enter my head in a million years.

Are you a 60 year old woman who fancies 20 year old young men?!

They're like kids. 😳

Do you have kids? How old are they?

Yes, 24 and 22. Why?

The bodies of the ones I see in gym, in the Olympic diving and gymnastics teams, on the professional football pitch and working on building sites carrying bricks with their shirts off in summer don't look like kids to me.

🤣🤣🤣

This thread should come complete with smelling salts for the fragilities of people horrified by the reality of human sexuality.

Well this was the site that left csa images up for a disturbingly long time.

Nobody on this thread has supported anyone doing anything illegal or even "questionable around children/ teens".

Nobody should be doing either.

Except for the OP who was aware back in November her partner was attracted to teenagers yet still decided to move in with him. But point that out and like the poster who spoke up above you will be subject to a barrage of abuse

It isn't illegal to be attracted to teenagers as long as you don't act on your attraction and the teenager is over the age of consent and there is no suggestion that you groomed the teenager.

I'm very sorry that some people need smelling salts to think about it, and it was extremely unwise for him to admit it, but it isn't illegal to masturbate to the thought of a nubile young woman.

We have a HUGE problem with men having sex with young women, and with paedophiles.

And it isn't the one you think I'm about to talk about.

It's that nobody getting these feelings can talk about it except with people who feel the same way, so they are completely unable to get any help to stop escalating their behaviour.

People having fits of the vapours about absolutely biologically normal human sexual attraction does not help stop the grooming of teenagers or paedophilia.

Ditto, add in a couple of grandsons.
I would no more fancy a fit male teenager than I would fancy my own son.
I can see they are attractive, but that doesn't mean I get sexually aroused at the thought of them....yuck.
I also do not for one second believe that all/most men see young women and get turned on.
I had more offers from men in my 40's than I ever did in my teens or 20's.

Some women (on here) seem to find it impossible to believe that men, just like women, are individuals.

The one's having a tantrum on here are the same people who have had posts deleted for bullying the OP. They are the very definition of crybullies.