I’ve (28f) been with my bf (29M) for around 4ish months. I am super in love, and he’s gentle, sweet, kind and compassionate. He’s never invalidated my feelings, had never been mean or aggressive with me, and has always allowed for me to completely come to him with my honest feelings without feeling stupid.

Tuesday night, we were just on youtube and he went to go change something. He closed a tab and a folder of 8 nudes were pulled up. He got nervous and went to shut it but I immediately asked “what the heck is that?”

Still nervous, he said it was just porn, and I said- it looks like nudes a girl would send. Who is that?

He sat down and said it was Onlyfans nudes he saved. Two months ago, we had a talk about boundaries where I said porn is okay - like pornhub, videos, even twitter feed or subreddits, but I am really not okay with Onlyfans stuff, and especially not okay with holding onto nudes from exes, or using instagram for jerkoff material.

He said he deleted his OF account when we made it official, but I asked why the hell did he have those nudes? He said, well, to me, it’s just porn, and honestly I spent money on it, so i didn’t want to lose it. It’s nothing else than that.

I was really shook, tbh bc it triggered me. Reminded me of my ex who constantly cheated on me and had a folder of gigs upon gigs of nudes he would pay for, or receive, from women. My ex also had mundane instagram screenshots from normal girls, including our mutual friends! I explained this to my bf and said that I was super triggered and was feeling really unwell as a result. We tried to talk and he swore up and down that he wasn’t and would never cheat on me, and he only just watches porn. He felt super bad, was in tears, nervous I was going to dump him, and deleted the pics in front of me.

We went to bed- we actually had sex twice, and I dunno.. I couldn’t sleep much because I was disturbed. In the morning I asked him, because it suddenly occurred to me those nudes were honestly so bad (like blurry, just awful quality lol) and who specifically was she? He froze, and said it was a girl from his college. He said he paid for them last winter when he was single, and he’s never interacted with her. She was just popular on campus and “known for OF”.

We went to work (we don’t live together) and I was extremely disturbed by this even more. why in the world would he be holding onto nudes from some girl in his college? What was so special he had to keep it even now?

I am very sexual, so is he. Our sex is life is great, we have many of the same kinks, and whenever I sleep over we have sex usually twice a day. He’s not concerned me at all with being able to get it up nor getting off with me. Zero complaints.

But while I was work, I just got angrier and angrier. Last night, I went over to his house to talk more. He was incredibly nervous I was going to dump him. He was sad to see me so sad and he said I had every right to feel how I feel. But, ultimately, I don’t think he understands. I think he feels it’s truly just porn.

I asked how many times does he jerk off when we’re apart. He said anywhere from 3-5 a day. I asked what kind of porn does he prefer. He said generally just amateur, and really just pics or videos of women solo.

This all hurt me, but I’m trying to shrug it off. I watch porn almost everytime I masturbate, but I don’t go searching for amateur nudes from men. I don’t keep pics of men. I like videos of kinks and scenarios, so this is an aspect of porn I don’t relate to. I don’t want to control him or want him to resent me, but I laid out that I simply want him to never pay for Onlyfans, and I’d strongly prefer he not have a fixation of amateur pics of real women. But at the end of the day, I can only choose if i’m comfortable to go forward with him.

I asked how he would feel if i looked up amateur men pics of dick and only masturbated to that all the time, he said he doesn’t think it’s a problem. He knows that i love him, and our sex life is good, so he’s not bothered. I then asked how he would feel if i only masturbated to pics and videos of an ex, and he said he wouldn’t like that.

i did suggest he may have a masturbation and/or porn addiction, because I feel like 3-5x is a lot. And, it may well be a dopamine addiction, because he spends a lot of time outside work in his apartment, in the dark, playing games. He doesn’t have hobbies, he doesn’t go out much. I can actually understand why this would feel so good and addicting.

He said he would reflect on if he does have an addiction, but that he “googled the symptoms” and “doesn’t think he does” because he’s “functioning”. I told him, I’m not a doctor, and I just want what’s best for you and us. I asked if he would consider therapy for his depression. He said no.

To add, we had sex 3 times after this talk. lol, i’m beginning to think we use sex to cope.

I was emotional and asked if he didn’t like the way i look, or if he was bored with our sex. He said i was insane and that he’s obsessed with me and could never get sick of me sexually.

I’m trying to look on the bright side- he remained kind and compassionate to my feelings. He said he would comb through his phone and get rid of anything that seemed to fall outside of my boundaries. But he didn’t necessarily state that he would stop looking at, say, the gonewild subreddit. But i am hesitant to ask him to do anything else beyond no onlyfans and no instagram stuff. We all have our own relationship with masturbation, and truth be told I like porn myself. I actually think it would be hot to put on porn and fuck him, but at the moment I’m also angry about this college girl. I’m angry that he’ll probably continue to jerk off 3-5x a day to amateur redditors.

how to move forward without my anger and without him feeling controlled. I was thinking what if we watch porn together?

For some reason, a few hours ago, I was masturbating and my mind wandered… I was fantasizing about him watching/looking at porn on his phone while I gave him a blowjob. Honestly no clue why, because it makes me a little angry, but it also turned me on? I had a really intense orgasm.

Can maybe this be a way to repair trust? To sort of hold common ground? If I told him? Or would this become toxic? would it invalidate everything I’ve told him? I’m so confused!! omg

I’m set to sleepover this weekend, and I love this man. I think he truly cares about me, but porn - and specifically, this mindset- is very normalized. I don’t want to be dramatic or unrealistic. Other men would be worse, and at least he’s trying in some way to understand me, right? I’m so scared that I’ve pushed him away by being upset over this, but he swears I haven’t.

TLDR; is my bf looking at nudes/amateur woman a relationship killer? how do we move forward and sustain a healthy relationship with a full sex life? is it truly just porn?