Please help me

thank you lovely.. I appreciate everyones comments, even those hard to hear! I talked to him about it recently and he promises, and assures me that porn isn't an issue anymore and he hasn't relapsed (i asked him if this had happened at all during our time together).. but from all these responses its making me worry that actually he is lying to me. our last conversation was quite 'conclusive' if you know what i mean, and he's quite short and blunt about it. I can tell he doesn't like talking about it.

I think i will have to discuss it with him more and actually try and find out a lot more about how long he was addicted, if there is still a trigger. He was completely inconclusive when i asked him about that the last time, saying that there was 'porn' everywhere and its impossible to get away from it. I kept asking if it was a problem still and he said that he doesn't think it is. hearing him say that its 'impossible to get away from' makes me worry though. hes just not being clear.

how would you recommend approaching him about it again? he's clearly very ashamed of his whole past and ive done everything to make him feel comfortable, i personally don't feel like its something he should feel ashamed about anyway.. I dont want to call him out for lying if he really is being honest with me, but at the same time i need to know if he has relapsed..

 

I am beginning to think this is it sadly..

 

thank you for giving me your own experience - this does help a lot! I talked to him recently and he promised that it was no longer and issue.. im struggling on if i should push him further or trust him. There are opportunities, like before I get to his after work, or when i stay at home once a week so he can see his dad, and this is just making me feel increasingly paranoid and suspicious that he has relapsed..

I think i need to ask him what his sex drive was before to work out if this is something that is literally just the way he is or if it could possibly be that hes relapsed.

if you dont mind me asking, how did you confront it finally with your girlfriend? did she find out or did you give up privately.. if he has lied to me, im not sure how to confront him again without being an awful girlfriend and calling him out on something..

 

he works in a shop and is the main person on the floor so i dont think this is as possible for him, but having thought about it seriously i do think there are opportunities for him to be doing it without me knowing.. thank you for replying!

 

this is my issue, the idea of leaving him is almost impossible for me, but i just don't know if this is something i can cope with. you'd think 7 years would be enough to try and decide this but i just don't know. 90% of the relationship is strong and healthy and good, and i love him. its just that 10% where i feel unwanted that makes me question it. But then how important is sex in a relationship if you've found someone you want to be with for the rest of your life.. As you said i already know how i feel about it, its just deciding whether or not i can learn to accept it.

 

this helps a lot - thank you. he felt very ashamed about it when he first admitted it, and what i can understand is however many times someone tells you its nothing to be ashamed about, it doesn't make you feel any less so.

i think the fact that he didn't tell me for the first 2 years of our relationship means that it's entirely possible that he's being dishonest now. I think i need to have a chat with him and confront if this is whats happening again.. again, thank you!

 

So, just too clarify. I spoke to him over the last few days and he basically has said that there is absolutely no chance that he's relapsed/touched himself/looked at porn whilst we've been together. I had a very intense conversation with him and basically said that regardless to how awful it was, he needed to tell me if there was anything to his knowledge that may be effecting his drive - I said countless times about relapsing etc and he basically denied everything. promised me outright that there was absolutely nothing that he knew was effecting his drive.

I don't want to sound naive but I don't think he would ever lie to me. We also spoke about his sex life before we were together and he said he never really thought he had much of a drive before me either, but that he was never in a regular enough relationship to determine this. He said his porn addiction must have started young, so i'm assuming it started before he even knew anything about his sex drive and dampened it before he even had one.. I'm starting to think that he's just always had a low drive.

Because of the comments (and i don't mean this in a negative way because I appreciate everyone giving me their views, and its helped a lot) I am feeling paranoid that he might be hiding it. I'm finding it really difficult to decide what to do, he's an incredible honest person and i trust him 100%, but this has put doubt in my head that even the most honest person around could still lie about an addiction. I posted on another forum that is not related to porn addiction and over half the responses said that it was likely he was still watching porn. its difficult not to let this get to you and its made me feel worried that if he is, theres almost no way I'll be able to find out.

My only other comment is that he was a smoker, and mildly addicted to drugs before i met him, and he gave both these up on his own accord, and once he had, never touched them again. This gives me hope that he is able to get over addiction on his own and that it is possible. I remember that that was one of the inspiring things i felt about him when i first met him. That he'd gotten himself out of the drugs/drinking scene when he was younger and all his friends where still doing it. He managed to do that by himself, so the idea that he gave up porn completely isn't that foreign to me..

I'm just really stuck. You guys have given me a lot of reasons to believe that porn addiction can be easy to hide, and when I think about it there are plenty of opportunities for him to use it. I just don't know where to go from here, i don't want to keep confronting him if he's not actually doing it. But i cant also just let it happen if it really is..