I'm 99% positive hes an addict but how to talk about this with him? I don't have enough evidence.

(Trigger warning a few paragraphs below! Sexual assault) Hi everyone, I could really use your advice please! My situation is so frustrating, and I'm at my wits end. Apologies, this is going to be a novel, please bear with me. Also, my SO and I don't live together, so that makes this even MORE complicated and tricky

So this is my second relationship with a porn addict We've been together going on about 5 years. My second relationship, my ex was a PA, and we dated 6 years ago for about a year and a half...I caught him looking at hentai about 3 months into our relationship, and although I didn't like it, per se, I didn't think hentai was "that" big of a deal. He was horrified beyond belief though, and as PAs do, adamantly denied his porn usage, and under-exaggerated how often he watched it and PMOed. This is where it gets pretty messed up, his gaslighting and lying over the next year was SO bad, I actually don't remember a single thing from that entire year while we were dating...The only thing I do remember is the biggest and worst D-day, which was traumatic enough that my brain actually buried the memory of it deep into my subconscious, and it wasn't until this year when I started having issues with my current SO about porn that I remembered what happened. My ex and I, ages after we broke up, reconnected, and are now actually extremely close, good friends...He finally confessed to me that he'd had a PA since he was 12 (he's 27 now) and we've had some really good open and honest conversations about it, and he's become a valuable resource for me in terms of helping me with my current SO...But anyways, that's the backstory...now onto my current SO

When we first started dating, months into our relationship, porn got brought up. My bf said he was impartial to porn, and rarely watched it, and of course I was very skeptical, but I told him I wasn't personally comfortable with watching porn but, ugh, you know, tried to be the "cool girl" and not give a shit when even his so-called "rare" indulgence did bother me. Some time later, we were texting, and I asked him what he was up to (he was at his place) and he just straight up said, "porn!" and my ptsd was immediately triggered (from my prior relationship with a PA that did severe damage to my mental health) and I got super anxious and sick to my stomach so the next time we saw each other in person, I told him a bit about my past relationship (and what I could remember at the time about my ex's porn usage, which wasn't much) and how I felt about him watching porn. I asked him to not watch porn entirely, pointing out that it shouldn't be a big deal for him anyways since he said he was impartial to it, and didn't watch it often anyways. He said he was totally fine with that, and that he would stop watching. For the next 4 years of our relationship, I thought everything was fine. I trusted him implicitly and he never once gave me any reason to doubt him or mistrust him until this year. So this is a two parter...First about the PMs and my BF. So last August, we broke up and went NC until he reached out some time in October. We reconnected, and cautiously started dating again. In January, I was having issues with my reddit account so I hopped onto his (he had given me full permission to do so before so it wasn't a snooping situation, you know?) and that's when I discovered that after we had broken up, he had subscribed to a handful of NSFW subreddits, and were following NSFW women's profiles. That's also when I discovered that he had commented on two different women's NSFW pictures, and sent 4 PMs to 4 different women (knowing what I know now, and after talking to my ex, and other PAs and asking on reddit's porn addiction subreddits, 100% all agreed that YES, he IS an addict and that is DEFINITELY addict behavior) I brought up my discomfort, and told him that once again that, if we were going to be in a relationship again, I didn't want porn to be involved, so he did take off all the porn from his account... things seemed great until April.

My BF has a secure google drive where he keeps all the private photos I've sent him over the years (ya know, his own private collection of all things sexy me) and I asked him for the link because I wanted to find a certain photo...WELL. While I was scrolling, I found a screenshot of another woman's tits that had been sent over her snapchat public story It was taken and saved 3 freaking years ago. That should be my big "HELLO STUPID OPEN YOUR FREAKING EYES HE'S HIDING HIS PORN USAGE BEHIND YOUR BACK AND IS PROBABLY A PA IN DENIAL...NOT TO MENTION...WE DON'T EVEN SNAPCHAT EACH OTHER ANYMORE MORON AND HAVEN'T IN LIKE 2 OR 3 YEARS!!!" but denial ain't just a friggin river, right? I texted him about it, he laughed it off, I got pissed off of course, and asked him what his explanation was. He said it had been from 3 years ago and he honestly couldn't "remember" why he had saved the picture, but reminded me that sometime after that, he had deleted snapchat (or so he claims, right?) I asked him if he had been cheating on me, or talking to other women, he said no. We ended up talking more a couple days later, and I just emphasized that I valued honesty over anything else, and I wouldn't get mad or upset if he had still been looking at porn, and reminded him about my prior relationship with a PA, and he promised me he wasn't looking at porn. But pandora's box had been opened, and my insecurity started nagging away at me.

Months pass, and then we get to the last week of August. I was exhausted, and sleep deprived as hell, and I don't know what made me do it, but I had suddenly gotten incredibly paranoid and suspicious, so I decided to snoop on his reddit account. I found his recent history was completely empty, which was an eye brow raiser because I know the guy, he is on reddit daily, constantly watching DIY videos, so they should've shown up in his history, right? But in the downvoted section was a porn gif off of a nsfw subreddit. It was a gif (that I deeply, DEEPLY regret looking at) off of a certain which triggered the hell out of me because it had been performed on me non consensually for my first time by an abusive ex. So now I've been dealing with, since then, severe PTSD of the betrayal trauma kind, and from all my prior sexual assaults, etc so I'm just a hot mess.

I threw myself into learning as much as I could about PA, and the warning signs, etc, and there are SO many signs, guys. Like, snapchat for example...My partner claimed that he deleted snapchat last year, but last weekend I got on the app, and searched for him, and it say's he still has an active account (as far as I can tell) and his username still showed up under my friends list. Now, another red flag is that I've had snapchat since 2013, and my snapchat score is 715...one thing about my partner is that he is quite the loner. He literally does NOT have close friends; he's a homebody so imagine my surprise to see that his score was 1,482, over DOUBLE my score!! There is literally NOBODY, no friends, not me, no one that he would be snapchatting with, unless it was with porn girls.

And then there was our sex life (we have not had sex once since the reddit thing back in August). Reflecting on things now, his porn usage was SO obvious because now I'm positive he had PIED, because whenever we tried to have sex, at least for the first handful of times, he couldn't even get hard, and if he did get semi-hard, a condom would make him go limp immediately...Eventually we stopped using condoms, and he was able to maintain an erection (but honestly...it still didn't seem like he was fully hard, you know? Like, hard enough to get the job done, but not hard like he should be) and he is notorious for PE. And again, this was more in the beginning, but he would do these "moves" and things that were SO obviously from porn it was almost laughable, but I didn't know how to say anything so I just kept my mouth shut, which I now wish I hadn't, but oh well. Another red flag is that he is CRAZY protective over his phone. He has not once ever let me use his phone, and he has never told me his password.

So that's about it folks...if you've stuck with me this long, THANK YOU!! Like I said, I am 99% positive he's an addict, and that he's definitely looking at porn behind my back, but I just...I have NO idea how to even begin to talk about this with him...and we don't live together, so I don't have access to his computer, nor do I have access to his phone...I'm honestly really tempted to ask him for his phone, at the very least, because I'm certain he won't want to give it to me. So what the hell do I do guys???? How do I talk to him about this?? (oh and as a side note, I just want to mention that I am also a recovering addict myself, so trust me, I know exactly how an addicts mind works, AND that there's no forcing him to stop and get better, only he can choose to do that, etc. Oh boy do I know ALL about that!!)

 

Thank you for taking time to read what I posted, and comment. I'm doing my best to breathe, I promise. My PTSD symtoms are incredibly severe right now, and relentless. I never get a break from them. My stress level is so high, I've stopped eating almost entirely...I've lost at least 5-10lbs in two months That's just a fraction of what I'm dealing with...

I'm definitely being kind to myself though. I've got an appointment with a CSAT very soon so that's a positive step towards healing. The only good thing in all this chaos is that this hasn't damaged my self-esteem or self-confidence one iota. I'm incredibly confident in myself, as a person, and in the way I look so I don't feel like his PA has anything to do with me personally. I know I'm not the problem, and I know my value and worth.

Do you have any advice for how I can bring up even just the very topic of porn with my SO?