Hey guys, need some advice. Here’s some backstory.
Boyfriend, let’s call him Joe, and I have been dating for around 6 months. I assume we both like each other quite a bit and I genuinely believe that he’s a good person.
At the very beginning of our relationship, 6 months ago, I saw Tinder on his phone while sitting next to him. I asked Joe why he uses Tinder and his answer was to meet new people. At the moment, I dropped it but later on, during a conversation on the topic, I told him it bothers me and he apologized, saying he understands and that he will delete it.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, It came to my attention that he follows random girls on Instagram. Because of Joe’s past use of dating apps, I brought it up and he said he just follows random girls on suggested because he thinks they’re attractive. Okay, not so suspicious but I kept this in the back of my mind. Sometime later, I noticed on Joe’s Playstore that Tinder and OkCupid had been downloaded and deleted. FYI, I saw this because we use each other’s phones and I needed to download an application on his phone. He denied using it and explained that he doesn’t know why that happened. In the meanwhile, he is still following random girls on IG.
I was not convinced, and one day, while he was sleeping, I looked through his application download history. To my surprise, I saw at least 10-15 ‘dating apps’ and the likes download then deleted through various intervals since June. I told Joe and he initially denied it, then confessed telling me that the reason why he uses such apps is that he thinks that adult videos is ‘too fake’ and that he uses these sex/dating apps to look at women’s photos or videos to PCC/beat the aeroplane. I asked him if he talked to any of these girls, he said no. After later ‘questioning’ he also claims to have talked to around 10 girls. I checked out these apps and the girls are like amateur ‘cam girls’ who get paid in coins or whatever. But I do know that he has chatted with real girls in our city from regular dating apps like Tinder or OkCupid.
Joe expressed his guilt and apologized. He said he knows it’s wrong but that it’s like an addiction and he has unsuccessfully tried stopping before. This issue was discussed for 2-3 days. At times, he would freak out or get angry. Claiming that I should forgive him because he immediately forgave me for kissing my female friend when I was drunk a while back. Telling me he knows what he did is wrong but that “It’s not that big of a deal and I don’t think it’s cheating. So I can’t understand why you can’t forgive me?” Backstory on me kissing a girl, as soon as I remembered, I told him what happened the next morning. I’m bisexual and we had discussed the idea of me fooling around with women before.
I don’t think Joe actually met up with any of these women.
My biggest problem is that this is a long-term thought out lie. If Joe was honest with me about this, it could have been discussed and solved. Now my head is fucked. I really like him but my trust is broken.
I’m not sure how to proceed and honestly, I’m just looking for some outside opinions and insight. What are your thoughts? What should I do? What would you do in this situation?
Thanks.