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agonyaunt2022-06-01 12:39 pm
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-06-01 12:39 pm
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Dear Prudence: Who Wouldn't Be Jealous?
[the lede is kind of buried]
Who wouldn’t be jealous? My (recently ex-)boyfriend and I dated for a year and a half and had lived together for a couple of months when I found out he still regularly masturbates to sex videos of himself and his ex, who is very beautiful and is now a minor celebrity. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with this and asked that he delete those videos. He didn’t want to, but I told him if he didn’t, we were through. I remained almost perfectly calm and stressed that he wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong, I was just not comfortable with it personally and didn’t want to be in a relationship under those circumstances. He still wouldn’t delete the videos, so I did as I said I would and left, moving in with a female friend until I can get my own place again. My feeling is that if he chooses a few old videos over me, his love for me was never what I thought it was anyway.
But he continues to text and leave me voicemails, basically calling me a crazy, jealous b**** in one breath, and tearfully begging me to come back in the next—but without ever once offering to just delete the freaking videos. What gets me is, the friend I’m staying with and my other best friend both seem to agree with him, and think I should go back to him. My friend has plenty of room (I’m actually living in her pool house), so I think she just likes that he’s rich and good-looking, and they don’t think I can do any better. But I can’t see myself ever being OK with his holding onto and use of these videos. I doubt his ex would be thrilled about it if she knew, either. (Although she appears to have made the videos knowingly.) Am I completely wrongheaded or do I have the right to make this call?
A: You were right to express your feelings about the videos; if it’s something that bothers you and keeps you from feeling safe in your relationship, you should share it. But your ex-boyfriend wasn’t under any obligation to do as you asked. The easier compromise would be for him to delete the videos, true, but he didn’t want to do that. So, from my read, the greater issue in your relationship is that you felt you weren’t heard when you expressed an emotional need. That was a non-negotiable for you and that’s fine.
Your ex’s behavior after the breakup suggests that maybe you don’t need to be together. Your communication issue isn’t going to be solved by you setting ultimatums nor by him verbally abusing you. Your friends may think that he’s the best you can get because he’s rich but, like, who cares? If you’re not happy, you’re not happy.
It’s important, however, to think about this from a communication standpoint and ask yourself if you’d do anything differently or if you feel differently if you take the specifics of the video out of it. Couples sometimes get tangled up around masturbation and the question of whether it’s a part of their shared sexual experience or a solo endeavor. You two aren’t in agreement about what limits, if any, there should be around his masturbatory adventures. Maybe this makes him think you’re being unreasonable; maybe this makes you think he’s being insensitive. You both ran into a dealbreaker with this video but I suspect if it hadn’t been the video, it would have been something else.
Who wouldn’t be jealous? My (recently ex-)boyfriend and I dated for a year and a half and had lived together for a couple of months when I found out he still regularly masturbates to sex videos of himself and his ex, who is very beautiful and is now a minor celebrity. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with this and asked that he delete those videos. He didn’t want to, but I told him if he didn’t, we were through. I remained almost perfectly calm and stressed that he wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong, I was just not comfortable with it personally and didn’t want to be in a relationship under those circumstances. He still wouldn’t delete the videos, so I did as I said I would and left, moving in with a female friend until I can get my own place again. My feeling is that if he chooses a few old videos over me, his love for me was never what I thought it was anyway.
But he continues to text and leave me voicemails, basically calling me a crazy, jealous b**** in one breath, and tearfully begging me to come back in the next—but without ever once offering to just delete the freaking videos. What gets me is, the friend I’m staying with and my other best friend both seem to agree with him, and think I should go back to him. My friend has plenty of room (I’m actually living in her pool house), so I think she just likes that he’s rich and good-looking, and they don’t think I can do any better. But I can’t see myself ever being OK with his holding onto and use of these videos. I doubt his ex would be thrilled about it if she knew, either. (Although she appears to have made the videos knowingly.) Am I completely wrongheaded or do I have the right to make this call?
A: You were right to express your feelings about the videos; if it’s something that bothers you and keeps you from feeling safe in your relationship, you should share it. But your ex-boyfriend wasn’t under any obligation to do as you asked. The easier compromise would be for him to delete the videos, true, but he didn’t want to do that. So, from my read, the greater issue in your relationship is that you felt you weren’t heard when you expressed an emotional need. That was a non-negotiable for you and that’s fine.
Your ex’s behavior after the breakup suggests that maybe you don’t need to be together. Your communication issue isn’t going to be solved by you setting ultimatums nor by him verbally abusing you. Your friends may think that he’s the best you can get because he’s rich but, like, who cares? If you’re not happy, you’re not happy.
It’s important, however, to think about this from a communication standpoint and ask yourself if you’d do anything differently or if you feel differently if you take the specifics of the video out of it. Couples sometimes get tangled up around masturbation and the question of whether it’s a part of their shared sexual experience or a solo endeavor. You two aren’t in agreement about what limits, if any, there should be around his masturbatory adventures. Maybe this makes him think you’re being unreasonable; maybe this makes you think he’s being insensitive. You both ran into a dealbreaker with this video but I suspect if it hadn’t been the video, it would have been something else.