I sent a nude to a stranger while in a relationship... I can explain, I think??

[Anonymous]

Hi.

Me (20M) and my girlfriend (19F) have been dating for almost a year. She's very sweet and I love her so much. Yesterday, I fkd up. I was playing a game online where I started talking to a random player. I don't know how or why the texts in game started getting sexual. I ended up adding this person on Snapchat and she sent me a picture of her boobs. I sent back a picture and a video of my dick. After that, I was like no, this is bad. So I blocked the person and realised how bad it was. Now the big question is WHY? if I really love her etc.

I've been reflecting on the "WHY?" the whole day and I realised how fked up I was in the past. Prior to this relationship, I was never in a real relationship, nor sexually active. I had unauthorised access to the internet since I was about 10 onwards. I had gotten into porn at a very young age. I started watching it daily and masturbated daily, sometimes even x2, x3 times a day. During COVID and the quarantine, I had an app that lets u swipe people to add them on snapchat. I had gotten into sending nudes pretty early on from adding people from that app. And I kept doing it. Probably for a few years. When I started talking to my now girlfriend, I unadded everyone I did not know from my snapchat and thought; this is it, no more of this nudes bullshit etc. It's been like that for months, almost a year, until yesterday.

Whenever I started talking to that person on the game and added them on snapchat, and finally received a boob pic. I felt like a boost of excitement, I did not care about anything or anyone in that moment. It felt like whatever I used to be, came over me again and I was going to do it regardless. And I did it. I sent back a dick pic and a video of me masturbating. I did not continue because I realised this was fked up and blocked them.

Bottom line is I CANNOT and WILL NOT tell my girlfriend. I cannot ruin what we have and I don't feel like she's ready to understand how porn addiction is affecting me. I think I need to work on my self and fix my porn / nudes addiction somehow. I just don't know how. I just want advice, or anything to help me in any sort of way.
*Important note* Me and my girlfriend are long distance, we try to see each other at least once every 2 weeks or so. So that distance makes it harder for me.

And yes, I feel like an absolute piece of s***.

[Carlston]

So you're going to live a lie. That's what your relationship is if you fail to disclose what you did.

The continued deception is probably worse than the transgression itself. You refuse to give her the opportunity to know the truth and decide for herself if it's a dealbreaker. That's not love, it's self preservation, protecting what YOU want at any cost.

 

 

 

[flitzanu]

initiating and participating in sexual conversation and imagery with a stranger on the internet that you played a video game with is not "porn addiction" that's just bad behavior.

[Alpacalia]

Taking responsibility is what counts. 

Beating yourself up and calling yourself a piece of sh*t is not going to reverse what you did.

Years of looking at porn and getting messages from random people on snapchat can create some strong patterns. The excitement from that kind of attention builds up over time. Once a relationship came into the picture all of that was put aside.

Deciding that you cannot ever tell your girlfriend because you're protecting her and wanting to spare someone unnecessary details and making a decision for them about what they deserve to know. You cheated sexually, even if it was online and even if it lasted a very short time. Whether you tell her is ultimately a decision you'll have to make, but deciding solely because you're afraid of losing the relationship is a poor excuse.

[E in N]

19 hours ago, Anonymous said:

Bottom line is I CANNOT and WILL NOT tell my girlfriend. 

 

What else are you not going to tell her?

[lemonicetea]

You need to take responsibility for your choices and tell your girlfriend what happened. It will be better if you confess now instead of her finding out later. 

[ExpatInItaly]

You are not ready for a committed relationship, especially a long-distance one.  

Let your girlfriend go. Do whatever work on yourself you need to do, but don't drag her through a relationship that is now built on a lie. That is monumentally unfair to her.