My boyfriend [34M] has rules for me that don’t seem to apply to him.
I never thought I’d be posting online asking strangers for opinions, but I’m genuinely at a loss.
My boyfriend [34M] and I [35F] have been together for several years. Early in the relationship, trust issues started almost immediately. Around two months in, I later found out he had been seeing a woman he was serious with behind my back. As far as I know, nothing physical happened, but the dishonesty damaged my trust significantly. Since then, I’ve discovered multiple other lies over the years, which has made rebuilding trust very difficult.
Recently, an issue came up involving social media. He liked bikini photos of a female work colleague. I told him I found this disrespectful in a relationship, especially given our history, and it led to an argument. His response was that it was part of his job to engage with content in his industry except he liked the photo from his personal page not his business page…
From the beginning, I have been told I cannot have male friends or interact with men on social media. For example:
- I once liked a gym advertisement post, and the male owner messaged me. My boyfriend saw this and became extremely angry.
- I liked a hairdressers post (he is gay) on social media of a girls hair and I was told to unlike it.
- Early in the relationship, I was asked to stop posting on social media because men were reacting to my posts and he didn’t like it.
Meanwhile, he works in a female-dominated industry so he has a lot of female friends, sends emojis and x’s in messages to female colleagues, and likes photos of women, including revealing images.
I want to be clear that I do not have an issue with him having female friends or normal interactions with women. My issue is the double standard, particularly given the history of dishonesty in our relationship.
Whenever I bring this up, he justifies his behaviour and says it is different. We end up having the same argument repeatedly, and he does not seem to understand why I feel hurt and often disregards my concerns regarding the double standards.
I feel stuck in a cycle where I am expected to be fully transparent and restricted in my interactions, while he does not hold himself to the same standard. Am I overreacting? Or is this unfair?
TL;DR: My boyfriend expects strict boundaries from me regarding interactions with men on social media, but does not follow equivalent boundaries with women. Given ongoing trust issues and repeated double standards, I feel confused and frustrated and am asking if this is actually a fair dynamic or not.