My boyfriends secret made me face my own and now i'm broken.
I just turned 30 years old and my boyfriend (31) of 12 years has a sexual addiction to something I usually can't say out loud or type out. It was completely by accident how I found out, like it honestly should not have happened-I wasn't snooping or looking for anything I went to google something and it was all there in the drop down search bar history. We were already having communication and intimacy problems before, but this obviously added a big betrayal trauma. As far as what I found he is attracted to I was told "its unspoken but every man feels this way" and "men are biologically wired to be attracted to this" and "society functioned that way for a long time just fine". He grew up fake Mormon i'll say (going to church to save face but his parents weren't practicing) and will talk about Mormon underwear or women wearing long sleeved shirts like it's hot and bothering, something about the modesty and purity turns him on (i'm guessing he wont really say). I only found out recently by accident what hes been doing in the background pretty much his whole life.... I can see that this addiction might contribute to why I can't seem to get him to open up about his interests/types/turn ons and why he is so different or "vanilla" from other guys....like not enjoying photos or lingerie because "i dont know, it's like you're trying too hard" and "i dont want to pull your hair and smack your ass, it makes me feel weird and rapey" I started asking if I could give him blowjobs and have sex and its been the same response every time "sure, but if you want it, you gotta do the work" . Im having anxious attachment symptoms and struggling with my sense of reality....I find it hard to appeal to somebody who is so sexually repressed and deviant at the same time......for the most part--this whole experience has made me open up my eyes and face my own dark secret. Since the age of probably 4 or 5 i've struggled with compulsive masturbation associated with increasingly frequent and extreme paraphilic scenarios that left me feeling terrified of myself, confused, questioning my true values, morality, and desires, feeling suicidal, or ashamed, disgusted, you name it. I questioned if I was a pedophile, if I was sexually attracted to my family members, if I would abuse an animal sexually, and even if all of the answers are clearly NO in my heart from my morals and values, these compulsive behaviors and thoughts make me question who I am and what I want because at this time I don't know anything I'm just assuming I'm having these thoughts because I must somehow someway subconsciously desire them and the compulsive masturbating was confirming it. After puberty I realized "okay I can still get turned on normally, so maybe I will just hide this dark demon forever and pretend it's not a part of me... I mean it's all in my head right? Nobody can see..." Well I found myself having compulsive urges to look up bad things on the internet and although I could never bring myself to go ALL the way (I would sweat and throw up), I now know that my boyfriend was not as morally inclined and has SEEN IT ALL. It's traumatizing for both of us and until there's time and money to not focus on surviving the next wave of bills we wont make it to therapy. I don't know what to do next. Lately all I can do is obsessively research about OCD, ADHD, sex disorders, children porn exposure studies, and pedophiles so I'm in the stage of intellectualization. I feel a little more collected, knowledgeable, and compassionate but I know thats just a coping mechanism and eventually the reassurance will wear off and I will have to work through the actual hard stuff. The fear of the unknown. What will our lives look like going forward, should we give up on having a family? He said he never wanted a family until he met me because he felt that he didn't deserve one, and that I made him believe in himself and his ability to be a better man. I was confident in having children but now that i'm with him--I don't know what the safe thing to do anymore is......I don't know how to get him to open up without being defensive, projecting, and minimizing.....how I can stop smothering him with desperate neediness for affection, and how to find information on my situation.....ITS SO STIGMATIZED.....all I know is that i've been struggling to get my boyfriend to have sex with me for a long time and its gotten way worse after this came out.....I fucking wanted leonardo dicaprio and I got him FUCKKKKK LOL!!!!!!!