So I’ve not really seen many people post about this on here, but have any PA’s or Partners of PA’s experienced incidents of their PA not just watching porn excessively, but masturbating to other women that the PA and/or both of them know in real life?
For context, relatively early on in my relationship, I found out about my partners PA, and amongst that, found out that he had been masturbating to multiple women that he knew in real life, one of which is one of my closest friends. He then went on to tell me about how he had masturbated to photos of her on her social media before he had ever even met her (because I told him about her beforehand), as well as looking at pictures of her and I together and still masturbating to her over me. The only way that he could make sense of his ability to do that while still loving me deeply was that it was because she had abs and because she is so out of his league, it felt healing to his inner child that was never desired by girls and who doesn’t feel good enough. Naturally, all of this crushed me, and despite countless conversations and attempts to heal al of this, it has lingered on and continued to affect our relationship.
I’m just curious how PA’s and/or their partners have worked through this aspect of the addiction — Not necessarily porn or masturbating, but when it goes past random people on the internet and to people who one or both of them know in real life. I find myself getting triggered everytime I see this friend and find myself keeping some distance from her as a means of protecting myself from feeling all of the pain from what my partner did, but I don’t want to do that forever, nor do I think it’s healthy. I love my partner and I know without a shadow of a doubt that he loves me, but boy, is it easy to not feel like it with all of this stuff.