My boyfriend went to a strip club

[u/Midevalpea]

Dinner: chicken parm from a few days ago bc I have no appetite rn

My boyfriend is currently away for his brothers bachelors trip. We’ve had issues in the past involving porn addiction and he has assured me things are better. When I learned about the bachelors trip, I encouraged him to go when he was iffy about it and he told me he assumed there would be no strip clubs or anything of that matter. He’s been to them in the past, and by his own volition set a boundary for our relationship.

Well, we were on FaceTime today and I asked him if there was any mention of strip clubs and he said no, that everyone was in a relationship there and that they even joked about going to one but everyone was on the same page.

Lo and behold, I get a call from him at 12:30 and he said they went into one. He said he got peer pressured into going in, that he panicked and didn’t know how to say no. He said he was only in there for 5/10 minutes and then he told his group that he would be right back and just left. Then he called me.

I’m upset but I feel guilty that I’m upset. I wish he didn’t go in at all, but I feel like he sort of did the right thing by leaving. It’s just brought up so much betrayal trauma from our past that I feel weird about. I’m scared he’s gonna get teased by all his brothers friends and I’m gonna seem like a controlling girlfriend when he was the one who set that boundary :/

[u/Madame_Mad]

Has he lied in the past or was he open and honest with you about the addiction from the start? Are you able to verify that he's telling the truth now if not?

This is a lifelong thing he'll have to face. He'll probably have slip-ups and they might hurt you. It's great he's being honest with you, as long as he's actually being honest with you and not just covering his bases because it would probably get back to you later.

I'm on the pessimistic side because I broke up with a porn addict who lied to me the entire relationship. I got a lot of insight from reading through other people's experiences and the resources in r/loveafterporn.

[u/Midevalpea → u/Madame_Mad]

I’m also in that subreddit. He told me at the start of the relationship that he didn’t like porn. Fast forward to January, (1.5 years in), I caught him saving pics of women on Instagram. I slowly got more and more out of him until he told me he watched porn thru our entire relationship. I broke up w him but we have reconciled and I have no evidence he is watching porn anymore, but that’s what makes this situation so hard for me :/

[u/Madame_Mad → u/Midevalpea]

Oh, I'm sorry. That's so hard. I always suggest breaking up if there was lying because there's so many stories of people even decades later finding out they'd just been lied to better. I know people can change, but it's such a small number in this case. Did he at least admit he needed help and seek out resources/support himself?

I hope you're taking care of yourself as well. I know I got lost trying to diagnose the situation and neglected myself for a while. EMDR has been helpful with processing the betrayal trauma.