Is this an offense that I should easily forgive, or do I have a right to be upset?

My honest opinion is that it’s time to move on.

I would tell him that unfaithfulness is a deal breaker with you.
Tell him if he is shopping around for other women then he should go ahead and set out on his quest but that you won’t welcome him back.

Make sure he knows that if he is serious about you, then he better make sure he acts that way.

Dump the chump. Not only did he misuse you, he’s being a pure sleaze bag in trying to coax nude pictures out of other women by lies and deception. The guy’s a user—nothing more.

He is a scumbag. Why would you want him?

To quote Liz Lemon, that’s a dealbreaker.

@Shae He’s never done anything like this before, that I know of… He said he stopped the emails because he knew it was wrong, and they did stop a long time ago. Apparently his guy friends think it’s just about the same as watching porn. I think not. He’s put up with a lot from me, and I feel like I owe it to him to give him another chance.

Lose the loser.

Yeah. i would look forward to more lies. Little white lies i could deal with. One like this is a little upsetting.

It doesn’t sound to me like he was looking to hook up with anybody. He just saw an opportunity to look at girls. Don’t all guys look? I can’t say I wouldn’t be upset if my boyfriend did this but I will say that I wouldn’t consider this a deal breaker. I always tell him he can look as long as he doesn’t touch. Guys get bored, especially if you never do anything to spice up the relationship. I say, if you love the guy and he loves you then try to get over this and make it work. If not, then move on.

The guy is a jackass, if he’s going to treat you like that. Run fast.

This is a toxic relationship. You do deserve better. Run away and don’t look back. You owe him nothing.

Gross. Dump him.

@kheredia I think that’s the closest to what this is. It’s just that he had the, for the lack of a better word, balls to suggest that I should get over it immediately.

Not looking good.

This is the sort of thing thats liable to keep showing up for the next 20 years. Don’t make that mistake sweetheart!

@dazedandconfused Well you do have a point there. He should have apologized instead of blame you for his mistake. That would be more the deal breaker for me, not the looking at girls.

Please at least give him another chance. If he fails you again then there’s no reason to not dump him.

He sounds like a narcissist….baaad news…read up on narcissism.

Lack or empathy is a big red flag, demanding you to get over it so HE doesn’t have to deal with your reaction.

At least talk to the guy first.
It’ll become apparent really quick if he’s being truthful or not.
If he’s not being truthful or turns it around on you, you know he’s full of it.
Then you have a decision to make.

You definitely have the right to be upset. Fuck that guy.

I think you under reacted. My boyfriend and I agree that your boyfriend is a loser. If he wanted to look a pictures of naked girls, why didn’t he just look at porn? I think he might want to cheat on you. Get rid of him. He can not be trusted.

Dump him, as so many other people have already said.

maybe he should dump you for reading his personal files

Free pics of naked chicks all over the internet, but your guy goes on Craig’s List to find pathetic desperate women who are dumb enough to send him pics. Sounds like a keeper.

Aim higher

It doesn’t look good for the future. But I know how hard it is to leave someone no matter how bad the behavior. It’s easier said than done. When I am in love with someone it’s hard for me to see the bad things. So maybe it will take time for you to see that this might need to be rethought before you go further with this guy. But again I know that breaking up is realllly easier suggested than done.

dump him

He is a scheming ass, who took advantage of those other chicks for his own good.

And bringin it up again a week later….The nerve of him!!!

You are forgiving and he is a selfish pond scum.

Find happier daze.

Ask yourself why he didn’t look at the trillions of pornographic videos and pictures already on the internet. If you can’t find something to jack off to on the internet these days, then you ain’t trying. Hell, there are several sites where you can go into a public chat room where a woman will take off her clothes in hopes of receiving tips from the viewers…he could just go to one of those rooms, see a live woman strip for him and not have to pay a dime or lie to anyone. So, let’s realistically look at what really happened:

1) He involved actual people in his fantasy life.
2) He lied to strangers to get them to debase themselves to him for free.
3) He lied to you by omission by not telling you about it.
4) He played the “blame the victim” card when you called his lying ass on it.

Seriously, you can’t be THAT dazed and confused. Never done anything like this before THAT YOU KNOW OF, you said yourself. How do you know he doesn’t have another email account where “Bob” or “Steve” isn’t soliciting free samples from strippers or even hookers for all you know? And why aren’t you enough for him? You’re not even married and this guy feels like he needs more than what he has?

Of course, on the flip side, if you “accidentally” got into his email, yet all of these emails you saw were really old, this brings up 2 questions…

1) Was he doing this WHILE you were in your current relationship or does this predate you? I’d say that makes a pretty big difference, and…
2) Just how many pages of his emails did you have to look through…I mean, I can see reading 2, maybe 3 that he received THAT day if it was a “mistake”, but something tells me you were being a little dishonest there yourself.

So, what does that mean? I’d posit two suggestions…

1) You’re both liars who deserve each other, or
2) You kept looking further and further back in his emails because you had SOME reason not to trust him in the first place, in which case, perhaps you should listen to your instincts.

I’m sorry but whenever I hear these stories of women in toxic relationships who keep defending their partner’s shitty behavior I want to shake them and tell them that this is not a healthy relationship, this person is not good for them and they should run, not walk away.

@talljasperman do you really think that?

They say if you have to make “excuses” for a persons behaviour it is time to move on. You want to trust him, you want to believe him. But standing here detached I have to say that advertising for strippers, for whatever means is devious. Plus he turned it all on you and tried to put you on a guilt trip. I think if you carry on with him, your life will be one long road of self doubt. Him making you doubt your own common sense.

At the end of the day, you’re not happy with how he conducted himself. It makes you feel uncomfortable being in a relationship with a person that would do something like that. So unless you can forget about this, pretend it never happened, and never bring it up in future arguments, and get him to agree to never bring it up….break up with him.

You’re not wrong to be upset about this….Maybe you should ask him how he would feel if the situation was reversed…

@Violet Yes… who “Accidently” logs on to another’s account… And I he could dump her because she’s making their intimate secrets public….totally untrustworthy…everyone makes mistakes and who knows it might be hers…she should talk to her boyfriend about it and maybe she got it wrong…but what I might do is different…Relationships are based on love, trust, and honesty… and you need to be friends first to do that… one mistake shouldn’t end the relationship unless it is a shallow based one.

He doesn’t sound like a good guy

@Facade None are prefect…are you perfect?

@talljasperman I talk about my intimate life on fluther, does that mean my boyfriend should dump me?
You think looking her looking at his e-mail, is worse than her boyfriend did? Would you end a long term relationship if your girlfriend who you loved checked your e-mail 1 time?
And your comment to @Facade is totally irrelevant.

Move on. My Ex-husband was good in making me feel that it was my fault. That is why he is my ex.

You have the right to be upset to find out he is into something where he lied and misled people.

Deal breaker is how you were made to feel it was YOUR fault, that you didn’t forgive him fast enough. What about him? How come HE didn’t forgive you for throwing a fit?

Dump the guy.

It starts small. Before you know it, it gets bigger and you are in deep hot soup.

@talljasperman ignore stop following

@talljasperman have you been drinking?

If this story is as you describe, and if this person really did place internet ads as you describe…. then dump him immediately with no more talking to him, no more explanation, and no more closure. Just get him out of your life. He’s a predator.

It’s okay to have weird and sick sexual fantasies… until other people are brought in to be involved under powermongering, manipulation, force, or false pretense. And he brought in other people under false pretense.

There are lots of crazy people in the world. Steer clear of them.

DTMFA

Actually being upset when it really matters (without hurting yourself) is a requirement for true forgiveness. Otherwise it’s just an indifferent reflex. Forgiveness is about rejecting the sin, but not the sinner. Hating other people makes our lives miserable. And we should not be upset about the little things in life.

Someone above said ‘don’t all guys look at girls?’ & yes, this is indeed true, we do. However this lie required a level of planning & deceit that is quite breathtaking. & the fact that he’s now trying to make out that it was your fault is… a very typical thing for deceitful & manipulative people to do.
Thank your lucky stars you found out what he’s like now & not later, & move on.

I get a guy looking at porn, but this just seems super sleazy and creepy. For me that would be a deal breaker.
As for him trying to blame you for his faults, I think that is simply defensive behavior. He doesn’t want to see how its just creepy.
Wouldn’t surprise me if you find him one day coming home wearing nothing but a trench coat. {{{shudder}}} Big EEWWWWW!
At the very least he sounds quite inmature and not ready for a relationship.
Forgive him if you feel you are up to the task of raising him an weening him off his buddies rear. Beware that some people never grow up.

Just a few notes to make as a person who knows and has talked with the b/f in question about this situation.

-He has an admitted issue with internet porn. A very bad habit if you will. He saw this as a way to go further with that, and shortly after doing it realized how wrong/perverted/dirty it was. Dazedandconfused lives about 3 hours away from the b/f in question, so he initially saw porn as a way to “cope” with the lack of regular physical intimacy, but it got out of hand and became a problem (one he’s dealing with, fairly successfully).

-He took down the craigslist ad, and tried (unsuccessfully) to erase the e-mail account in question immediately upon realizing he had a problem.

-It was one time (and in fact the only time he’s ever done something like this to my knowledge), and it was some 2 months ago.

-He DID NOT and IS NOT attempting to blame dazedandconfused for his actions. His point was that the night they first argued about it she said that she forgave him. And whilst he didn’t expect her to be all peachy keen immediately, he did expect that the next night (after what seemed to be a perfectly good day complete with a pretty good date) wouldn’t end with her going onto his computer again and finding/downloading/opening the pictures and proceeding to yell and shout and argue with him about it, demanding to know what was wrong with him and why he did it (and a list of other topics covered the night before in the initial argument). In his book (and mine) once you’ve forgiven the person, you don’t really have the right to come back and argue with them and yell with them about it.

-He only brought the topic up in the first place (which was a stupid move on his part) to help explain how he was already in a tense mood from all the arguing the week before, that helped lead to him becoming somewhat disproportionally upset at something she did that has been a running problem in the relationship.

-And its amazing how many people here are willing to throw this guy under the bus and call him a total scum bag. No one else here has ever made a mistake in their life? No one here has done something they regret that hurt people they love and care about? Dazedandconfused herself has done a couple of pretty mean/hurtful things to the b/f in question (I won’t divulge them here because no more of their relationships secrets need to be brought into the public eye, but it’s AT LEAST on par with his infraction here).

I don’t think you overreacted. I’d be outta there quick fast and in a hurry. Besides what he did to you, you have to factor in what he is doing to those other women. They think he is the link to a possible job, he is preying on them and that would creep me out. Waves bye-bye

Clearly the guy has some sexual addiction issues that without some intervention are likely to still be an issue for him.

It’s not about judging, it IS about dysfunction.

And now we have the co-dependant ‘friend’, meddling in business that is not his/her own.

Hmm…sounds like everyone could spend a little time in therapy. lol

@Coloma haha, you have no idea

@tedd Who is this…?

Anyone can argue that you shouldn’t have been in his email account, but all I can think now, is ‘Thank goodness you did.’

I think your story highlights two problems this guy has that you do NOT need in your young life. The fact that he did this to exploit women is ugly. He misrepresented himself to TAKE ADVANTAGE of women. It makes NO difference if he did this before or during your relationship.
Second was his reaction to you. First he got defensive and then he took the offensive, telling you to get over it better/more/faster. He’s trying to control you and you don’t need that. If he treats women he doesn’t know like that, do you expect him to treat you better, when he learns your flaws and foibles as you form a relationship? These are serious character flaws that show this guy never learned to respect women. Dump him. You deserve better. All women deserve better.

There are trust issues now. Not only about his respect toward you, but about his basic code of right and wrong. He misled women in order to get them to send pictures of themselves. Perhaps he changed his mind after just that once, but he thought about it and followed through first. What if he thinks “casting calls” in hotels are a great new way to see women naked, but then realizes it’s skeezy after the first two women? Or maybe paying for kinky sex, but then realizes after once that it is wrong in regards to your relationship?

I could never trust him again – not just because of what he did to you, but because of what he did to the women he recruited. And he got mad because you didn’t get over it right away? You said you could forgive him, but any rational person is going to want to get to the bottom of this. Maybe you were a little stunned but started to think about it later and wanted to get to the bottom of it. He should understand that. The fact that he doesn’t tells me he knows he did wrong but doesn’t want you to make him feel bad about it. He likes that you initially let him off the hook easily.

Also, my understanding is that she was on her computer and he was still logged on. She did not log onto his account. My mother-in-law has left her account on my computer and it has taken me a couple of emails to figure out what is going on. I automatically expect it is me logged in on my computer.

@Supacase That is not at all the type of person he is. He messed up, but it’s not in his character to do that type of thing (which would explain why she was so stunned). And he would NEVER cheat on her.

Also, the initial e-mails she found were when trying to log into her e-mail on his computer. His last attempt to delete the e-mail account and purge his actions from his life had failed, and for whatever reason the account stayed logged in for some 3–4 weeks….. Later, she went back onto his computer to look up chat logs that he had had with friends, to try and figure out if he had told the truth in how he originally came up with the idea (he had remembered a friend suggesting it to him in a conversation, as it turned out he originally suggested it… though when you realize he did it, how he came up with it is a moot point).

I can see the scenario of a group of guy friends with the retarded idea of fun to coax Craigslist weirdo women into sending naked pics of themselves and thinking it’s funny as well as a little eye candy BUT how he turned the thing around on you is what bugs me. A partner on the level may have laughed, rolled his eyes, taken you for a talk and admitted what it was all about, apologized and admitted it’s inappropriate behavior when he has a partner/you and it’s reasonable he would ask an apology of you for your curiosity getting the best of you. Honestly, I doubt many would be able to resist to at least scroll down the emails to see what’s there if not actually go and open them. Your guy made lame excuses though and tried to guilt you up :(

looking at T and A is no big deal. Its the way he went about it. Not only did he lie to the potential strippers of a job, he lied to you. Its like a stranger offering candy to a child. Really creapy and possibly dangerous. I would get out of that asap.

How could you trust him, ever? Leave him behind. Good luck.

i think if you tolerate this behavior you may have some self esteem issues.

I still don’t see this as such a BIG DEAL!! He didn’t cheat on her!! He just looked at some pictures… that’s it. I think this couple needs to talk about their problems and try to make it work. If he does it again after she has already told him how much it bothers her then we can assume he doesn’t care about his relationship enough to make it work. Otherwise, I think a lot of people here are being way too hard on this guy. The important thing here as that he knows he made a mistake. Everybody deserves a second chance.

That may be true, but when you betray the trust of a supposed ‘relationship
that 2nd chance may not be with you!

I don’t see the betrayal here. He looked at pictures of girls, that’s it. Every guy looks whether they want to admit it or not. Now if he was sending emails back and forth and was using his REAL name while planning to meet someone in person, that would be a betrayal to the relationship. But I guess everybody has their own definition of betrayal.

Like I said a little T and A is no big deal. Its the way he went about it. He lied to his girl as well as the unsuspecting women. If a guy wants to look at some ass then there are a million cites online to do this. DUH.

@kheredia I think the difference most people see is that he was actively soliciting pictures from real people. I dont think the betrayal most people are offended by is him looking at girly pictures…. otherwise most men would be in the shit. It’s that he’s engaged in decietful behaviour, he’s lying to his girlfriend in his actions, & he’s lying to the dancers / strippers too. He’s effectively invented a fantasy world to help him get off that excludes his girlfriend.

@JeffVader I was just going to say something along those lines, but I think you said it better than I would have

@JeffVader (friend of the couple) He is very aware he has a problem, and realized it shortly after making said craigslist ad. He is actively trying to fix his problem (with a lot of success), and hasn’t done anything of the sort since (or for that matter prior too) this event. Which is kinda why I agree with kheredia, that a lot of people are throwing a great guy under the bus cuz he made one mistake. And really, it’s not like he cheated on her, something many people are forgiven for everyday and then go on to never make such mistakes again.

@tedd I understand where you’re coming from. & of course you want to defend your friend, that’s only natural. However, to me, what he did was a big deal. & from what other people have written, I get the feeling that they do to. You do have to commend him for recognising that he has a problem, & that he has enough about him to seek help. & I sincerely wish him the best & hope his friends & family support him through this. However, that doesn’t mean he has to be forgiven. Yes, it was one mistake, but it was a huge mistake, & one which potentially could indicate numerous other issues that he has, immaturity being one (just so you know I’m not trying to suggest anything major). You say he didn’t cheat…. I say that’s a matter of perspective, each to their own I suppose.

@tedd
I totally agree with what @JeffVader has written. You’re right, not everyone goes on to make the same mistakes over again and not everyone makes them in the first place with mal intent towards their SO’s, ok. Here’s the rub though, the odds are a person who does these things is likely to keep doing them and most of us know that so if we’re the SO, we’re going to farking freak out because we feel the future is probably paved with humiliation for busted trusts to come. We may want to forgive and really really want to believe these things will never happen again but because it did then so much in the relationship gets rewritten, memories become bittersweet and not everyone can handle starting over and gambling again with that person.

@kheredia Yes, most men (and women, if they’re honest) look at the opposite sex. But there’s a world of difference between casually checking out a cute girl on the street and soliciting photos. Since these are real women, and not just Playboy pictures, who’s to say he didn’t meet one or more of them for sex and lie about it?

OP, I agree with the others who say, “Dump him.” It’s telling that instead of accepting responsibility for the strain in your relationship, he blamed you. Even if he has cleaned up his act, he has already shown how easily and casually he could deceive you. Consequently, he has shown himself to be unworthy of your trust. Protect your heart (and your health; after all, you never know if he could’ve slept with one of these women and contracted an STD). Leave this guy and don’t look back.

Whoaaaaa. Get him out of your life!

to say “he just looked at some pictures” is way too simplistic. he was looking to meet women and he only confessed when he got caught. then he tried to turn it on the girlfriend and make it like she was wrong.

Nothing she said on the explanation indicates that he was planning to meet anybody. He used an alias! Now you’re just starting to add things to the story.

He never planned to meet any girls, and in fact she didn’t find out about it til almost 2 months after he had done it, and already realized his problems and made steps to fix the problem.