'How do I get over my boyfriend finding other women attractive? He sends me videos of them.' UPDATED

You don't know just how weird a partner's behavior is until you tell other people about it.

"How do I get over my boyfriend finding other women attractive?"

I (23f) have been with my boyfriend (25m-John) for a year. I like to think I’m pretty laid back when it comes to our relationship but I do have an issue with the videos he sends me. Sometimes, up to multiple times a day, he will send me videos (reels and tiktoks) of very conventionally attractive women pandering to their male audiences.

From dressing like catgirls and meowing, saying generic phrases like ‘good boy’ or ‘do [blank] for mommy’ or acting ‘feral’ but in a very convenient 'male gaze' way. The comments are all men losing their minds over the content. John will send them to me saying ‘why does this turn me on?’ or ‘I agree with comments’ (and the comments are just saying out of pocket, borderline harassing s#$t).

Now I want to be clear, John can find what he wants attractive (so long as it’s legal) but I find it super disrespectful to me and the relationship to flaunt it. I would never send videos of men who look nothing like him and thirst over them. And it’s been destroying me because I don’t want to get mad at the women making the content but I hate how much weird borderline f#tish content he sends me.

I just feel so guilty because I'm starting to harbour negative feelings towards these girls who, at the end of the day, are simply working the system and taking advantage of lonely men. But I don't get why John would turn to this content. I do so much for him, even doing k#nks/f#tishes I would never consider without him (it's all consensual though).

It just makes me feel like s#$t and he doesn't seem to understand why I'm so annoyed with him. The one time I mentioned that I had a crush on a fictional character, he got moody and I had to apologise (not that I have an issue with apologising if I do something wrong but it goes to show the double standard he has between us). Should we just break up? Or is it worth trying one last time?

Not long after posting, OP shared an update.

EDIT: So a lot of people are suggesting that my boyfriend could be hinting at things he wants me to do by sending these reels and whilst I don't necessarily disagree that this could be the case...meowing and wearing cat ears would be the tamest thing he's asked me to do so that doesn't really make sense to me. But I appreciate the helpful comments.

Commenters had strong opinions about the situation.

AmazingReserve9089 wrote:

Up to multiple times a day?? wtf?? This is weird babe. This isn’t seeing him catch a glance at a woman or knowing he thinks Angelina Jolie is super hot. This is just straight bizarre behaviour.

OP responded:

Yeah we talk pretty much all day every day when we're not together and out of 50 videos, at least 5 will be these girls doing weird content. I guess I'm conflicted because if my boyfriend didn't send them, I wouldn't think anything of them.

EDIT: Maybe it's my GenZ brain but can someone please explain why 50 videos a day is this awful thing that people are calling it a problem? If I'm on tiktok for an hour after work, I might save around 10. I might also have some pinterest memes saved, or some instagram reels ready to send. I genuinely don't know why this has dominated the conversation in this thread haha

TwinZylander214 wrote:

I agree with the other comments saying it’s weird and disrespectful. It would be different if it happened like once a month and he sent you a message like “the dress she wears would look incredible on you.” But what he is doing makes no sense: you are not his best buddy with whom he can share whatever s#$t he wants.

First thing you should do is, and please update us with the answer) is to ask him why he is doing that and what he expects from you as you are not gay (are you bi and interested in dumping him for a woman?).

OP responded:

"First thing you should do is;and please update us with the answer) is to ask him why he is doing that and what he expects from you as you are not gay (are you bi and interested in dumping him for a woman?)."

Ok I will do that. And I'm bi and he's straight. I have no interest in cheating at all. Like I genuinely do not understand it and he knows that.

egghex wrote:

My ex would often point out women he found attractive and why. He escalated that to telling me how easily he could get a woman like that. That was another tactic to control me by diminishing my self confidence and self worth by constantly reminding me I’m not as good as X woman so I need to do X thing to make up for that because no one else would want me.

That s#t destroyed my confidence and it took years to build it back up. Don’t let him destroy your confidence. This isn’t the behaviour of someone who cares about your or your feelings and boundaries.

ZooKeeperGameNo719 wrote:

Start sending him s#xy videos of men...(seriously f#$king do it let him feel what he is doing to you.) Seriously this isn't a relationship worth entertaining. Be his reckoning and leave to find a man.

People are attracted to other people. They don't harass their partner with unsolicited s#xual content and other people acting s#xually. Don't accept it. Tell him it is unacceptable. If he wasn't your boyfriend and just some dude, you'd be getting a restraining order.

A week later, OP shared an update.

For some reason my update keeps getting auto-deleted on the THT subreddit so here it is:

I broke up with him. I asked him why he sent these videos- that they don’t turn me on and make me upset.

We’ve had talks like this before and he would stop for few days before starting up again. I expressed all my feelings about the videos and how I find it disrespectful. I brought up the incident where I merely mentioned that I found a character in a videogame attractive and his subsequent meltdown.

How it was all a huge double standard and rude. Obviously I can’t get into everything we talked about but we talked about a lot. Including his insane k#nks that I only really do for him and how s#x is never about me or even the both of us together as a unit.

How I haven’t enjoyed s#x for a year. How some of his k#nks make me feel so disgusted about myself, I gag thinking about them. We ended up talking in depth the most about the videos because I wanted answers. Why did he think his comments about these random women were ok? Did he seriously think I was attracted to his mis*gynistic remarks?

He proceeded to tell me that he was attracted to the women in the videos and their ‘feral’ and ‘weird’ behaviour was a turn on. Apparently he used to like Belle Delphine a lot when she was on YouTube but since she disappeared, he needed new ‘quirky girls to make his porn’ (his own actual words). At this point I had checked out the conversation. Liking Belle Delphine told me everything I needed to know.

He said he still found me attractive but these girls just did it for him and he needed a break from me. The next day while he was at work, I left. During our discussion I think he could sense it but I never told him I was leaving him. I wanted to leave quietly. I'm currently staying with my parents and am going to focus on my life. Thank you to everyone who helped me to snap out of it.

The internet had OP's back.

According-Ad-6948 wrote:

“Liking Belle Delphine told me everything I needed to know”

No because actually lol. Good on you girl.

NiobeTonks wrote:

Well done. This man sounds awful and you deserve better.

ChrisinBliss wrote:

Good for you. Keep going forward and never look back.

Destroyer2118 wrote:

Y’all ever start reading one of these posts and think, there’s no way someone is actually this stupid? So you’re hoping for some big plot twist where it was all a misunderstanding or something but then you get to the end and you’re just left kind of disappointed because they were, in fact, just that stupid?

matchamagpie wrote:

OP's ex sending her thirst traps like she's one of his bros. Glad she left. Life's too short to waste it on trying to figure out why your boyfriend is sending you truck loads of videos of catgirls.

OP is off to better things, no matter who she dates next.