My (24F) boyfriend (24M) pleasures himself to random naked women on his phone behind my back and tried to lie about it.

So at the beginning of our relationship, I remember I questioned him about a few apps I saw on his phone. Some of the apps being Telegram and Mega and he told me they were from when he was in high school and he doesn’t use them. He also is the type to not delete anything off of his phone as he doesn’t care to clean or organize it the way I like to, which is completely fine because it’s his phone not mine. He said him and his friends would send random stuff to each other on Telegram and his friends would send random folders full of naked girls on Mega to “fuck around”. I believed him and just went past the subject.

One day, I was curious and clicked on the apps and I saw a lot of pornographic, NSFW, videos and pictures of just random girls. It made me feel really uncomfortable so I told him how I felt and he told me I could delete the Mega app off his phone but to leave Telegram because sometimes his friends send links for their gaming on that app but he promised he didn’t use it for anything else. Now fast forward about 5-6 months, to today, while I was on his phone, I was closing the apps and my heart dropped. I saw too much.

First, I saw the app store on the screen of searching the app “Mega”, which means he probably redownloads the app when he wants and then just deletes it after he’s done with it so I don’t see it on his phone. Then, I saw Telegram open, and the screen was one some random girls chat/channel where a lot of people can join and she just sends very explicit and NSFW photos of herself. After that, I saw discord open with the screen of a specific server made for sharing more explicit and NSFW photos of random girls. Then, his reddit opened on some more stuff like that.

Honestly, my heart dropped and I couldn’t stop shaking. He never made it seem like he would ever do that to me. One time, I asked if he watched porn and he said yes and I told him I didn’t like it and it was just my personal boundary and he said he would stop. I feel like it’s one thing to watch porn because you get aroused from the activity going on, but it’s another to be looking at just pictures and videos of girls because of their bodies or just specifically the woman. He pleasures himself to the sight of other women, and for me that almost feels like a form of cheating.

I confronted him and he downplayed the whole thing. He said he never downloaded Mega again, which is a lie, because I saw it. For the other apps, he couldn’t lie because I took screenshots and he just said “yeah sometimes I look at this stuff”, insinuating that he’s not doing anything wrong. I didn’t have the heart to argue with him so I just told him how I felt but then he didn’t say much after. I think he thinks it’s not that big of a deal, I feel like most men will never understand how that feels for us women. I just know if I didn’t have those screenshots, he would try to cover it up and lie.

I was extremely hurt and just felt lost. I don’t feel like I know him because I give him more than enough of me where he does not need to be going to these lengths to pleasure himself. I don’t respect him the same and I really don’t look at him the same way either. Every time I think about it, I feel like crying and start tearing up. Am I not good enough? I keep thinking about how he’d feel if the roles were reversed and he saw all of that on my phone. I always consider him so much, before I do anything in life and always want to make sure I’d never hurt his feelings. I don’t know if that’s the case for him now. I don’t know. I know boundaries are different in every relationship, but do you think this is concerning? Could he have a porn addiction? I’m not sure what to think at this point.

TLDR: I found multiple apps on my boyfriend’s phone opened to explicit and NSFW content of random girls. When seeing them initially without opening them months ago, he told me a bunch of explanations that made sense.

Confronted him and he downplayed the situation and is acting normal with me. Also, told him about my boundaries regarding porn in the past and he said he’d stop but this proves that it never did. Could he have a porn addiction?