I created my lemmy account just for this, I really need some help and have been unable to post elsewhere.
Hi. I’m 26yo F. I’ve been with my BF (27M) for over 3 years. Our relationship has been, hard. It has been good but gone through many difficulties. First was his mom, who was an abusive controlling bitch, until I pushed him to go no contact with her, and then she died from an infection. Then we had problem because of the lack of sex, and I didn’t like how he was behaving with me, he was getting too controlling and I was always on edge. We eventually solved it, he improved a lot, and our relationship was good again, now he is not controlling over me, but I still got some little ptds from those days so I resort to not tell him things to avoid conflict.
He is not all bad, he is nerdy, caring, and I know for sure he is not cheating on me (he barely goes out of the house). I have recently moved in with him because now there’s a functioning car that allows me to get to work. I was living with my mom, and I’m glad I’m not living there anymore, because I have to suppress myself a lot when I’m with her. I am more free with my BF. But I feel I’m not as free as I could, for example, if I just wanna dress up in the house, he looks annoyed, because if I dress up it means I’m not doing house chores, and he always insists on doing house chores, he does chores since he wakes up, till he goes to sleep, and when he is not doing chores, he is playing videogames, watching anime, or studying. So, I only dress up when I’m alone because I don’t want him to nag me. Like, if I do my nails, they get instantly ruined for doing the dishes or washing something else. I was unable to do that at my mom’s house too because she never had nothing good to say.
Also, we haven’t had sex in what I think is already a full year, he never feels like it, doesn’t take hints, if I straight up tell him I want sex, he says “we will do it tonight” but it never happens. I’m feeling touch starved, I have spoken to him about this but he doesn’t care. I wanna experiment and try exciting things, but he is so vanilla that can’t even convince him to have sex in other place that is not the bed (literally), or other position that is not me on top and he’s doing basically nothing.
I’m feeling frustrated because of this, he says he wants me, but I don’t feel affection anymore.
Now, for the title. Some weeks ago I needed an SD card for doing some tech stuff, I was looking around the house and found a 32GB sd cards that I bought a while ago and stopped using. I took it and plugged it into my computer to see what was there before erasing it. I discovered it had lots of porn. Not really a surprised, I know the kind of porn he likes, so I started checking what was there, nothing really surprising. However, there was also a lot of Hentai and R34 art. And yes, there’s a lot of characters that are, in cannon, underage. Not really surprising since I know he reads tons of fanfics, but there was a lot of R34. There there was another folder, inside the SD card, with random letters as its name. I went into it, and at first sight looks sus.
I was checking the images and videos, and I was thinking… some of the people there looks… young. I’m not new to the internet, I know teen content is a thing and some people going into the industry being barely legal to sell twisted fantasies. I know about porn, I even tried to get in once when I was younger but never really made it and in retrospect, I’m glad. But then I kept looking, some of the people there looked really young and some videos had terrible quality and were only a few seconds long, which means, are crappy old home made videos, instead of a real production, which, is extremely sus. I’m a tech person, I’ve done cyber security, and this was ringing all of my alarms. Then I found one that made me said… that’s… a child. Then another one, that also, was, 100% a child. And another, and another. And then, I saw one that was… a toddler, and another one. I was frozen, started crying, and just, sat there in disbelieve. I still can’t really believe it. It wasn’t a huge collection, but some combined tens of images and videos, mixed with R34 and even AI images of, you guessed it, children.
After my initial shock, I took the SD card of my computer and put it back in the same place I found it at. I tried to do something else to ease my mind until my bf came home some hours later, and I just acted like everything was normal, he eventually picked up on me being a bit moody but I’ve been moody for some time because of the lack of affection in our relationship. BTH sleeping in the same bed was a bit hard, I stayed up late and then went to bed next to him like normal.
I think there’s no love left for me, but, the relationship is on the surface, good, my mom likes him, his family likes me and welcome me, materially we are doing ok, we are even getting better in some aspects material aspects, I finally feel like have stability while not depending on my mom for anything. I don’t have money to afford my own place, I barely have any friends, I don’t have a car, I have my own job. I just finished moving in and I don’t feel like I have somewhere else to go, if I go back to my mom’s house, it will be more years of repressing myself and not being me, I’m in the second half of my 20’s and I feel like I have accomplished little to nothing on my own. In my country is almost impossible to safe to get a place alone because of the economy and our low salaries. So, I know how Reddit is, I know would be very easy for some to tell me to move out and get away, but… I don’t have how, in fact, my account is literally in 0 today because I own money to the bank. And I don’t mean going and getting a 2 stories house with 4 bedrooms, no, a single bedroom apartment is unaffordable unless you have rich parents.
I can’t go to the police, because the police in my country is beyond useless, the only thing they do is try to extort money (in bribes) from people for small infractions and they act like gangs, criminal investigations don’t get anywhere, and there is just no point because, again, where would I go after that?
I feel like staying with him is better than going back to my mom, but at the same time, I feel trapped, pretending that things are ok in the relationship, feeling numb, feeling like I can’t be myself at the house because he gets annoyed. And I have absolute no idea what to do. Nothing at all. I wish I could move to another city and start from cero, I’m honestly sick and tired of my city and wanna do something else, he doesn’t want that, he wants to stay here, which is thing I’m frustrated about, but again, with what money?
I feel like I can only yell at the clouds because there is nothing else I can do except to continue my days as normal and see what can happen in the future.
Thanks for reading, sorry if is too long but this is all I can do.
TLDR: I’m 26 F and my BF is 27 M. We have been in a relationship for over 3 years and I finally moved in with him. I’ve been a bit unhappy recently because of the lack of affection and sex, however, I recently discovered an SD card of his and I discovered it has illegal content involving minors. I have no idea what to do because I can’t afford to move anywhere, and I can’t go back to my mom because would set me back for many more years. I can only pretend everything is ok, and honestly I’m feeling trapped in this relationship, while everything seems good in the surface.
If going back to your mom is your only option, you need to do it. You can’t live with someone like this. Everyone has secrets, but finding out these kind of secrets is something else and not something you want any part of. Especially with corrupt police, if they, for whatever reason, decide to raid the house and find it with you living there, your life is now in trouble as well as his. You said that was your SD card he’s using? How do you prove it wasn’t you who put it on there? Do you even want to fight this legally?
And besides that, it sounds like a dying relationship. The signs are all there and I think you realize this as you wrote this. The fact that you’re not able to feel like yourself is something that is a sign of a bad relationship, like how you feel you can only be a certain way when he’s not in the home.
Have you tried searching for an online remote job so you won’t have to travel as much? There’s a lot of that for the world of cybersecurity and tech in general, though I know it can be hard to get your foot in the door nowadays.
But you need to do something. Staying there and in this relationship is not good for you. Even before finding the card, it doesn’t sound like this has been your ideal relationship. You can and should do better for yourself, even if that means ending this and being single for a little while.
I really suggest talking to a therapist. I’m in a similar stage of life going through similar relationship things. Just in the past few months of seeing my therapist I feel way less underwater and helpless. I’m making plans and I see the whole situation in a different, clearer way. It might sound obvious but being able to think clearly is crucial to making smart decisions and getting yourself out of tough situations like this.
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Get out of this relationship.
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Most of us have been around some kind of illegal or unlawful behaviour we wouldn’t report to the police. Anything to do with child sex abuse isn’t one of those behaviours. The only alternative to reporting him, or giving him a strictly timed opportunity to report himself that I can immediately think of, is if there is some sort of working ‘treatment’ that I am not aware of, that this person signs up for.
I am not a psychiatrist, but I imagine that somebody can become conditioned to respond to one or another type of porn and that sometimes this conditioning can be reversed. I also imagine there are people that look at certain images who it is better for everybody if they get treatment and fix themselves rather than be criminalised.
Edit - I am showing my age with how I describe this, but there are cartoons on my ‘all’ lemmy feed which are of females who have women’s bodies, but basically very young faces. (You all know them. I know I sound like a grandparent.) My point is, in terms of conditioning these could easily be a ‘gateway’ to more problematic then illegal material that millions of young people must be subject to as a matter of course. I can see there could be lots of people somewhere along that pathway that need to stop what they are doing, and change, but shouldn’t necessarily be criminalised.
Either way, get out of this relationship. Forget trying to fix them or any of that stuff. You can’t just leave a potential future abuser out there without doing something, but cut your losses and move on.
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I think you will regret it if you don’t take immediate action. I would contact a lawyer before going to the police so that you’re not implicated yourself.
If he is found out any other way you could also be accused as well as long as you live with him. It will suck to go back to your mom but at least you have some safety you can fall back on and with good reason. Use that safety to figure out your next steps, but get out of there as soon as possible to minimise danger to yourself.
I agree with others. Its in your house. Technically if found by an authority they cannot say who in the house is responsible for it. Its like there being a stash of cocaine in there.
Well, assuming everything is accurate, including law enforcement not being a useful option, the best bet is to destroy the card, and get away from the person described.
That’s what I would advise to anyone in a situation like that.
Setting side the CSAM you found, you’ve got enough reasons to break up. Do it.
Do your best to report the material, but be safe. Some countries make it dangerous and hard to report, I understand. Do what you can.
You do not have a choice here. Call a lawyer and then the police or have child sex abuse on your hands/conscious for the rest of you life
If it helps, your relationship is terrible. And always has been. Please raise your standards. You deserve better
It was only a matter of time before the clickbait romantic fiction writers made it to Lemmy. sigh
This is not clickbait. Its is my life.