Mature men relationship advice needed please!?

I’ve been engaged for almost a year, for the most part we’ve had a great relationship but of course no relationship is always a bed of roses. The first issues we’ve had happened a few months ago in which I got really upset after him complimenting other women on tv on a regular basis to me. He’s an artist and not gay so I can understand he appreciates beauty and I wouldn’t of had any issue with it "if" he also once in a while paid me a compliment, needless to say I started to feel that maybe he didn’t find me attractive anymore. I confronted him about his behavior and he looked at me like I was crazy. I asked him if he still felt attracted to me and his response was " I’m with you aren’t I?"…" If I didn’t find you attractive I wouldn’t be with you." Ok so not long at all after that I noticed that for a few weeks he stopped telling me he loved me "after" I would tell him which was unusual. What wasn’t unusual is he rarely ever said it first. So naturally I started to wonder if he loved me and/or if there was someone else.

So I guess his not saying he loved me for a while triggered his past behavior constantly complimenting others and never complimenting me and the fact I started noticing he particularly enjoyed watching movies with nude or scantily clad women every weekend we would spend together. It’s important I also make known that during a past long term relationship I discovered my then fiance had a porn addiction which he never overcame. He was psychologically diagnosed as having a fantasy fixation.

Ok so that was him and I don’t think it’s fair or wise to judge someone by your ex because they are separate individuals but my now fiance’s behavior began to make me suspicious and after all of the pain I experienced in the last relationship I sure don’t want to end up with another porn addict. At this point I checked his phone (but never checked his phone before) and (we share an account in my name) but when my fear was triggered I put an adult content block on his phone. I checked to see if he had attempted to access porn and he did in which the site also offered live webcam sex/ chat. He has a home computer and I know if he wants to access porn sites at home he can do it if he wishes but I got him the cell phone last Christmas so he could talk and text not to access porn.

I was really upset after finding he was using his phone to access porn and I’d already shared with him the pain I went through with my ex being a porn addict. Well he got furious when I confronted him about it and when I asked him why…he lied and said he attempted to access it to see if there was a block on his phone. That’s B. S. because he never had no reason to suspect there was a block on it or I would check it as I never had before. After asking him again why he said "you want to know why…because I wanted to." After that I was so mad and hurt and I took off my engagement ring and tossed it to him. I started crying and I tried to explain to him his past behavior and recent behavior caused me to check it. He took the ring and started to leave and I asked him for it back. He gave it back but he didn’t call me for 3 days. The next day he called and we talked and I thought we worked things out…eventually he began to say he loved me too and continued to do so for a few months up until November. Since then he’s only said it back a couple of times and so I began to worry so last night I told him I noticed he stopped saying he loved me back and I asked him if his feelings had changed and after pausing he said yes his feelings had changed and I asked him why and to my surprise he says " do you remember giving me the ring back?", I said yes and explained to him again why and pointed out that I also asked for it back and he said "do you remember why" and I said yes because he stopped saying he loved me, he never complimented yet bragged to me about other women instead and he said "yeah you also checked my phone and had a block on it" and he said well…since then….my feelings have changed. I asked him if he still wanted to marry me and he said " I’m not sure."

The incident he brought up last night happened months ago and as far as I was concerned and also thought that it was water under the bridge. He’s been coming over every weekend, spending holidays with me, showing affection and of course we’ve continued to be intimate.

I’m just confused. How could he continue in the relationship, spending every weekend with me and holidays and having sex if his feelings have changed and he’s not sure if he wants to marry me.

And why is he still holding it against me checking and blocking his phone. If porn isn’t that important to him and he’s not an addict as he says then why is he still angry about it?

Well, the first stuff you mention is not that serious. Yes, we guys do tend to view our choice to be with someone as an ongoing compliment. And, complimenting women we see on TV, well, we do tend to know that that’s a different kind of fantasy. We’re not doing it to contrast with the woman we’re with, anymore than when she swoons over a studly male actor is a diss at us.

Now, porn. Well, young guys like it. It’s very available, and it is exciting. It’s no worse than with women who read a lot of Cosmo or home decorating (Some call that ‘home porn’) stuff. What turns men and women on *in the abstract* is very different, due to, well, evolution. Men are turned on by the appearance of reproductive capability in women, so curves, nice hips and boobs, all that says to our hindbrain ‘I am ready to breed with YOU!’. And, women are turned on by men who can bring resources to the table, to help care for the babies upbringing that will come.

Here’s another area that millions of women desperately need to learn about us men; DON’T play the Ultimate Relationship Ends Card until you MEAN it, and that means, you only ever get to play that card ONCE. In your case, it was the removal and tossing of your ring. That was a statement to him that you ARE explicitly rejecting him RIGHT then and there. So, when a woman Goes There, she cannot expect that his feelings are going to stay all lovey dovey. He’s just been given the Untimate I Don’t Want YOU message. Men don’t tend to stay in love with women who just did that.

There are a lot of ways to Fight Fair, and to work out an issue in dispute WITHOUT playing the This Relationship Is OVER Card. You could have stuck to that sort of argument, but you went Nuclear.

Now, he has to REALLY consider that a woman who will do that BEFORE the wedding will do that afterwards, and that when that happens, it’s going to HURT him a lot MORE.

So sorry, what he did wasn’t good, but you pressed the Self Destruct Button…