Gut instinct or paranoia?

Before Christmas I kept getting this feeling that I was missing something. My boyfriend of 10 years was acting differently. Or maybe it was just me?

 So my partners friend (who we'll call Dave) has a girlfriend who is a little bit 'nuts' apparently (my OH said she has bipolar or something). Anyway she went a bit crazy on the 16th of December 2023, and decided to message my partner to get back at her boyfriend. She sent him a Facebook message, he did tell me what it said but I cannot remember. It wasn't anything that made me instantly have my back up or get territorial. On the 21st of December he brought it up again, because Dave had messaged to say "I'm really sorry about my girlfriend messaging you, I don't want it to ruin anything between you guys" and my other half mentioned this, there were also other messages which he didn't mention, and he also said "You know how she sent me a picture" and I obviously looked at him and was like "excuse me, what do you mean she sent you a picture, what kind of picture" he then said "it wasn't a naked picture or anything" which I was like "oh ok" and went back to my book and then he said "yeah it was one of those ones where she had her hand near her fanny and it looked like she was about to touch herself" I obviously was like "what the fuck do you mean, and you NEVER told me she sent you a fucking picture!" I said "show me the picture, show me the chat" and he said "The picture has been deleted, I blocked her" and I said "ok and what's her name please" and he just laughed and changed the subject. He was telling me stupid little things like "oh when you block someone on Facebook all the photos/media and chats gets automatically deleted" and I obviously said "no it doesn't. I got brought up on technology, I know how this works" to which he said nothing. He refused to give me her name, saying he couldn't remember but her name was 3 LETTERS long so how he couldn't remember that absolutely baffles me!! I asked him about the messages, and I told him I felt like I was smashing something, I had this weird feeling, and to tell me if there's anything else I need to know. He looked me in the eyes and said there was nothing for me to worry about, he already had a crazy girlfriend, why would he want another one. But in the back of my mind I'm thinking that none of it adds up. I don't understand why she chose to message my partner. When Dave has about 200 other Facebook friends, who are single, why would she not just message one of those? Instead of going through his friends until she found my partner's name. Why did he never mention the picture she sent until it got deleted?  How can he not remember her name when it's 3 letters long, but can proceed to describe to me in detail the picture she sent which he only looked at for a couple of seconds?

Fast forward to the 23rd December 2023. I am now extremely vulnerable and worried he's cheating on me. He seems to be avoiding me. He doesn't give me a cuddle or a kiss, just sat on his phone.

I go upstairs and put on a red sexy outfit, come downstairs and demand sex. We go upstairs, he's playing with me for like 10 minutes, I got down on him, and he is FLOPPY! He doesn't even have a semi or anything. I am very confused and I'm not sure what's happening. We've been together for almost 10 years and this has NEVER happened before! He tells me "it's really hard to keep a boner because you have to focus so much, and I am overthinking about stupid stuff (but couldn't actually tell me what he was overthinking), and because of this I can't get a boner" he tells me he's "sorry because I expected more from him and he cannot give me more at this moment" and I just say "I'm fine. It's not a big deal if we don't have sex" and then he said "make sure you don't get dressed" which I thought 'okay fair enough, let's go watch some TV and we'll try again when we go to bed' Did we try again? No he went to sleep! 

I tried putting on sexy outfits for about 5 days in a row to which he ignored me, and just watched TV. Didn't touch me or instigate anything at all. When I brought this up to him he said "I did want to touch you but I got so caught up in my own head and overthinking that I didn't" and I replied "what were you overthinking about, we've been together nearly 10 years" and he couldn't give me an answer. 

On boxing day I wore a really tight, fitted, low cut black dress, and no knickers. He told me the day before "I can't wait for you to wear no knickers tomorrow!" Well he didn't mention it at all, didn't say anything. Didn't do anything. I'm not stupid. I don't want him to fuck me right there and then or anything. I just wanted him to mention the fact that I'm wearing no knickers is turning him on or driving him crazy? But to get NOTHING is a bit of a joke! 

January I am scrolling on Instagram, and I click on his profile, and see that he's following 4 separate 'only fans' accounts. I bring it up to him and he says "I probably followed them months ago, we were in a bad place, not talking, not having sex, we was in the roommate stage, I probably just thought to myself I cannot look at your boobs so I'll look at theirs instead. We were in the roommate stage but you've come out of your shell now and you're making more of an effort, you've changed" and in my head I was thinking 'its only been two weeks since I've decided to drag our relationship out of the roommate stage!' 

I was obviously furious and did a bit of detective work. 3 out of the 4 accounts were made in 2022 - 2023. So he followed them recently. He said he never looked through their profiles, or their pictures, he's never been on only fans, he's never sent or received messages, pictures or videos to any of these accounts. But I just find that hard to believe! He said he was really sorry that he made me feel this way, but it didn't feel like he meant it. He wasn't showering me with affection. He wasn't being overly loving. He was still scrolling through reels on Instagram. Ignoring me or letting me stew. 

Over the next few days I would continuously check his phone and would find absolutely nothing (I still couldn't trust him though, as he works in I.T so he knows how to hide things from me.) No matter how many times we had sex or had baths together I still had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wouldn't go away. I couldn't work out if it was gut instinct or just paranoia. 

In January 2024 I bought a few toys, outfits, restraints, a karma sutra scratch off poster, sexy card games etc and we barely use any of it. He tied me up once, and all he did was finger me and then fucked me. It wasn't enjoyable to me. It just felt really forced and like he wasn't really into it. 

When I brought ALL of this up to him. I laid everything out on the table. He told me he was super depressed and doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know what to do. He hates his job but he cannot do anything else. He was really lonely. I expressed my fears about us going back to the roommate stage, and he said "we'll never go back there. This is the best our relationship has ever been" I remember sitting there and thinking "how can he be so oblivious?" 

Valentine's day I had an 'sexy' evening planned. I was going to get dressed up. We were going to play a sexy card game, use my toys, finally use the poster. But unfortunately due to my implant, I came on. However, it's never really heavy, and normally I stop bleeding by 9pm every night. We've had sex whilst I'm on my period plenty of times because it's never heavy. But that day my partner had seen a reel on Instagram of 'what happens to a penis if blood gets inside of it' and he said it had put him off. His exact words were "stupid video for putting me off" he still couldn't explain to me what video he saw or what actually happens! We went to bed, he gave me a massage, was even stroking downstairs, and then he just finished the massage and went to sleep! He never performs 'oral' on me. NEVER. Probably gone down on me like 5x the whole relationship! I am not going to beg for it.

I keep trying to spice things up, but seems like whenever I try, there's always an excuse as to why we can't. Or nothing ever changes. 

I don't understand what is going on with his behaviour. If he's not cheating and it's just my paranoia, why is he acting soo DODGY?! 

One Friday is May I was going to meet him at work, I messaged him and said "if no one is in your office, shall we have a quickie? Quickly pull my leggings down, bend me over your desk and fuck?" His ONLY reply "We can't. I can imagine the meeting with HR already baby" is he for real? He couldn't have played along? If only a little? 

In May 2024 I found that he had started following 3 more only fans accounts on Instagram. I screen shotted the proof, and sent it to him on WhatsApp, his reply was "I don't know where they come from, probably from before" obviously they weren't. I'm not stupid. Does he not think I've checked his following list continuously over the past few months? He then said "fine I'll just delete EVERYONE then and I'll just delete Instagram" he then proceedes to remove like 150 followers, barely any of them female or only fans accounts. I don't understand why he got so defensive. I never asked him to do that and I would never ask him. I would only ever ask him to remove the only fans accounts, because next to those women I feel like I am nothing! You can get personalised videos and messages sent to you which I think is a lot different to just watching porn!

His behaviour is so strange to me. I don't know whether he's guilty or whether it's just me and my insecurities.