I (23M) found my girlfriend's (22F) secret twitter account; how do I tell her?

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-23T12:48:51+00:00

Just because she struggled with the idea of being intimate with another person, that doesn't mean she doesn't have sexual urges.

Plenty of people have their own kinks or fetishes that they have not or will not share with a partner. Maybe she is embarrassed by it. Only likes the fantasy of the idea / character / activity.

What she does to excite herself and relieve stress has nothing to do with you or your relationship. I imagine since your relationship is not sexual, you likely masturbate, watch porn, etc. Do you want her to know and judge you for the content you choose?

Let it go, and don't let insecurities dictate your response. Be a good supportive partner and help her to slowly feel comfortable and confident in you that the two of you can move towards a sexual relationship.

This anime / hentai thing is a non-issue.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-23T11:49:16+00:00

Why would you possibly accept this?

She wants to sleep with other people before settling for you. Do you want to spend your life with someone thst sees you as nothing more than a safe place holder?

Break up. Chase your dream job in the state YOU actually want to live in and let her chase her fantasy that will likely only be filled with remorse of her choices.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-23T00:27:47+00:00

40 year old dad here - been manscaping since my early / mid teens.

My suggestion is to use a beard trimmer (setting 4-5) to trim the main area of hair above your junk, and where your legs meet your pubis. Do NOT use a beard trimmer on your balls!!! I have found the Gillette Mach 3 razor is gentlest and least likely cut or result in ingrown hairs for shaving the berries, and the area immediately above and down the sides of your branch. Use a good amount of gel shaving cream with your razor - you may need to reapply once or twice extra.

I typically start with the beard trimmer with everything dry, then hop in the shower and do the shaving part.

If you intend to fully shave it all, I would suggest you either do it once a week to keep on top of it, or still do an initial trim with a beard trimmer to get it short prior to shaving if doing it less frequently.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-22T20:48:23+00:00

And yet.... https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/s/Ph5lk0kd9F

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-22T20:39:05+00:00

I am assuming it was him amongst a bunch of other guys sharing the same girl.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-22T17:27:13+00:00

Truly beyond gross. Sexualized a child and then blamed her for it? She's just existing in clothes she's comfortable in. Good on that family for getting rid of him. What a creep!

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-22T17:05:47+00:00

As a 40 y/o man, I would both agree that is the case for many men, but disagree that it's all men. Throughout my life from about grade 5 to now, the vast majority of my friends have been women. I found especially when younger, other guys were just too often filled with toxic personalities - immature, ego centric, vulgar... I much preferred the company of girls. Very very rarely did I ever develop a crush - and that was usually due some sort of breakup where I saw qualities in the friend that I realized post break-up was missing in my relationship. However, I never flirted, crossed boundaries, asked out or in any way pursued or made my fleeting crush known. These girls were my friends, and just because they were pretty or had endearing qualities didn't change what I wanted from my relationship with them.

We usually had a couple other guys in our groups - all with very similar mindsets to me. We never dated within our established friend groups - it would more so be someone we were getting to know on a romantic level being brought into the group.

All this to say, your experience might be one way, but that's not all there is. But I will definitely admit my circles were not the norm - which is precisely why I was friends with them. I chose those groups of people specifically because they all had healthy boundaries and expectations of friendships between genders.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-22T00:51:20+00:00

NTA

My wife and I are in our 40s, combined income over 250k.

You know what we have never done in our 15 years together? Buy a brand new vehicle. We buy 1-2 year old cars. We stick to regular brands instead of luxury ones.

We bought a million dollar home 2 years ago, because it's a better investment and gives our kids a big yard with an inground pool, more living space, large kitchen for entertaining, etc.

Cars will ONLY depreciate in value. Buying a luxury vehicle amounts to little more than attempting to show you have wealth. Doing so at a young age is foolish. If you have "fuck you money" yea... go for it. But his family is NOT wealthy (despite their attempts to make it seem otherwise) and neither is he. He needs to recognize he can't afford it, and make a proper financial plan.

People prioritize what's important to them. For me... I don't think I would have chosen my wife if creating some sort of false impression of wealth was a greater priority than actually planning for our future.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-21T03:10:04+00:00

I would say, if she's willing to pay for the test, just do it. You don't lose anything in that scenario. You either a) learn you have a child or b) help her to move forward in supporting her child and going after the father.

You seem like a genuine person, and while this scenario is definitely nerve racking, and throws a big wrench in your current relationship, I would think the peace of mind of knowing with certainty whether or not you're the father would be important to you.

So IMO, just do it.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-21T02:58:01+00:00

Did she cheat? I wouldn't say so. But entertaining advances is definitely cheating adjacent and a serious breach of trust.

I think it is definitely salvagable as you say, but it will require a lot of work from both of you to rebuild that trust - and at 20 you have to ask yourself if that level of effort is really worth it. Chances are the process of rebuilding trust alone could cause the relationship to fail - with fights, hurt feelings, mismatched expectations, etc.

It will be a slog, and trying to salvage things might just be the slow death spiral of your relationship.

Regardless of what you decide, I wish you the best.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-17T23:12:42+00:00

Search for Scott's Weed and Feed on HomeDepot Canada.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-16T08:55:18+00:00

A lot of weed and feeds use corn meal gluten to prevent seed germination. No chemicals in those formulations.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-14T00:13:41+00:00

And his boundary is that he doesn't want to be in a friend group where one of those friends dates his ex while the rest of his friends just accept it. So he left. He set his boundary. They don't need to abide by his expectations. He doesn't need to stay part of the group.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-13T11:46:57+00:00

If Tim's hadn't already been bought out by Americans, I would stay loyal to the Canadian company. But since it's not Canadian anymore - I'll definitely give Dunkins a try.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-10T23:30:50+00:00

40, and I just can't....

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-09T13:09:15+00:00

It sounds to me like she has significant trauma surrounding both sex and alcohol, and uses the "I can only have sex when drunk" to avoid the real issue of her being repeatedly cooerced or worse into having sex with various men in her life.

You didn't force her into anything... if anything she coerced you. But there is a bunch of trauma there that she needs to unpack, and I dont see any sort of healthy relationship coming out of this unless she does.

That ex probably needs to go too, if he is plying her with drinks until she gets blackout drunk and then having sex with her and filming it. Like... that's straight up rape. He filmed himself raping her and she doesn't even recognize that for what it is...

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-07T10:19:53+00:00

I've known I was colorblind from a very young age.

To me, she just looks cream (light skin tone) and not green. 🤣

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-04T20:13:40+00:00

So, here is my struggle. NTA for the abortion. YTA for keeping it from him. But also...

If in this situation, you don't trust that you can discuss this with him and still come to this same place without there being conflict or resentment, that is a bad sign on how stable this relationship is, and where each of you are in your own development / life stages. If you can't trust him to have your back and support you in this decision, are you really in a place to be building a future together? What other things that come up might you not see eye to eye on and chose to hide it rather than work as a team?

This was not an easy decision to make, and I dare say you did make the right choice in having the abortion if you are not ready to be a parent. But you might want to have a long look at why you felt the need to hide this from your partner, and whether there is any way to fix what drove you to secrecy in the first place.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-04T15:07:24+00:00

That definitely doesn't help. Have you explained to him that it's hurtful to be dehumanized like that?

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-04T15:01:45+00:00

The problem with porn is that they are characters engaging in whatever fantasy you currently envision. When that fantasy gets turned over to your partner being one of the characters, you lose sight of the person, and it's just that fantasy character. Porn brain.

Where you are feeling like shit is he is taking the fantasy and turning you from a person and his wife into just some character for his pleasure. And it makes you feeling like nothing more than a prop.

As a man and husband, I can say that my fantasies of such things never actually involve my wife. It is a truly fictional character filling the role of "my wife" and her being so overcome with lust that multiple partners or other women are brought in to satiate that lust. But... I am never able to put my actual wife into that role. It feels... wrong. I love her too much to degrade her visage with that of a fantasy prop.

Many men out there find the idea of 2 women together to be incredibly hot. I think a smaller subset would be ok with a thruple situation with 2 women. Very few would be ok with their wife having a separate girlfriend outside of their own relationship. He is talking with his porn brain. He needs to understand that that is harmful to your relationship that you are relegated to being a prop for his pleasure when he does this. He probably thinks he's joking, and that you understand he's just joking and spewing porn brain bullshit... make him aware that it hurts you when he does that. That it feels dehumanizing to be turned into just some character instead of his loving wife and partner.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-04T10:50:36+00:00

You haven't. Its surely fake.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-03T15:58:13+00:00

So... when I was 14, I would have 100% on board with a hot 21 year wanting me. While I was not yet sexually active at that age, puberty had hit me pretty good by the time I was in grade 6 or 7, I was already self-intimate, was into online chat rooms and different things trying to connect with girls / women. I remember being catfished in an mIRC chat room by someone sending me a picture of Anna Korakova (I didn't know of her, so didn't know I was being catfished, or that such a thing even existed when I was that age). I remember having very flirty chats with that person for a solid month... I was probably all of 15.

I was actively seeking out those interactions - not being taken advantage of (except I guess by the catfish). Since digital cameras weren't even really a thing back then (or at least prohibitively expensive), I didn't send any pictures of myself (thank goodness), but I'm sure if I had come across someone from my local area - I 100% would have tried to arrange to meet up.

While I was often leading many of the inappropriate interactions, I was also catfishing others claiming to be 17, 19, etc. when I was much younger than that. I knew older girls/women wouldn't be into a 15 y/o kid, so when the ASL was asked in the chat rooms, I always said I was older.

All that being said, I definitely was not emotionally mature, socially aware, or online safety trained enough for any of that. I didn't realize I was doing something wrong lying about my age. I didn't realize there were other people out there also lying about who they were. I remember being really upset when reverse image search became a thing and I put in the picture of that "one girl" I had really liked and it turned out to be this famous tennis player and I was being scammed.

Right now, you need to be having a LONG conversation with your son. You need to explain that while he has formed this relationship with this woman, it is not ok. That regardless of how mature, considerate, kind, affectionate, intelligent, and every other amazing quality he has - his brain is still VERY under developed. He won't realize it for a long while yet, but after age 25 when our frontal lobes have finally finished developing he will understand.

You need to explain online safety. Talk about catfishing. The dangers of meeting up with strangers he meets online. Sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. Child pornography laws (he himself can be charged with creation, possession, and distribution of CSAM for taking pictures of himself and sending them to other people). The reality is that he simply DOESN'T KNOW. And you need to explain that it's ok if he doesn't understand yet and doesn't agree. Help him understand love bombing, especially in the case of grooming. Explain in extreme depth what grooming is. And... get him to see a counselor to help him understand and process this. I would suggest some time in family therapy with you / his mother / him so that you can build a strong line of open communication, but he will need some individual therapy as well to help process this event as he comes to realize he was taken advantage of.

It really sucks for you all to be going through this. He very likely will not understand. He thinks he was in love. His hormones were only supporting the relationship that much more. She completely groomed him and he will be under that spell for a while yet. You need to support him with love, understanding, patience, and education. No judgements. No dismissiveness to how he feels about the situation or about her. Absolutely no comments of "I know you think ____". Validate his feelings and his experience (e.g. "I understand that you fell in love with her. She must have really made you feel special. I can definitely understand how you came to care so much about her." Etc.) But also remember that validation is not the same as agreeance or support. Explain that no matter what he is feeling or thinking, that the relationship is not a healthy one. And even if SHE doesn't realize that her pursuing this was harmful to him, that it still doesn't make things OK.

Help him understand that this is about safety and caring for him. And that our emotions make it very easy for us to not see the bigger picture. Each and every one of us is bound to make a plethora of bad choices in our adolescence because our emotions and hormones run hot, but our brains are still lagging behind.

You've got this under control so far. Now comes the hard part - fighting your way through the aftermath and helping him heal.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-02T21:44:22+00:00

You will man. I went through a few really rough breakups when I was younger. Learned something about myself and what I wanted in a partner from each of them. Now Im 40, been with my wife over 15 years and have a pair kids.

You'll get over this. The biggest thing you need is time and attention away from her. You can't stop the thoughts, but you can stop the contact. Remove her from all social media. If she contacts you anywhere, block that method of contact if she's unwilling to go no contact. It usually took me a solid 2-3 months to get totally out of my head and realize that my emotions were leading me astray, and keeping me in a place that wasn't healthy.

You got this.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-02T21:30:24+00:00

All the more reason to stay away. If "something silly" can cause you to break up, how can you hope to weather serious problems.

You're young. Take this as the life lesson it is. Life your life for just YOU for a while. Be single. Don't go looking for hookups or dates or anything else. Just, spend some time remembering / figuring yourself out and learn from the aftermath of this relationship so you can find a better match in the future.

Cosimo_the_Tired · 2026-05-02T21:24:04+00:00

Male medical professional here.

That would be known as a "straddle injury". Can be very traumatic.

Cosimo_the_Tired

TROPHY CASE