Okay I’m in a little bit of a distressed headspace so, sorry if this is a mess, let me know if I need to fix/change anything.

So my boyfriend occasionally makes comments about watching porn, calls other girls hot and has mentioned his celebrity crushes by name. It always upsets me and we’ve talked about some of these things, and he is working on it and is otherwise an amazing partner but...

As we don’t live together, I don’t feel I can say anything about him watching porn and how upset it makes me.

I don’t even think it’s the BPD necessarily, but that certainly doesn’t help the extremity of it. I was raised by great parents who are very monogamous and loving and have been together since they were teenagers/young adults, and porn and celebrity crushes weren’t even heard of. You would never catch them expressing attraction to anyone else. They have the most movie-like backstory to their relationship (good Catholic school girl and rebellious badboy on a motorbike fall in love, cue credits). I was brought up with a “if they’re not meeting your expectations kick ‘em to the curb” mentality, which worked perfectly for them, but is very black-and-white with me. I greatly idealise their relationship.

Anyway back to the point: I keep getting very distressed about this, and it’s triggering bad eating habits I recovered from years ago. I’ve tried radical acceptance, but I’m not sure it’s something I should accept. I know it makes me feel betrayed and inadequate, and those are my issues. I also know I should talk to my boyfriend about this, but I don’t know how, and if I could keep a calm mind.

Nothing against these things for other people of course. I know some people are fine with it and others incorporate it into their own relationships, but I don’t think that’s for me, and I don’t know if I should try to change that or not, or if I even could.

I’m just very confused and upset.