I've been hiding my masturbation sessions from my gf, planning to confess to her

I've been hiding my masturbation sessions from my gf, planning to confess to her

I (23m) have been in a relationship with my gf (21f) for 18 months. After the first month of dating, she got her own place. I got my own place 2 months after that. In the time before that we really only got one or two opportunities to have sex. When we got our own places this quickly evolved to having sex every single day, sometimes to 2-3 times a day. There genuinely was a point where I had to tell her my penis can't handle having that much sex.

This is the first time I've actually been in a relationship and she also took my virginity. Because we had lots of sex, there was often no need for me to masturbate in my free time during days when I wasn't able to see her, mostly during weekend. Most of the time I did this just using my imagination or using pictures of her. Other times it went off into the wrong direction, with me masturbating to porn/of content (by looking up leaks, just to clarify). There was a feeling of guilt afterwards, so I tried to restrain myself from masturbating most of the time. This was happening during our first 7 months of dating.

One thing I might also have to add is that during this period she opened up the conversation of buying sex toys, mostly for herself, but also for me to tease her with. At first I was kinda shocked, because I was afraid it meant replacing penetration. We had a conversation about it and she reassured me that it wouldn't be replacing me, even going as far that she wouldn't buy the toys if it made me feel this way. After having talked to her about it, I was comforted and wasn't insecure about it at all. To this day I'm still totally cool with it. That same conversation also made me 'confess' that I still masturbated from time to time. I thought she'd find it weird, but seeing as she admitted to me she masturbates from time to time too, I had no reason to think she'd be offended by it. She was totally okay with it and wasn't shocked by it at all. She understood that having blue balls sucks and I need to ejaculate from time to time. I don't think she realized that me masturbating also includes watching porn fron time to time.

At the moment, I think she only masturbates once per month. I genuinely don't know actually. But I do know when she would have the opportunity to do so, and she doesn't really get the opportunity because she's either busy, or not in the mood, and when she is I'm there to stimulate her.

Now that we've established that masturbation is okay in our relationship, it's time to move to the part where it became a problem. We've been together officially since december 2024. During the summer of 2025, some things happened which basically ruined my whole summer and got into the next year of college with burnout issues. Those issues got worse and worse and by October 2025 I couldn't work and couldn't go to college. I was basically stuck to my bed. Life went kinda downhill, only got proffesional help months later.

Since I got my 'burnout', she was really busy with college and her internship + she's had to move twice. Things kinda went to shit. Most of the time she just wasn't in the mood for sex because of the shit she had to deal with, and I never pressured her into having sex with me, no is no. I was totally okay with it, even though I was in the mood a lot more than her. We went from having sex almost daily, to having sex like maybe once every 2-3 weeks.

Because I was pretty much confined to my bed because I needed to rest, I was masturbating more and more. There were periods where I did it twice per week and basically had hour-long edging sessions, but also short periods where I would do it multiple times a day. Then the guilt would buildup, decide I would have one last 'edging session', and that I would stop after that. Aaaaand after a few days I would be back to masturbating. And the cycle repeats. At one point, one the rare occasion that my gf and me would have sex, she teased me about how the box of tissues (that we mostly use to clean after sex) had gone empty pretty fast. She just laughed and I know she knows that it was because of my masturbation habits. I don't think she realizes how much I did it tho and I don't think she realized that I use adult content to stimulate me. I'd tell myself that it was to avoid getting blue balls and that it would keep me from cumming too early on the occasion where we did have sex.

These habits have resulted in me opening up onlyfans accounts, and chatting with these creators (fully aware that most accounts are run by agencies and not the creators themselves). Never spend any money actually, only in rare occasions where I had to pay for a subscription. There's something about it that just really gets me going. But I always refrain myself from buying anything because I know it's a waste and I don't have much money to spend. After 1-2 days I'd delete my account again, along with any trace of it. I've fallen back multiple times.

Summer break has started, she's done with her internship and we have been spending more time with each other lately. We're going on a trip to Italy in 10 days. The last few days I have been dealing with insomnia, probably a side effect of the new ADHD-meds I've been taking to battle my burnout issues. Last night I couldn't sleep yet again and around 2 am I decided to have an edging session. Yet again, I opened up an onlyfans account and got a proposal for a 1on1 call. I feel awful about it, but I was genuinely thinking of doing it, since I was under the impression that it would only cost me €15 (this ended up not being the case). But during this, my gf texted me, asking if I was still awake, because she knew I had been having trouble sleeping the past few days. The guilt overwhelmed me. I texted her, asking her why she was up and chatted for a few minutes. Then I said I wanted to try and sleep again, so we said goodnight.

Because I felt so guilty, I didn't finish my masturbating session. Just deleted the account again and lay in bed, overwhelmed by guilt and decided that next monday, when I see her again, I'm gonna confess. I want to stop it and she deserves better after everything she has done for me. I want to go with her to Italy without having any secrets.

I feel so dirty. I feel like shit. I know I can refrain myself from masturbating, I've done nofap for 6 months, I had no problem with it.

All this has gone so far to the point where I think I enjoy edging myself more than sex with my gf. It's gonna sound like I'm projecting here, but I want to assure anyone reading this that I take full responsibility for what I've been doing. I just want to state the reasons as to why I think I prefer masturbation over sex my gf:

My gf takes the pill. I don't wear a condom (discussed this with my gf on multiple occasions, I'd be totally fine with wearing a condom, I just haven't). That also means that my penis is more sensitive and I cum really fast. It's been one of my biggest insecurities. She says she doesn't mind. Most of the time I try to compensate for this by having her orgasm during foreplay. I don't find it hard to make her finish and succeed almost every time when I get the opportunity to do so. But a lot of the time she doesn't have the patience for the foreplay and just wants me to penetrate her right away when she's wet enough. Also because she has been so busy, she's already tired and can't handle having sex for too long, and just wants to have sex for up to 15 minutes max (which I find short).

She also likes to goof around. It's one of the things I love about her. But she's also does it when I try making out with her. She tried suddenly licking me while kissing or making her tongue hard, tickling me, those kind of things. For me it ruins all the tension. I have communicated this once or twice with her, but she keeps on doing so. Since I don't want to ruin the mood I just accept it and try to ignore it. To sum it up, I think the tension is missing when we have sex. Most of the time I'm just really trying to perform and making her enjoy it is my nr. 1 priority. And although I really do enjoy having sex with her, I'm just much more relaxed and thrilled when I masturbate when I'm on my own.

I love her deeply and she's such a sweetheart, she really doesn't deserve this. But I have to confess, I can't keep it a secret any longer if I want our relationship to survive. The worst part I think is that I know she won't breakup with me. I know that I fill a void in her life that nobody has been able to before and I genuinely think she'd get suicidal if we broke up. She needs me, I have been supporting her emotionally for all this time, because her parents lack the skills to do so and she hasn't been talking with her friends a lot. I know that she'll forgive me, even though it will hurt her. And I feel like such a manipulative asshole because of that. I'm a piece of shit.