My boyfriend and his "girlfriends"?? any ideas??

I've been with my boyfriend for a year and a half. We've been living together since March. During the first month I moved in I found out he was getting dirty texts and picture messages from other girls. He swore he would stop and he did for a while. The girls would continue to text him but he wouldn't respond. Finally it got to a point where it became very annoying so in June he just decided to change his cell phone number to stop them from bothering him because he saw how much it was upsetting me. I just found out that not only did he change his number but he got a second line and a second phone to let these girls continue to talk to him. He ended up hiding this phone in his car. He says he never met with any of them and I know at least for a few of them that was true because they live half way across the country. However some live decently close. I love him and I know this is something that we can work on under the condition that he cuts the crap and gets rid of the other phone and all the phone numbers. ( which he said he will do and we will go together to get rid of the number) I've asked him why he does it and he says he doesn't know. He doesn't know why he needs to have them around. He has said he loves me, wants to marry me, have kids. That I am the love of his life and that I am the only family that he has since he doesn't talk to his. He's also said that when he gets off the phone with those girls he appreciates having me around even more.

I'm not looking for advice and for anyone to tell me to get away as fast as possible or anything else. I know him and I know that he really is a good person (that may be hard for some of you to understand but I know him and he really is). He treats me like gold aside from the situation with these girls. I don't know how to explain this but I know him and I know he isn't doing it intentionally. He had a really bad childhood (child abuse etc), he no longer talks to any of his family (he's 27) and I am pretty much the only stable relationship he has with anyone. He's told me I am the only family he has. He stops talking to those girls for a while and he really tries but something always lures him back. The only way to see if the problem is fixable is to find the root of the problem and I am trying to figure out what that is.

Does anyone have any idea WHY he could need them in his life? Why does he always run back to them? Is it an insecurity ( which it probably obviously is) but would there be something more in depth?

Any help would be really helpful and I thank all of you that read this and respond for your time.

Not the help your looking for but all I can tell you is that it is a really bad sign when you have to make excuses for him, insecure or not he does it because you let him.

The sad truth is some people just cheat or do things like this, even when they have great people they are in relationships with.

Something I am guilty of is being in contact with Ex boyfriends, I still msn them, I have nothing to hide, I told my husband that I am in contact with them and he open access to my MSN account. However, I know that two in particular have not told their wives that we are in contact............. why not? Because they don't want to upset their partners, not because there is anything to hide.

However I will share a small secret, I have fallen into the same trap as your partner. I was in contact with someone who I had strong feelings for, We would contact one another when we were feeling down or annoyed in life, I could go to him, he would make me feel better about myself and then I would go home happier to my husband. Its like a self esteem drug. I did tell me husband how I was feeling and we worked through it. The way men think is different from women so it may be helpful to see what the men say, but as regards to your partners behaviour I can kind of relate. and just wanted you to know why I did what I did, and maybe that could explain it a little more.

(boy I waffle!!) LOL

...getting dirty texts and picture messages from other girls

Sorry Skippy - My wife and I had a similar situation when we first started seeing one another, in that we had some 'dealbreaker' secrets that weren't discussed. Errors of omission, you might say, lol.

I find it fascinating that you don't wish to draw a line in the sand and inform this person of your limits. If it were me, and I were him, I'd do whatever I wanted and just conceal it from you, cause you seem to be able to stomach such deceptions and when he deceives you, you preserve the relationship. Bad precedent you're setting there...

In our relationship, that of my wife and me, we don't have secrets anymore.

We did say Goodbye once because of interlocutors and secrecy in our relationship. Goodbye was a good thing. She took time off from me. Thought about it, and returned a couple of months later with a renewed mission.

We apologized to each other.

We married in July 2007. My first marriage, her second. And we're pretty happy now, with a good set of SHARED priorities. We share secrets, and we don't keep secrets from each other. Not the important ones, anyway. Truth and full disclosure is our mutual mantra - I trust her like crazy. She's the BOMB. But she's always got to know that she 'can' tell me the truth, even if it's about another guy. So that places a requirement on me to be reasonable about things. And vice versa. If I tell her Sally Sue and I were talking about such and such the other day, she's gotta be easy going enough to approach with the truth.

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Is it an insecurity?

Yeah sorta - My wife still communicates with her ex husband, sans kids, which is kind of weird, and I think she can't let go of things cause she's insecure - she relied on this guy for some esteem needs in the past. And he tossed her around. But I'm insecure, quite obviously, in even mentioning it here. So it's a two-way insecurity. So if they exchange a few cards on special occasions, or inform the other of a death, such is their relationship. I can stomach it.

In your case I see it as being that you have to decide: Do I want a relationship that is equal? If so, it's gotta be transparent, which means no secrets.

A secret kept from you about the relationship is power assertion. In this case, it's a male, making more than kissy kissy with other women, and hiding it from you. By deception, he maintains control of the situation such that you're placated, and he gets the wrong kind of pleasure from other women. Ask him sometime if this is because he has some sort of 'problem' with intimacy with one woman. See how he responds. Even sexy text messages are still sexual intimacy (kind of a crude porn intimacy).

It wouldn't wash with my wife, I'll tell ya that much.