Can I recover years of cheating with escorts?

Ladies, I turn to you for impartial advice, by this I mean if possible not to project yourself onto my situation and think - what would I do? Don't, because you will never know what you would do until it happens to you. You think you know your partner and above all you think you know yourself, but then something like this comes up and all is out of the window.

Oh I absolutely do know what I would. Nothing could make me stay with someone who had done this once, never kind for years.
No one here can tell you if you will get over it. Its very unlikely, so why would you stay with him?

Why on earth would you think he isn't still doing it?
He has done this all his sexual life. It's his M.O and the love of a good woman did nothing to change that.
He has been spending your family money on his 'addiction' all the time you knew him, when you were at your happiest together and when you were at your lowest - he still did it.
He will always do it.
Please get rid of him. I promise you your life will improve no end without this piece of trash in your life. He has zero respect for women. If he did he wouldn't see them as a purchasable commodity.

AF is right, leave because of your DD. Be a positive example.

This is too big a thing to get past, not least because he knowingly put you and your DD’s health at risk and would never have told you.

Do you think maybe you are putting pressure on yourself to forgive him and get back to the place you were before? I would think the very best possible outcome in this is the ability to acknowledge his faults (major) and come to peace with what he has done, to split on good terms and coparent in a cooperative way. I think that is as much as anyone in your position could hope to achieve. Unfortunately the relationship you thought you had cannot be recovered as it didn’t really exist. You will have to forge a new one and given what you know now it would be foolish to expect a committed monogamous relationship. Addictions don’t go away, they kick you when you’re down and it is likely he will slip up in future. It would be better to be disappointed as a friend than heartbroken as a partner for both you and your child.

If sex for him is a sweetie shop variety experience with strangers or semi strangers, and has been since he first started having sex. ... How would he ever be rewired to see sex as an exclusive, intimate, one person experience with a woman you know intimately in every way and who is a rounded, varied, real, multiple role person.

He obviously likes sex that way and it suits him or he wouldn't have done it for years in and off, and kept doing it even while getting into a "monogamous" relationship, a marriage, and having a family. Can't imagine him changing much or at all permanently. He's probably always going to be one of those (hopefully minority) of blokes who visits prostitutes whether he's in a relationship or not.

Leave him because of your daughter.

All those coerced women are someone's daughter. Your husband is scum.

He's a dud, defective .. chuck him back.in the sea. Be glad you only have one child with him.

Oh and the prostitutes who've posted on here have said that most punters are punters for life. They show them pics of their attractive wives and partners, they talk about them, they have many many "last times" but they always turn up again sooner or later.

he hardly initiated sex in our relationship, well past the first year at least.

he was visiting countless places at least once a week.

Little wonder.

He actively, purposefully puts sex with prostitutes ahead of sex with his partner.
Seems like he sees them as for sex, and a partner as not. You can't deal with fucked upedness of that level; let alone all the lying, infidelity etc.

And he must have been spending a fkg fortune! Of your family money.

The simple hard answer is no. You can’t repair trust. Look at the many threads of those that have tried and are still paranoid as hell.

Took a lot less than that for me to leave and my 3 kids have a happy, healthy mum who owns her own life. That is of far greater value than modelling a relationship where you are a shell of yourself “holding it together” while jumping at shadows.

Seriously even if he doesn’t do it again you’ll feel like he could, feel like he’s destroyed you. You get one life, life it happily coparenting and free!

I think "can I recover .." should probably be "Should I recover .." and to me, you shouldn't.

You've said you can't get past it after trying for a while, and that's totally understandable. It's beyond the pale. A d it's sounds like you'd not have found out and he'd not have stopped, has you not found out yourself through that app etc.

Noone should have to get over that.

You and your daughter will be ok. I would work out how you're going to manage financially as a first step via citizens advice (phone) and online. You'll get universal credit, housing allowance (if renting), child maintenance, child benefit, discounted council tax I think, free school meals, uniform help, transport to school help, 85% of childcare costs paid if you work (capped at about a grand for one child I think) and whatever you earn under your work allowance amount (above which your UC payment would start reducing).

Could you get any help from family too?

He's only sorry he got caught.
He lied to you every day.

My parents split up when I was that age. I'm not "destroyed". Half of marriages end in divorce; why not yours?

Men use use prostitutes hate women on a very basic level. Many of these women are addicted, abused and trafficked. Essentially it's rape.

It won't destroy your daughter. There are so many children who do well in divorced homes, as long as the parents behave well. You can split up amicably.

I agree with others OP, I don't see how you can get past this. It wasn't a one off error of judgement. Your whole relationship is a lie.

And I agree that it will not destroy your daughter for you to leave him. It is more likely to destroy her living with parents who do not love each other.

My mother was such a strong woman. She left my dad because he was cheating and built a new life”
Or..
“My mother was such a strong woman. She put up with my dad’s infidelity for years”

This.

Listen. He's not sorry. He didn't even confess to you out of guilt, he was caught. If it were up to him, you would still be oblivious and he would still be shagging escorts. He won't change. He will just hide it better next time. He hoped you wouldn't find out, but you did. That is the only reason he is sorry.

Trust me.

Its not really about trust is it. Your husband knew what he was doing and knew how bad it was. He did it anyway. He doesn't respect women generally, he certainly doesn't respect you, and he lies.

I stayed with someone in similar circumstances for 5 years and it destroyed me. Maybe you can overlook it but the trust is gone until he proves himself trustworthy (which could take ages).

In my case exH did it again and I was left feeling like a total mug for agreeing to stay with him. Because he was a liar, I knew it, and who trusts a liar?

Your daughter will be fine if you leave. Maybe not straight away but she will be. And when she is an adult she will understand why you did it.

Urgh. 'Ladies'

Why would you want to???

Turn it around. If it was your daughter’s partner that had done that would you want her to leave? You’re not destroying your daughter, you’re showing her how to be strong and respect herself- with your example.

Imagine in the future- which is most likely she’d say..
“My mother was such a strong woman. She left my dad because he was cheating and built a new life”
Or..
“My mother was such a strong woman. She put up with my dad’s infidelity for years”

I'm also interested in why you think you will 'destroy your daughter' if you leave? Unhappy parents do far more damage to DC than a split ime and it seems unlikely either of you can be happy in your marriage if you can't get past what he's done. Not that I think you should get past it, you say none of us know how we'd react but my feelings about men who think consent can be bought are so strong that I do know and I wouldn't be attempting any kind of forgiveness in your position. Sorry OP

You haven't destroyed your daughter he has.
Quite frankly do you want to live with such a disgusting human being?
He most certainly will do this again.

OP, have you had a full, indepth STD screening? Including HIV, Hep B&C, herpes and syphilis? Bog standard STD screening often only checks for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, but if this man has been having sex with prostitutes decades he could have all sorts, and passed any of it on to you. Even if he used a condom every single time, he could still have picked something up.

To me, this would be unforgiveable, as not only did he make a mockery of your marriage, but he's also put your, and your children's, health at huge risk.

Can you recover?
That is very much down to you and ability to forgive and forget. Truly forgive and forget, not just burying it, making excuses for him etc.
You have not done anything wrong please remember that.
Lots of different aspects to this that you may need to unpick to get piece of mind to make a clearer choice.
Would he still be doing this if he not been caught?
Is it an addiction or a choice? At any time he could have realised he had a family and could gave stopped to get help?
Money and time spent on escorts could have been time and money spent on recovery?
He has risked your sexual, emotional, financial health not to mention pandemic etc how do you feel about this?
How do you feel about a man you can pay for sexual services with quite possibly vulnerable females as a mother with a daughter?
How do you feel about a partnership of possible checking, detective work, hoping he doesnt weaken during times of stress and difficulty?
How do you feel about someone who can lead an almost double life and yet still has a family?
I think if you really honestly can find a way to overcome the many facets above with zero resentment you may recover.
It does and can happen, but mostly it is a dealbreaker, women get their ducks in a row and at least seperate to focus on theirselves.
He is not a project to fix, but you have suffered.
There is a website/free resource called recovery nation. It has a forum and modules for partners of people the use sex workers. It can be very helpful to unpick your own circumstances.
You will I am sure get lots of LTB responses on here.
I reply to these threads as it happened to me too.
Many posters dissapear after getting support on here because they are not ready to leave (again faceted reasons) it took me 4 years.
I could not recover but we are all different.

I am so sorry this has happened to you. No one knows how they would react until it happens.

My ex-husband of 18 years cheated for the last 3 years of our marriage (that I know of), with prostitutes and strangers he met off the Internet.

On paper we were the perfect couple and it came as a big, big shock to me as I had no idea.

When I first found out I went into survival mode more for my 3 children, (1, 3 and 7 at the time) and also the fact that I was pretty much financially dependant on him. It was a blur but I wanted to keep my family intact.

Fast forward 6 years. I've retrained and now have a career, my children are happy and settled and I have divorced him. I forgave what he did for my own sanity but I cannot forget and it was the not being able to forget which impacted any potential reconciliation, no matter how sorry he was.

You will find your way but do not think you have 'fix' him or help. Your primary concern is yourself and your child.

With or without him, you can do this.

Walk away. He could have given you any disease. He could have severely compromised your child’s health. His problem is not your problem to fix. You can be with someone who is not fucked up and is actually good to you. That’s better for your daughter.what he did to you is truly awful.