What is this?

I've lived in Asia OP so curious as to where you are. I think living in Asia can distort what is normal for us, especially with men. I think if you want to save your relationship then you would have to leave. Me and many of my friends all saw our husbands change in Asia. It is like an aphrodisiac to them. Feel they are on permanent holiday, their egos go through the roof as they are big boss at work and there is no shortage of young, slim, attentive local girls looking to get themselves an expat , that doesn't even touch on the sex trade and the non stop social life. I don't agree every man indulges but TBH I too have wondered about my husband, you'd be crazy to not at least think about it. Strangely, considering on the surface the wives seem to have the best deal with live in maids, plenty of money, plenty of social time to spoil themselves it was always the women who were more eager to leave the luxury behind than the men. I wonder why.

I feel the same way. Marriage is not worth the cost of failure, and more and more people are realizing this.

it is true that their are aspects of culture here too that are problematic and make an equal relationships with men difficult. in fact that's pretty universal.

obviously prostitution and ease of access and normalisation of it all in those cultures is extreme to us but it does seem an important note to make that cultural factors that work against women having equality in her relationship with men and which encourage men to be less than good partners exist in all cultures including our own.

i think this is part of why i'm single. the odds are so stacked against us. i find it easier to be on my own than to battle with all of that. of course if i'd stayed with someone when i was younger i'd be fighting it out and it would be worth it because i loved them and we had a lot of history etc but the idea of going into now, eyes wide open, seeing the traits and the lifestyle and the culture they are a part of etc is a different ball game.

I have lived in several Asian cities and this does not surprise me at all. Very common behaviour. However, I was under the impression this was accepted - women may not talk about it but they know all right. I suspect your friends know too unless they are very naive. My expat and local friends knew, although they never directly said their male partners did it. Prostitution is not the taboo it is in the West - it just isn't. It is part of life.

It would have been a big issue for me if I'd had a partner out there. It was sort of a factor in why I left as it's so difficult to trust someone with that lifestyle. I can't stay long term in a country where I don't agree with the culture, which is why I'm back in the UK - though there are still many aspects of the culture here I dislike!

Sorry I've just seen that this includes your partner cheating on you - hope you can find a way forward. My advice would be to leave as a family and start afresh elsewhere. Good luck.

Oh trailing you poor thing, what a horrid situation.
The only thing I could think of if you wanted your friends to find out is to tell the one person who would blab to the others, but do it in a way where you would have just sort of slipped up iykwim tell her about you troubles with your H and sort of say "and then he says that they're all at it so he thought he'd go for it too!!!" kind of thing, that way, the other wives would find out about it and be able to check them selves out too.

Just an idea !

Just another message of support. I hope it helps you to get out of the situation for a while. Sending you strength and moral support from France (you have global support!).

Take good care of yourself x

This has totally stayed with me all day from the moment I read your op this morning. I second Herbe, please don't feel you're on your own, much support here in UK for you. Safe trip to oz, wishing you luck x

I agree that your DH needs to prove that he's sorry, not just say it.

He needs to decide what sort of shithead it's most important for him not to be - the one who blabbed (IE turned the light on the vile behaviour of his peers) or the one who decided that camaraderie with them was more important than his relationship with you.

What is very very frightening about this, is how quickly otherwise decent men suddenly turn into monsters. Because it is bloody monstrous, what they are doing. How quickly we human beings acclimatise to the unacceptable and begin to find it normal.

And Trailing, to re-iterate, you do have friends in the UK. We're all your friends and we'll support you any way we can.

That's dreadful :(
Sad for you.

If I found myself in your position, I can't imagine not telling at least some of the other women, even if it was just the ones I knew best, because once a few of them know, it will soon spread further. But I'm not going to presume to give advice / tell you what to do, because I'm not in your position, and I've no experience of what life in that country is like actually.

Wishing you all the best, and some (((hugs))).

i'm in the uk!

And other places too....;)

I was very surprised and saddened to witness the prostitution in China, in Shanghai , Xian and Beijing , it wasn't immediately obvious ( apart from the 15+ calling cards that were pushed under our hotel room door on our first night in Beijing , all with pictures of very young looking women ) we had complained about our room and had been given another on the executive floor, none of our group on the tourist floors had the cards - then DH was offered services on the street in Shanghai , as were all the men in our tour group, one of whom was travelling alone and was constantly hassled in Shanghai bars just one street back from the Bund ( the main tourist area) and in Xian, a stone's throw from the city wall, there was a "karaoke" bar, a few of our tour group went in and were ushered upstairs very quickly to "see the view", downstairs there were booths full of business men being entertained by young women who kept going upstairs and downing huge amounts of alchohol, presumably to help them perform the men in the bar were obviously ashamed and tried their best to hide what was going on from the (western) women.

Prostitution is supposedly illegal in China.

Trailing, I hope you find the strength and support you need to get through this, it's a truly awful situation that he has dropped you into, what the hell is wrong with the men who do this?

saf.

I know exactly what you mean. Living like that completely alters some (not all) men. My ex's business partner was married with children living in the UK, he had a girlfriend who he supported (she was Cambodian living in Bangkok). He lived in Thailand 6 months of the year - basically two weeks there, two weeks back, similar to my ex's work pattern. Then I found out that my X was doing the same (albeit with a less formalised arrangement). he wasn'y the nicest bloke in the world anyway, but it completely changed him into a boorish, abusive nightmare.

I worked with someone last year who very blatantly went on his own to Thailand a couple of times a year for shag hols. It was quite blatantly alluded to, he saw no shame. I thought he was utterly appalling.

an ex of mine that i met when we were both living in the middle east, lived with for a while in a couple of european countries and obviously thought i knew very well as a lovely, sensitive, kind, intelligent ra ra ra man moved to thailand soon after i broke up with him.

i went to visit him a couple of years later whilst touring round thailand myself. i barely recognised him. he was selfish and pretty rude and his ego seemed to have gone into overdrive. he had a 'girlfriend'. she cleaned cooked, fawned, giggled and clearly did whatever he wanted in return for a roof over her head and status among her peers and a nice lifestyle.

we went out and he'd get her to sit in the back and me (his ex girlfriend to sit in the front with him and talk exclusively to me for the evening. she would endlessly smile and simper, i'd try to include her in conversation but in the end gave up.

i had it out with him in the end telling him how much he'd changed and saying i thought he treated her very badly and was behaving like a saddo sicko expat using her. he claimed i was being biased because she was thai and young and imagining things. i asked him whether when we were together he'd ever have dreamed of putting me in the back of the car whilst chatting to his ex in the front, whether he'd have had me cooking and cleaning at home and ready to jump on his cock giggling when he returned 24hrs later. obviously not. i watched it sink in on his face - how it wasn't obvious who knows - normalisation and god knows what he'd been up to as normal expat in thailand behaviour in the intervening years.

it's a place that obviously can have a hideous effect on men. they do it because they can. sex with young beautiful girls who ask nothing in terms of respect just material gain - be that the pay for prostitution or the status and lifestyle of being a 'girlfriend'. disclaimer - i know some amazing thai women who this would not refect AT ALL however there are a lot of girls and women in poverty for whom this is the 'answer'.

i think the fact he told you is a good sign, the fact he did finally feel shame and self disgust enough to tell you what he'd been up to. not good enough though obviously and he has behaved awfully.

it's obviously up to you how to proceed and you do not have to hurry.

i'm so sorry - hope my anecdote wasn't too random - just mean that i have seen a 'very good man' turned into a selfish, misogynistic (to the women there) man. actually he also insulted me indirectely about having put weight on - he had become very acclimatised to pubescent bodies.

trailing :(

Do you have friends and family or other support in Aus? Please take care.

I really hope everything works out Ok trailing. I think it is great that you are getting out of there for the time being. I am so sorry for you having to deal with something like this.

It sounds like where I live, Trailing, which is Shanghai. I can think of five parlours in my direct vicinity right now, and every guy I know has "partaken", even my boyfriend. He justified the one time he had a happy ending by saying that it was merely a part of the physical massage and not sexual. Apparently.

Karaoke lounges make me sick, especially the way women are paraded. Prostitution makes up a huge part of China's economy, and it's insidious. It's incredibly common for regular Chinese men to visit prostitutes.

Another shot of sympathy from me too. And a furtive hug too. It's bad enough being miles away from family and friends when something shit happens, but even worse when it the person you thought as an ally being the shit. As someone who also is in foreign parts I totally get it.
My only advice is to think about you and DD and what you can do what's best for you. It's not up to you to make amends for your H nor tie yourself in knots trying to accommodate him. If he's sorry he needs to be the doing the accomodating (and the telling if telling there is to do).
Do you have supportive friends or family at home? Can you avail on them to help? If you are isolated there; your best bet is to try and go somewhere you ate not so alone. Its a bit drastic, but being alone only compounds how helpless or powerless you feel.
I always plan for the worst and when pregnant I devised an exit strategy for me and the DC in case of emergency. It involved going back to the UK and dossing at my sisters. I don"t think it is a good solution, but it made me realise that I would cope somehow.
You will cope too. But do try and put yourself in a situation where it might be more straightforward to do this.
.

How awful - I have been thinking about this and it has raised a whole load of horrible memories. My XP simply didn't see that what he was doing was so bad. As far as I know he is still back and forth to Thailand now, still up to his old tricks. I think the power that this kind of behaviour holds is addictive for some men.

I would be very tempted to tell all the women, however god knows how that would pan out. As the wives are in such a vulnerable position they may well choose (or have chosen) to turn a blind eye, and would resent you for bringing it out into the open. I would be very wary of doing so, it's bad enough that this has happened to you in a foreign country, unable to work to support yourself with a young baby. I can't imagine how awful it would feel if your friends and support network shunned you for being open about this horrible, sordid behaviour.

So sorry for the situiation you have been put in trailing.

trailing - I've been thinking about this all morning. I think if I were you I probably would tell your closer friends. Well tbh I would try and get your husband to tell them but I realise that it would be a cold day in hell before that happened! Would you want to know if you were them (putting aside the devastation you must be feeling at the moment at least you the ability to take some kind of control of the situation)?

A couple of things really stand out for me:

The vulnerable position that you and your friends are in and the fact that has been exploited by your partners.

The misogyny shown by these men. This isn't an affair style problem this is a problem with how they view women especially vulnerable women - both their partners, who are dependent on them and the prostitutes who they have been sleeping with - who are exploited victims too. They certainly don't care about their well-being or even if they wanted to have sex with them.

To go forward I would really try and get some RL support going and trying to take control. You will at least be able to make a decision from a more powerful position.

Good luck and so sorry for your situation xx

I don't have anything useful to say, but I just wanted to express my sympathy trailing. I'm so sorry you have to go through this.

No you don't have a good marriage - certainly not at the moment - you might have a man who has just allowed himself to become a shitbag as he issurrounded by them, who might be able to redeem himself as long as you get the hell out of there and he does a LOT of thinking and changing as a person.

Yes you will be eligible for benefits. Yes you could come home with your daughter and start again - not easy AT ALL, but a million times better than wasting your one and only life living in that slime pit with that bunch of stomach churners.

I would come back, I would get out of there ASAP. Give your so-called H the chance to follow you - whether he does or not will tell you all you need to know. You need to change this situation. It's poison.