Ever since DH went for a private lap dance I can't stop feeling ugly & disgusted by my body

[Cheesseandchess]

It happened over a year ago. He told me he had been. I was beyond upset. This is not a post about the rights/wrongs of lap dancing clubs. He went. I can't change that fact. This is about how I have been left to feel ugly and disgusted over my body, because of it. I already had huge insecurities and possibly some form of body dismorphia over the way I looked. I thought I had got over the lap dance and how it has left me feeling ... but I haven't.
Unless I become a size 8 goddess over night, I will never get over how I have been left to feel
I feel he deserves someone better looking than me, slimmer than me, not as boring as me. How can he possibly want me after having a stunner in his face.

I think people are really missing the point.

This whole thread is how people are telling OP how she should be outraged at how dare he have a lap dance.

That's kind of the point.

She's not outraged about that. Of all the things she could be outraged about, the naked woman, the money exchanged, the moral argument, etc....OP glosses over all of that. And says "bet she's thinner than me, he wants a thin girl, I can't be thin"

The lap dance is a total red herring to what OP needs help with. Filling up 2 pages with why you think her husband is vile for going to a strip club is not the issue she needs to overcome.

I feel he deserves someone better looking than me, slimmer than me, not as boring as me. How can he possibly want me after having a stunner in his face

Surprised by this line as I feel you deserve someone better than him.

Oh this just broke my heart.

Are you still in therapy? Did anything help at all?

You were 23 and felt too old? Oh my goodness.

and most men actually prefer curvy more fuller figured women

@MiddleagedBeachbum In a post about women feeling shit about their bodies, was it really necessary to have a swipe at some women's bodies to tell them most men don't find them attractive?

The bastard doesn’t deserve you.
Infidelity is a red line for me. That was infidelity.

It sounds like you’ve turned your anger at him inwards against yourself. Instead of holding him to account for his (disgusting) actions you are punishing yourself. My suggestion for you would be therapy to bolster your self esteem and really look at whether you want to be with the likes of him.

And your husband is a bronzed Adonis, I suppose?

Yes!

I be more worried about the fact my husband a pervert but, hey ho.

You should feel disgusted with him not yourself

He cheated on you with a sex worker, that makes him an exploitative, misogynistic creep.

This has nothing to do with you, it's all on him.

Instead of judging yourself, tell people that he used a sex worker and let him be judged, if he's ok with doing it, he should be ok with his family and friends thinking he's a slimy loser.

My dh did this, among other things (online dating websites etc)

Over time I just lost respect for him and stoped loving him. I felt much as you did op and it made me feel “less than” which is ironic really when they are the one up to sleazy shit and paying for women’s attention.

Last year I had an affair and he found out. I told him I wanted to leave him. He’s doing everything he can to make our marriage work —as for where we’ll end up I don’t know but having the affair has evened things out a bit and changed the dynamics in our relationship. He never thought I’d do anything like that and I think it’s been a good thing that he realises I don’t need to stick around. He knows I don’t feel the same way about him any more but part of me still wants it to work. He has his good points and is really trying to be a good husband.

A bit of a waffle but just saying i understand -it was a very gradual thing for me the build up of resentment. It just led to me feeling numb and like I didn’t care either way anymore. I look back and feel so sad at how he made me feel when I was younger - I loved him so much and he ruined it.

It’s in the past now but if I could go back I’m not sure I’d stay - I wasn’t brave enough to leave back then and it’s led to years of unhappiness really. Ask yourself if it’s worth it.

This is shocking to me. You are making yourself responsible for his really crap behaviour. He cheated on you. He made an active choice to go and pay another woman, to cheat with, on you. This is not about your body image. This is about him betraying you. Why would you stay with man behaving in such a real awful way?

Do you think the woman who gave him a lap dance was a size 8 goddess? Because she wasn't. She was a normal woman, with wobbly bits, stretch marks, spots, shaving rash, a normal woman with an imperfect body. And that is absolutely wonderful and sexy. I've been to loads of strip clubs, never seen a perfect godess of a woman, just normal beautiful women. She was no more perfect than you are, you're no less sexy than she is.

But I don’t think it’s about that. He actively cheated on her. And she’s claiming responsibility for the way he had behaved, specifically blaming her body. Which is completely upside down thinking. What a sleazy way to behave.

Maybe the issue is that you're trying to be ok with your DH paying a naked woman to rub her genitals all over him in a room alone but because it's a specific situation that lots of men tell us "isn't a big deal" apparently it's fine.

I mean it's laughable really. Can you imagine a situation where you went off into a room and got dry humped by a naked man but gave it a special name and insisted it was not a big deal?

Oh Babe - you’re not ugly. His behaviour and attitude towards women is. How is it possible that someone who loves you as a human being can possibly depersonalize the woman involve and accept his behaviour at that time and then come home to his wife and claim to be living and respectful…. I dunno. I don’t get it. I smell misogynist.

Tell him you are going out tonight and "will be spending £50 or so to grind my fanny against a total stranger. It'll be fine dear, I'll be paying for it and, as you know, they'll take any paying customer". Say that. Dress up, go out. Go to the cinema or something. Don't mention it when you get home and refuse to discuss it. You deserve better OP, have a bit of revenge.

How can he possibly want YOU?

jeeze you should be asking why you want HIM? It’s only cheating losers that pay for sex. The woman wouldn’t have gone near him if he wasn’t paying for it.

it’s nothing to do with you or your body. A cheat’s gonna cheat no matter what. It’s so disrespectful to do that to you and it’s awful that you’ve been agonising over this for the last year. You should have booted him out.

Fundamentally, this is about you and how you feel about yourself, and boundaries in your relationship, as two separate things.

Re: your relationship - you're allowed to decide that someone going to a strip clup is analogous to cheating for you. Your choices then are to move past it and forgive him, or end the relationship. You've done neither - you seem to want to be angry at him for it to the point where it miraculously didn't happen, but this isn't possible so you need to make a decision - can you let it go, or not? If not, you need to end the relationship - there's absolutely no point carrying on a relationship in which you're continuing to feel disrespected and unhappy and you can't move past it. You've said you can't move past it and he isn't willing to discuss it any more so it seems to me that your relationship is over or you're just going to be miserable forever.

And regarding your body image: it's just simply not true that anyone watching a stripper/porn/looking at someone fit on the street would 'prefer' that over you. I can appreciate how fit Tom Hardy is without wanting to not be with my husband, I can appreciate someone in porn looking attractive without not wanting to be with my husband. It's not about competing with them - it's a form of entertainment, whether or not you agree with it morally. So it's got next to nothing to do with how he feels about you or your body and it should have absolutely nothing to do with how you feel about your body. The fact that he clearly has issues over who he can and can't feel comfortable viewing as a sexual object is a problem and for that alone I think I'd be getting out of the relationship, but stop beating yourself with a stick over it being a competition, because it's not and that isn't the point of strip clubs. It's something pretty and novel to look at, that's all.

Borninabarn32 · Today 12:39

Do you think the woman who gave him a lap dance was a size 8 goddess? Because she wasn't. She was a normal woman, with wobbly bits, stretch marks, spots, shaving rash, a normal woman with an imperfect body. And that is absolutely wonderful and sexy. I've been to loads of strip clubs, never seen a perfect godess of a woman, just normal beautiful women. She was no more perfect than you are, you're no less sexy than she is

Irrelevant. He’s a cheating shit, is the point, regardless of what anybody looks like.
“You’re no less sexy than she is”? Fuck that. Why does that matter one iota? He wouldn’t be getting near me with a barge pole after what he’s done, permanently.

I don't think me adding to the chorus of what a sleezebag her H is will help OP. but I do want to remind her that this image she has in her head of this stunning perfect woman loving rubbing herself over her H is not reality. It was a perfectly normal, imperfect woman with her own insecurities doing a rehearsed dance in front of a man she wont even remember. I think she's put this woman on a pedestal and herself in the gutter. OP should leave, she's not happy, chances are, she won't, most on mumsnet don't and that's their business, how she feels about her H wont change, but she can change how she feels about herself.

I felt exactly the same as you OP. My DH of 26 years did something similar. I felt so ugly that I wanted to hide from the world. Never underestimate the damage porn, lap dancing etc can do to a woman, especially someone who's been married for half a century. As other posters have said, he is a sleazy creep who doesn't deserve you. I don't suppose he turns heads when he walks down the street and the woman involved was only interested in the idiot's wallet. My DH and I serparated in the end because I just couldn't forgive him or rediscover any self worth whilst living with him.

@hausmaus great post

It's not a reflection on you or your body at all. It's all on him. Sounds like he is a sad fuck living out his midlife crisis. See it for what it is - he is 100% the pathetic one.

And next time he tries to close you down when you bring it up. Say no it's important to talk about it and he's got you thinking. Say he's really not what he used to be in that department and you think you probably need a bit of extra-curricular virility.