DH & lap dance - this is just killing me

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2022 DH went to a lap dancing club and had a private dance while on a stag do. I am still not over this. I beat myself up most weeks that I don't look like the lap dancer (body wise) and I never will. I cannot watch films that feature lap dancing scenes/clubs. I see DH sitting on the sofa and I instantly picture the dancer in front of him, not all the time but sometimes. I then get angry, so angry at DH and he doesn't know why.

My DS is 16 and occasionally mentions strippers in a jokey way, I mutter ''ask your father about that as he likes that sort of thing'', DS never hears me and isn't meant to. If he did hear he wouldn't know what I was referring to. One day he will hear me though. I have fits when I get so angry over what he did. He refuses to talk about it and any mention of it from me goes into a totally huge row between us. So I say nothing and quietly stew, bitter and angry and hurt and feeling like the fattest, ugliest sack of shit that ever existed.

I don't want to leave DH. I do want him to know how much his actions have totally destroyed the tiny ounce of anything I liked about my body (I have body dysmorphia). But we don't speak of it and never will. The argument would be severe, on both parts and we would never resolve anything.

If he had a lap dance then that is the type of body he must want/desire. I cannot ever give him that. Christ knows what he sees when he looks at me.

I want to go to a male strip club and have a private dance. And tell him where I am going and what I am doing. And tell him that I will be using money from the joint account to pay for it. Then he can sit at home knowing what I am doing.

It was three years ago. You need to let it go. If my DH got a lap dance I’d think he was a dirty perv but it wouldn’t be bothering me years, months, weeks or even days later. And he doesn’t deserve to be punished because you have a mental health disorder and feel inadequate.

Do you realise that getting a lap dance on a stag do is more of a joke than a sexual act?

The most concerning part of your post is your reaction to the lap dance. It’s probably something you need to address with therapy.

You need help (therapy/counselling) to make you whole

You are eaten up with anger and vitriol about your body

And yet......your body is only a part of who you are. Get help.

I would call time immediately on any man that did this, I would never recover from it either. The loss of trust and my respect for him would be in tatters. I would feel betrayed and angry.

It is your job to look after your self esteem and well being, so getting help with your body image and counselling op. You deserve to feel much happier and more confident in your beautiful self.

Haha! I can tell you haven’t been to a strip club. I know plenty of people who’ve had completely naked women on top of them, making plenty of contact. It’s naive to think that doesn’t happen.

Men get lap dances because they want an erection… the men I know who have had them (I’ve been in plenty of strip clubs away on work trips with men), all got hard. Sorry but that’s the truth.

After the strip club I’d say 50% went on to cheat, 25% go for a prostitute. But you keep telling yourselves your DH had an ‘innocent’ dance. It’s really a gateway. The men that got them were generally awful.

He’s never had one or even been to a strip club. Thinks it’s a waste of money 😂

In the nicest possible way you must move on.

Sorry but I totally disagree with this. OP either moves on or leaves. If you decide to stay, you make the effort to get over it. Not hold it over the other person at every point possible (in front of 13 yo too?!).

Most lap dancers don't have bodies "like that". It's not like how it's portrayed in the films. Some are overweight, some have stretch marks, spots, not that attractive etc. it's dark and the customers are drunk.

In the nicest possible way, you need to let this go, or leave. Dragging your poor son into this is not right. If having a lap dance crossed your agreed boundaries that is not okay, but to hold this against him years later without seemingly having discussed it isn’t healthy for any of you.

I wouldn’t want to be with someone who commoditized women in this way, but the time to make that decision was 3 years ago. In the nicest possible way, it must be hard work to live with someone who is still bemoaning the same issue (albeit a very serious one) after all this time. I think you either need to move on (with therapy perhaps?) or kick DH to the kerb. And I feel terribly sorry for your son - it almost sounds as though you want him to challenge your husband over the sordid details, but either way, it’s totally inappropriate.

On the plus side, DH has probably learnt his lesson and wouldn’t do it again!

It's so toxic to stay with someone you can't forgive.
What he did was shit but what you are doing now is also shit.. most of all for your son who is growing up watching a relationship festering with resentment.

I've actually visited strip clubs twice in my early twenties as I was in a group and that's where they went... I was just curious about what went on there I guess.
Petty boring. I spent most of the night talking to a girl about how she was funding her degree.
Drinks were extortionate.
The girls were not all traditional attractive or looking like models. I was surprised to see how 'normal' they all looked tbh. And there was a variety of body shapes.
I'd never in a million years go in a strip club now days... but I can see how if everyone was going on a stag night, you might end up going.

Unless it's something someone does regularly I wouldn't think too much about someone doing it once.

Hurting your husband won't make you feel better. Constantly trying to make him feel shit about it years after it's happened is not going to make you feel better about your body.
Him visiting a strip club is not why you feel uncomfortable about your own body.

I think you should break up with him and get counselling to work on your self esteem and self image.
This whole situation is very toxic.

This might be controversial but I think you need to properly explode at him. You’re carrying so much pent up anger, it’s not good for you mentally or physically! Is blowing up at him the right thing to do? No. But it will make him see how you’re feeling and hopefully make you feel a bit better.

It's not clear to me from your original post whether your husband is aware that you know about this.
I'm also not certain why you can't argue about because the argument would be so severe. Are you frightened by your anger or his?

It's been three years. You need to get some counselling or break up, to be blunt.

I beat myself up most weeks that I don't look like the lap dancer (body wise) and I never will - this isn't why people go to strip clubs, the same way I don't look at a famous man who I think is fit and wish DH looked like him

My DS is 16 and occasionally mentions strippers in a jokey way, I mutter ''ask your father about that as he likes that sort of thing'', DS never hears me and isn't meant to. If he did hear he wouldn't know what I was referring to. - well it's quite obvious from the statement what you mean. Don't drag your child into this, it's unfair on him

He refuses to talk about it and any mention of it from me goes into a totally huge row between us. what do you want him to say? I don't mean this rhetorically, I mean it literally: what could he say to you now that would fix this? Because if there isn't anything (and by the strength of your reaction, I can't imagine what he could say that would make it magically go away for you) then I'm not sure what bringing it up repeatedly will do. He did something, and you have the choice how to respond, but you can't undo it - simmering in your own anger and holding it over him forever is unhealthy for both of you and, apparently, your child.

I don't want to leave DH. Why? When you're furious at him all the time?

I do want him to know how much his actions have totally destroyed the tiny ounce of anything I liked about my body (I have body dysmorphia). Would that help you, for him to know that? Again, not a rhetorical question.

But we don't speak of it and never will. The argument would be severe, on both parts and we would never resolve anything. Horrendous communication here. If you can't have a discussion about something important to your marriage then there are bigger problems than a lap dance.

I'm not excusing him: if this was a hard boundary for you and he crossed that, then you have every right in the world to be furious and hurt and feel betrayed. But three years later to still be this angry you're only punishing yourself, not him. So you either need to find a way to let it go - by thinking about the things I said above, like why you want to stay with him and whether you can move forward without anger through counselling etc - or you need to end your relationship because you're going round in circles in your own head and apparently you two can't communicate, and that's unhealthy and miserable for you.

Your H used family money to pay for a sex worker to get him hard (& probably jizz in his pants) of course you're angry about that.

He cheated on you.

And the only way he could get a woman to rub herself against him was if he paid her. He's not even attractive or charming enough to be able to cheat without money changing hands; what a loser.

I guarantee loads of men would happily let you rub up against them until they came for free. So you should be looking at him with disgust, not yourself.

But that's not the point here. The point is he crossed a boundary in your relationship and isn't acknowledging the pain it's still causing you; have you considered marriage counselling, so you can explain this to him in a safe space?

Or just LTB.

Sorry this happened. Sounds like you haven't been able to process what's happened and your existing mental health issues are entwining with this, not helped if he's shutting down conversation of it.

Just to be very clear though, accepting a lap dance does not mean he desires a different body type to yours or that it is an implication of attraction to someone else.

I do wonder if some therapy for you or couples therapy would be helpful for moving through these feelings. If you don't want to break up you will have to find a way to forgive him rather than hold onto the resentment (and saying comments in front of your child isn't fair)

Maybe you could consider writing him a letter about how much it's hurt you if you really feel you can't discuss it with him? And then see how he reacts from there and whether he can support you.

Not mine to resolve. Was answering the question about OP being "hung up" on her body.

Family money 😂 Everyone still gets their personal “spends” 😂

My DS is 16 and occasionally mentions strippers in a jokey way, I mutter ''ask your father about that as he likes that sort of thing'', DS never hears me and isn't meant to. If he did hear he wouldn't know what I was referring to

This is really not ok.

One day you're going to drag your child into this, and don't kid yourself that they haven't already worked out that you're miserable with dh.

Either leave him, or get therapy and get past it because this is no way to live.

Maybe all the lads were having one and he didn't really want to look like a big woose so he got one too.

Doesn't mean he found her attractive. He may have felt she had no chest or could see her bones or legs like sticks. Who knows.

The problem is the betrayal of trust and your body issues. I'd suggest counselling with appropriate therapists for both.

You can't keep going the way you have been because you're stuck in a loop and nobody's happy. Poor child in the middle.

If he went on a normal Saturday night out that would be a huge deal breaker. Unfortunately there is almost an expectation to visit this type of establishment on a lot of stag dos. Has he ever apologised or said anything along the lines that he didn't feel comfortable etc but the other guys were all doing it? Has he said anything at all to indicate he cares for you more than anything and it was meaningless, and to reassure you? If not then that is more of an issue than the lap dance itself. Also remember the girl dancing would not care an ounce for your husband, she was probably thinking in her head 'when does my shift end so I can get home' like any other job.

This is an irrational obsession Op and it's eating you up and could really impact your son. I would suggest counselling. In the short term I think you need to remember this

The girls were not all traditional attractive or looking like models. I was surprised to see how 'normal' they all looked tbh. And there was a variety of body shapes.

Strippers* *are just normal women. Some carry extra weight, some might have fake boobs, some might be completely natural, some might be conventionally attractive but many are more niche. The idea that your DH only finds the body of one imaginary stripper attractive is a bit ridiculous. As an aside, I do find it odd that no one thinks twice about a group of women on a hen do hiring a male stripper. Hell it was even a joke on prime time Christmas day TV (Gavin and Stacey). But on MN a man is considered to have cheated because he looked at a scantily clad woman.

Yes he did something wrong but your continued obsession with it and your obsession with your body are very unhealthy.
I personally would have moved on from the lapdance by now. OK, others wouldn't have. If this is a deal breaker then end your marriage. Obsessing about it every day and muttering in front of your son is just awful. Sorry if I've missed it but are you getting treatment for your body dysmorphia? You can't let the whole family suffer because of your mental illness. I'm 50, my body is the body of a 50 year old but I accept it and love it. You need help to deal with your very negative feelings.

I do want him to know how much his actions have totally destroyed the tiny ounce of anything I liked about my body (I have body dysmorphia).

This isn't fair. Feel how you feel about the lap dance by all means, but you can't put this on him. This is all you and you need support with your body dysmorphia.