AIBU for being upset over a 3 year lie by omission

[SheNeedsSleep]

Just to premise I do feel I am at fault for being as upset as I am but I really am not sure if the hurt I feel is reasonable or I am just an insecure wreck.

I married DH at the start of 2020 and we have a son 13m together. Recently since returning to work I have been struggling being away from my son and returning to a demanding role and taking on others emotional burdens, which comes as standard in my line of work. This I feel has led to me having minimal sleep and horrific nightmares that feel so real and are often relating to loss, death and infidelity (this is not something I find myself ever really thinking about consciously).

The reason I mention the dreams is I had a dream I found a ton of photos of my husband and a stripper, which felt so real as in the dream I was upset and went to bed so when I woke up for a moment i thought it was real. This was odd to me as when we married he went to a stag trip skiing abroad and I went to a cheesy club in Brighton, nothing seedy and no strippers. I mentioned this to be husband and we laughed about how silly it was. He then made a comment later in the day saying he never said to me he did or didn't have a stripper at his stag do. This confused me as at the time I asked what they got up to and he told me drinking and skiing. When pushed he admitted to going to a strip club and having a private dance.

I feel really bothered that he never told me. Is it normal for husbands to hide this to avoid upsetting their wives? I ask as all my married friends told their partners if they had strippers and were open. Also, every one of them had strippers in group settings, none had a private dance which is also messing with my head.

I am hoping I'm just over reacting but I can't shake this feeling that I should be upset and this is a red flag. He has apologised and promised he didnt enjoy it and he's not hiding anything else.

For context he has lied by omission a few times but nothing serious, I'm not sure he considers it lying.

And this is why he didn't tell. And this is why he should have kept it shut.

I dunno how a stripper can be such a surprise with a stag-do.
It's fine to have no stags/hens (and that's how I would and did go about it).
Otherwise, it's like buying a ticket to the ballet and being shocked that men in tights were seen.

The relationship being otherwise good, there is no way I'd ruminate about a strip dance that happened years ago.

OP, would you have not married him if he were to come clean straight after the stag?

It's sleezy and gross and degrading for all involved but I get why he didn't tell you, and as long as it doesn't happen again I don't think it's something to end your marriage over.

If he was pushed into it by dickhead friends I can believe that he may not have enjoyed it. Men can be horrible to their friends. A male colleague cake back from his stage last week covered in bruises from paintballing - his friends and brothers massacred him. He's a lovely guy, but said he'll get them back at theirs.

If you trust him not to go to strip clubs/prostitutes then I think you should try to put it behind you.

I think you sound burnt out and fraught anyway. This latest story is a bridge too far. Do you have an employee assistance line in work? I think you need some extra support.

Personally I would not end my marriage over this.

Nobody can tell you what's right or wrong within your relationship. Every marriage has its own rules that you decide together. When I met DH he was a cringing flirt. I said you need to stop that - he did. I'm way more independent than him, so I've had to accept that I need to modify that. He's affectionate, I'm not. But we both know what's crosding the line.
The simple test is could you do it too? Could you go and have the equivalent of a lap dance from another man? If your DH is ok with that, then you know he didn't believe he crossed the line. If you can't, then you have a big problem.

Unless it’s the ethics of the strip club that gross you out, and you take him at his word that he didn’t pay for it himself, then I would say move on and don’t worry about it. He probably knew a strip club was likely and bashed one out to some hub based grumble in his hotel, then spent the duration of the dance thinking of Maggie Thatcher trying not to get boner!

Ok so a. Group of us went on a female hen do- and we all laughed and paid for our bride to have a private dance by a woman.
was for a laugh.. don’t think there’s anything wrong in it but depends how you view it

If you came home and your partner was having a lap dance by a neighbour would that be fine, if they paid for it would that be better?

FFS not even equivalent. What a silly question. Might as well ask if your DH came home and a neighbour were giving you a breast cancer exam, would that be ok? And what if you paid the neighbour?

Yes, I do know. Been there & done that to pay for Uni.

Yeah, I’m naive but I’ve been a stripper in a full nude club that including doing lap dances. There is nothing to be jealous of, honestly. 🤣😂 now you get two silly laughing emojis.

R*eleasetheCrackHen
"Yeah, I’m naive but I’ve been a stripper in a full nude club that including doing lap dances. There is nothing to be jealous of, honestly. 🤣😂 now you get two silly laughing emojis."
*
Aaaaaaaaaaaand mic drop 🎤 👏🏼 🤣🤣

The private dance would bother me in that I think it's gross, but not because I think it's being unfaithful and I certainly wouldn't question an otherwise good marriage over it.

Gently, the awful nightmares that you're having sound like you might benefit from speaking to someone. At the risk of sounding like a couch psychologist I had very similar, crippling nightmares which began to tip into conscious thoughts during they day. I was eventually diagnosed with post-natal depression and wouldn't wish those feelings on anyone so, if you feel like it may help, consider making an appointment with your GP or HV

I went through a horrible stressful time in my life where I kept having the same horrible nightmare over and over again. I reduced the stress in my life and the nightmares went away.

There is no way I would end a marriage for a lap dance 3 years ago on a stag night which he has now told you about. I mean if it had been a night of total drunken debauchery - and I have heard many worse tales of what went on on stag nights than this - he would never even have mentioned it.

Lots of mumsnetters are outraged about things like this. Judging by the prevalence of these establishments, I can guarantee that many of the posters saying that they would never feel the same about their husbands simply don't know what their husbands have got up to. And, in reality, most of them would not even contemplate leaving their husbands despite their brave words to other women about it.

The stress that you are feeling now would be much worse if you were a sole parent. I have a responsible professional role and my husband spent a not inconsiderable time abroad for work when our children were very small so I was like a sole parent for weeks at a time and it was pretty grim. (He did shout me a trip to a far flung destination as a thank you for those times.) I think you just need to put the whole incident behind you and move on.

A 'red flag' is a warning. The private dance secrecy has gone further than that. So what is it? A red sheet? A red line?

The line has been crossed.

He's a good husband, he has not told me things before to I think protect my feelings.

Now, that's a red flag.

Can you trust him? No, of course not. He lies; he lies by omission.

many of the posters saying that they would never feel the same about their husbands simply don't know what their husbands have got up to

I agree. But I'm not optimistic about relationships where men ignore their partners' boundaries. You don't have to explicitly to state 'You mustn't have private dances from strippers' - that should be taken as read.

A beating in the back alley if you touch the dancers?

Thank you all. We did talk it through. I believe he didn't pay for it, he found it embarrassing and explained the extend of the dance which wasnt quite as graphic as i feared. He is quite a shy person and I don't think having spoken to him i need to worry. He also thought I had a stripper or butler in the buff but didn't tell him so he felt guilty. Most his friends are married so it's unlikely he's going to another stag and he said he'd happily skip any stag dos if I was worried which I'm not sure I am now.

To clarify he has in the past not mentioned things that would have upset me e.g. an ex tried to get into contact and he turned her away nearer the start if our relationship. He's not big on hiding things so at the time I saw the text and he then explained.

I also failed to mention im currently undergoing diagnostic tests to rule out the big C so I do think I put a lot of fear onto this issue to focus on something.

I am happy with the outcome and if the tests come back negative it may motivate me to learn to try and give a lap dance. If I can't erase that he had one perhaps I can be the best on eh?🤭

Thank you all for your insight and support x

A dry hump is often exactly what it is even in the UK. They can’t touch the dancers but they can touch them.
European ‘strip clubs’ are often a front for brothels and the rules are very different. Don’t know specifically about Austria.

Well I never “humped” a customer when I danced. There’s not that kind of action going on.

Even if we did “hump” the customers in a one sided sort of way, it’s still not a dry hump as it is missing key elements:

• mutual touching and kissing
• fingering/hand job
• orgasm for (hopefully) both of you h while still dressed- his more messy of course

It was a typical stag do where the grooms men had paid a dancer to do a lap dance for the stag. I feel honestly like many posters are building Everest out of a molehill. I’m fine with it bothering some women, but there’s no need to make it out as something much more intimate and significant than it is or to imply he was in a brothel.

For me a dry hump doesn’t have to include those elements I’m not sure why you think everyone who has a bit of a dry hump has an orgasm? I understand why you feel defensive of your profession but I’m sure as someone who has worked in the industry you know that in different places and especially Europe the standards are different and it’s no exaggeration to say that they are brothels (sex from sex works on the premises). Maybe Austria is different or this place was a bit classier but you know it goes on very prolifically.

Definitions for you do seem a bit different from the common definition of things. Did ya miss the (hopefully) in my sentence in regards to dry hump orgasms?

Being factual about my past experience isn’t being defensive.

I know some clubs are both a strip clubs and brothels. However, you are literally speculating and exaggerating by implying that the OP’s stag do took him to not just a strip club. Classiness of the joint has nothing to do with it btw.

Dry hump definition according to Google- To simulate sexual intercourse without the genitalia directly touching, i.e. while wearing clothes, or by rubbing the genitals against something else.

No fingering, orgasms or snogging involved

Hmm, my experience and the definition you posted says otherwise.

To simulate sexual intercourse without the genitalia directly touching, i.e. while wearing clothes, or by rubbing the genitals against something else.

something else= can be fingers, hands. It just cannot be genitals.
usually snogging is involved, and dry humping is always mutual.

So the fact a lap dance isn’t mutual touching and does not simulate intercourse means it’s by definition not dry jumping as I have repeatedly told you.

And I also let you know that there isn’t even any one sided “humping” of a dancer on the man she is performing a lap dance for. It’s all about the look but don’t touch titillation.

Lap dances are not dry humps.

This made no sense whatsoever.

Yes well it requires a bit of real world experience to make sense.

It wouldn’t be a marriage breaker for me as it’s probably down to peer pressure rather than anything else, but I’d still massively hit the roof and be furious for a long time. My issue would be the way he couldn’t say no, and the commodification of women’s bodies, especially with the trafficking element. I’d be finding a few documentaries on the subject and making him watch them.

So rather than wonder about whether you’re in the right feeling uncomfortable be honest about how shitty his behaviour was and how it’s made you feel. Make him never want to do it again.

It’s funny how you don’t feel you have a right to being furious without validation from us mumsnetters, you feel how you feel and there’s bloody good reason for it, trust those feelings.