Strip club stag do imminent wedding

[Surreyfirsttimemum]

DH went on his stag do abroad and told me they went into a strip club, he was offered a private dance but didn’t have one and that it was so awful with dancers being a bit rubbish it was funny. We’ve been together a decade I knew when he was a teenager before we were together he had a private dance with a friend and that same friend had a private dance on his stag where my DH attended when we had been together only a couple of years. We discussed at the time and I expressed how I would call of a wedding in that instance and strongly dislike strip clubs due to specific personal reasons.
we haven’t discussed since I didn’t tell the best man about this for DH stag but I made clear to him that I did not like them and he sent me a text at the airport he loved me and our one year old son and will behave.
when I found out they went to a strip club I was distraught, he thought it was ok as he didn’t have a dance and his friends were ‘bored’ and thought it would be funny. We discussed and it became clear that in the past decade we have been together he has been twice before to strip clubs with these friends he didn’t have a private dance but went for a laugh and the women were topless at some, one was abroad. That means he has been 5 times to a strip club and four of those times we were together. I feel physically sick I mean he wasn’t denying it but why not tell me at the time previously especially when he knows I feel so strongly about it. I feel disgusted I want to just forget and move on and get married wedding is in a matter of weeks but I am so angry and feel like I really did make myself clear. I’m not the kind of fiancé that would tell the whole friendship group my views I would think he could stand up for himself but apparently he just goes along with the crowd and doesn’t care enough about me. Any advice on how I can move forward would be appreciated or another view can’t talk to others IRL as I feel it’s so personal my views and I know others do not share them.

@TheShellBeach thank you I am so aware of this someone close to me is divorcing and it is awful!

It's the lying that always sticks out for me. I left a partner years ago because he lied. It was about his drug use. It wasn't the drug use itself, it was his response and denials. No fucker lies to me in a relationship and gets forgiven. I left him that night. My partner now would not even think about paying to wank over women in a seedy club. I'm sorry he is such a literal wanker.

This is giving me flashbacks to something my boyfriend said to me. We got married. That night it became apparent he'd lied. I wish I'd left way way before but I'm divorcing him now for unrelated reasons. It's part of the whole picture though.

Stay with him if you want but don't marry him.

The brutal truth for me is this.

If you go ahead with marrying him, would you be more or less financially secure? If you were to split in future.

You have a small child. You have to think about the future.

I do really sympathise with you, especially with a one year old. But the thought in your head of all the things you want him to be sadly don’t match up to his actions and for me I wouldn’t marry the “idea” of someone when he’s not really that person.

Your reply says it all. He’s done what he did knowing it would hurt you, he still doesn’t really see the issue and he’s already said he’s going to do it again. That’s a bunting of red flags.

It’s not a case of expecting a partner to be perfect OP, God knows I’m not perfect, but if my husband tells me he is not okay with something (obviously within reason, which this is) then I absolutely wouldn’t do it because our relationship is important to me.

It’s not just about the strip club, it’s about you setting a clear boundary and him choosing not to respect that knowing it would upset you anyway.

If I was you I’d be really thinking carefully because the problem with stating a clear boundary and then forgiving when it is broken is that after that point it is no longer a clear boundary at all and any threats you make “I’ll leave you if you do this again” are completely empty and pointless. He has been forgiven for it once before and he will know that if you weren’t going to call off the wedding for it the first time you’re certainly not going to walk away from the marriage for it when he does it again, so he can do whatever he wants at that point knowing there are no consequences.

@GabriellaMontez i am the higher earner I would be ok alone

Is it a cultural thing? No one my dh knows has ever had a stag do (or as we call them in the US a bachelor party). Its so creepy and old fashioned.

You have been with him 10 years and he still thinks its ok to go go out drinking and staring at strange women gyrating naked? Is “I was bored” really a magic eraser? Its a bit like a bank robber insisting that its not a crime because he really doesn’t plan on enjoying the proceeds.

I'm fine with other half attending a strip club if for a stag, not regularly or anything and I wouldn't like a dance either.

However, you made it clear. Your partner disrespected you.

You the made it clear again, and he tells you he'll be going for his friend's stag.

If he didn't have a backbone to say no on his own stag he won't when it's his best mate's and he is the best man.

He broke your trust, again. He is dismissive of your feeling again. He put his friends and his own wants above his soon to be wife's.

It starts like this it isn't going to get any better when you're married. You have doubts, that is why you wrote this post, and I actually don't blame you. The disrespect he has shown you in sneaking around to break your non negiotable and then opening saying he is going to break it again is awful.

If you let this go it will continue forever, and I don't mean just going to a strip club. I mean disregarding your thoughts and feelings.

I wonder what would happen if the OP decided she wanted to do some lap dancing for the lads down the pub and the husband objected. Would he be told to "loosen up"? It's only a laugh after all it doesn't mean anything 🙄

I feel you should postpone and buy some time to consider whether this marriage could ever work, given he does not appear to respect you or your values.

I find it somehow worse that he was standing there laughing at those poor women, how awful, the contempt for them makes me believe he will make a terrible husband to anyone. He appear to have no respect for women at all.

Not the old, "I went to a strip club but didnt have a private dance" routine. You do know that the girls dont leave the boys alone and even if being honest he's likely to have spent more time chatting to the girls as they try to sell their wares.

I held the joint but didn’t inhale? Yeah. Right.

100% true.

It isn't just the fact that he has gone against your wishes.

It's the lying.

And it's the awful disrespect of women generally.

Good point well made @Pickledprawn

I have truly never understood the allure of those places. I can only assume it's the tease, but AFAIK you can't 'do anything about it' while you're there anyway, so what's the benefit?

I agree with the views here that he has crossed boundaries that he knew you had before and therefore he doesn’t respect those boundaries etc. And yes he knows he could /can get away with it in the big picture of things etc. I would feel the same therefore- anxious, angry, preoccupied, doubting my feelings about this, wondering whether it will cause rows in the future if and when he does it or wants to do again etc- that this has come up in the build up to a wedding… not sure what I would do- but I think perhaps one thing I would consider and propose to him is to have a few sessions of couples therapy to talk through this specific issue? He will then maybe take you and your feelings seriously and realise that it has hurt you genuinely and it will give you both an objective space to work this out before you get married- and if successful could perhaps lay foundation for better understand in future of this issue but also boundaries and respect generally… goes without saying that if he refuses this suggestion then he potentially no interest in listening to you/respecting that boundary/resolving this before your wedding…

100% the girls will leave you alone if you’re not interested. I’ve been on loads of stags which involved strip clubs, I’d say less than 50% on average have private dances. It’s easy enough just to sit and chat to the other mates who aren’t especially into it. They do nothing for me whatsoever.

What I demand is my partner doesn't view women as a commodity to consume, many of whom are trafficked into this business.

I could not be with a man that disrespected women and girls like this.

My DH went to a very risque strip club on his stag do. That was 25 years go.
I have no idea why you would care. If he's going to cheat he can do it walking to Lidl or in his lunch break.

We all have very different standards.

Different strokes for different folks and its not a matter of cheating as such. Some women have different standards and find the idea of paying to have a trafficked girls flaps wafted in her partners face quite abhorrent.

Even if you think all the men are going to chat with each other and be bored by all that female flesh the entire thing is just gross. What is it like to have so much first world/male privilege that you can treat women as sort of free bar snacks, just decorations that you can peruse or sneer at, as though they are monkeys at the zoo?

Why bother going then?

@Sookafatwan Different strokes for different folks and its not a matter of cheating as such. Some women have different standards and find the idea of paying to have a trafficked girls flaps wafted in her partners face quite abhorrent.

They aren't all trafficked. Until recently I worked with one girl in her day job. She was a local and did it for the extra money.

Exactly! What do you think the girls do when they're not doing private dances? They don't hide, they work the room making gangs of giggling schoolboys part with their cash and not taking no for an answer. Same as those shooters girls in bars.