I know it’s not all men, but…

[Beguiledbeehive]

…is it all men?

My husband of 20 years has inspired this bitter outlook on life. I discovered he’s been a liar and a cheat since before we were married. Visiting brothels since his teens, cheating, sexting, extreme porn use, lying all that time. Married me, we had kids, we had what I believed and looked from the outside an ideal life.

I had no idea, literally none. And I am not a stupid person, I am not a pushover. I counted my blessings every day. Life was good… so I thought.

He showed himself to be a supportive loving husband and dad at every turn and I never suspected a thing. He nursed me through cancer, prayed for my recovery, he gave support to his family and mine through many difficult times. He was the friend you wanted on your side as he’d do anything to help.

Anyone who knows him thought he was loyal, reliable, would do anything for his family. Honestly he’s the last person you’d expect. He’s had us all fooled.

Which is what’s got me thinking, if he’s capable, is anyone? There are so many women on here who find out these awful things about their partners, who’d never expect it.
We all have friends, know people, learn about people who you think you know who shock you with their secret behaviour. And they’re only the ones we find out about. How many just never get caught?

I realise I’m scorned and bitter, but if I’d read this post a year ago I’d have thought “No, not my husband, never.” But here we are.

How do you ever trust again? I don’t think I could. I don’t think I want to. I had a boyfriend as a teen into early 20s who cheated but I thought that was young age behaviour. I was married to this man for over 20 years and it turns out I never really knew him. Everything we had was not enough. Why are (some?) men like this? And is it actually all of them? You think you know someone, but do you really?

I think it’s 99% of them and the rest are asexual, gay or in a monastery. So sorry you’ve had such a shock.

You will never know what is going on in someone else’s head … you will only know what they choose to tell you .
That’s why so many people are blindsided when this happens … as they truly believed they ‘knew’ their husbands mind. When in reality they only really knew what they wanted to believe .

The next step is - how many people who want to cheat etc … but choose whether to go through with it or not . It is always a choice - no one is forced to do it . I’d guess most people would have their cake and eat it if they thought they could get away with it .

No it's not all men and there would have been signs and even if he cheats and lies a person can have good periods or good points, nobody is totally shit to everyone everywhere at all times.
I wish you good health in 2026. Focus on yourself x

Sadly, now I'm old with 2 divorces behind me I can say that yes it is most men. If they're not cheating they're being abusive.

Leaving aside this shitty man for a minute, please get a health check for your own peace of mind.

@Fidgety31 I’d guess most people would have their cake and eat it if they thought they could get away with it

See I wouldn’t, I haven’t and I wouldn’t. Because I’ve got morals. I’m not saying you haven’t Fidgety, but my stance on it is that I just wouldn’t behave like that for myself as well as anyone else. And I haven’t. It wouldn’t be about getting caught, it would just be about knowing what’s the right/wrong thing to do. Thanks for your reply and input though.

Were there any signs at all OP? I think I actually agree with you that we have no idea at all what goes through their mind, or motivates them - they are very different from us and many show themselves to be morally corrupt but like to think of themselves as upstanding family men!!

Not true

No it’s not all men it’s a minority of men just like a minority of women behave badly too..
on MN it’s all men though

OP, I don't know if you meant to, but your post sounds as though you are blaming yourself for not seeing. None of what he did is your fault. You are not at fault for seeing the best in him, he was only showing you one side of himself. You are not psychic. You were not 'expected to know'.

Someone who is behaving badly is often, of necessity, very secretive and very polarised in their behaviour. You got one man, he went off and was someone else when away from you. It is not your fault.

@Beguiledbeehive my “D”P is the same. I did see signs over the years but i turned a blind eye… 3 kids, no job, not married and quite a good life and a good dad/partner 99% of the time.
kids have grown now (youngest is 13), i have a good career now and two months ago we started couple therapy. Do i believe he is going to fundamentally change? No. Am i still in love with him? Im not sure i am. Am i going to stay with him? Probably, as almost every other aspect of life is good so it feels a real shame to end it here. Ending it would mean throwing away all my dreams of a stable family home.
If i look at my friends’s husbands: two drink, one has lost his job, is depressed and completely useless at home (i do feel sorry for him but feel very sorry for friend too), one is borderline abusive, one is keeping his wife in a golden cage and it is making her depressed, three have split up from cheating husbands and although they are managing and have some fun single nights, it doesnt make me envious of their situation. I do not believe i will find a “better” deal out there.., it is sad and makes me feel awful.

also sex - how do i have sex with someone who have used sex workers? Do i have to pretend and therefore become some kind of sex worker myself?

How do i have sex with someone i dont lust for, someone i stay with because it is convenient…
not sure whether i’ll manage…. Can i trust again? Or maybe i need to trust differently?
ive bought myself two books: one from esther perel and one from deborah levy. They have been sitting in my office for a couple of years now untouched. I am scared to read them and about what i could find out. But i need to redefine my understanding of what is a relationship. It is my intention to read these books now if i want to get my head around my relationship with “D”P…

Wow Op, I could have written this post myself a few years back. Husband of 20 years cheated throughout. 10 women that I know of. Not sex workers though (to my knowledge). I had no idea either. Someone had to tell me. I tried to make it work for the kids, but it was obvious he wasn't going to change, so I left.

I met my now DH just 8 weeks later. There was no way I was going to let my first H ruin me for life. I found it incredibly hard to trust DH. I secretly checked his phone for the first few years. Poor sod. Honestly, we are now 17 years in, and in all that time he has never given me any reason not to trust him. He is categorically nothing like my first H. So, I would urge you not to let your H take any more of you than he already has. There is a new life out there for you. My DH is the loveliest man, and we are planning an epic retirement. You've got this.

I’m really sorry you went through this, OP. I can understand that trusting must feel like an impossibility.

Maybe one day I’ll be proved wrong, but I don’t believe there can be no red flags – whether people see them or interpret them correctly or not. That’s not to say I think blindsided women are at fault, but we do all see things through different lenses.

Whenever I’ve learned of this behaviour from someone I’ve either not been totally surprised or I didn’t know them very well in the first place.

I’m really sorry this happened to you.

I don’t think all men behave like this, but I do think most of us tend to underestimate how much men are motivated by sex.

So sorry this happened to you. The level of entitlement in men like this astounds me. They want their cake (wife and family life) and to eat it too (to sleep around like a single man.)

Honestly no red flags, no signs, nothing I can look back at now and think “I should’ve known.” He wasn’t ’that type of person’ although I suppose people say that of serial killers and paedophiles! But also no, nothing where I think there were signs. He was always happy to leave his phone and devices unlocked and accessible to all the family, he didn’t come home smelling of perfume or got caught saying he was somewhere he wasn’t.

The times he was cheating I wouldn’t have known or guessed. He would stay away with work and I think a lot of the time he was doing just that, but turns out sometimes he had sex workers in his hotel room. He’d speak to me over the phone before or after.
He’d say he was working late, which he often would and lots of people do, but then he’d be visiting brothels and come home by 9-10pm as though nothing had happened. He’d be chatting to hookups over text during the working day, planning to meet them after work, only to then return home at 6pm to eat dinner as a family.
He’d be sat downstairs in an evening working or watching a different TV show to what I was watching upstairs and he’d be talking to sex workers online, talking to women on OF, masturbating to Instagram or Twitter. I had no reason to suspect he was doing that and he wouldn’t come to bed abnormally late.
His searches were all private, hidden or deleted, not that I ever checked anyway, but seems I wouldn’t have found anything even if I had checked.

Those aren’t red flags or signs in my book and I’d have felt paranoid and unreasonable if I’d ever expected them of being.

So, what are you going to do? You deserve so much more than this.

I’m so sorry you’ve been through this. The sense of betrayal must be immense, and with it your sense of confidence in your judgment of people. I’ve been there and can empathise. It took me a long time to learn to trust again and it’s a different kind of trust now - one where there’s a plan in place to ensure I am protected in the event of being let down again as I’ve learned no one (myself included) is 100% trustworthy - it’s the human condition, sadly. It’s just that when men do it the fallout seems to be so much more catastrophic due to the patriarchal nature of our society.

It’s not all men, but it is a much bigger minority than many want to admit, supported by an even bigger proportion of men who wouldn’t necessarily behave that way themselves but never think to question it among their peers. Even among the good men there is a depressing tendency to benefit unthinkingly from male privilege, seen in, for example, failing to carry out their fair share of the mental load while at the same time congratulating themselves on how amazing they are for doing the school run (which their partners told them to do, packed the school lunch for and checked whether it was PE day).

I am now remarried to good man. Without any bidding from me he’s dropped a friend who went to a strip club on a night out (the group split into two - one group went, one didn’t) and I’ve seen him challenge a man speaking abusively to a woman in a pub. He cooks more than me and doesn’t require a full set of instructions for basic household management tasks (he lived alone for a while). He’s certainly not perfect (neither am I) but I find it interesting that his faults tend to stem around male privilege that he doesn’t even notice rather than being fundamental personality flaws. It shows how entrenched this stuff is. My flaws are more personality based…

Women aren’t perfect and also cause pain to partners. But they simply don’t assault their partners in the same numbers or use prostitutes in the same numbers, or walk away from children they’ve created in the same numbers. They simply don’t cause harm at anywhere near the same levels.

Most divorces are instigated by women not because they’re inherently difficult to please but because of these kinds of behaviours and often years of begging for change which fell on deaf ears. A lot of single men are single for a damn good reason.

So no, it’s not all men but you can be forgiven for feeling like the task of finding a genuinely good one is so difficult you wonder if it’s really worth the bother.

Right now you are suffering a huge betrayal, with all the hurt, grief, anger and bewilderment that go with it. You are entitled to spend some time railing against the other unfairness of it all. It’s an important part of healing. 💐

How did you actually find out about it all OP if he was so good at hiding it? Apologies to pry, you ofc don’t need to answer

Too many people (including a lot of men) push the idea that “all men cheat”.

Cheating is abhorrent and that’s an awful shock and I’m so sorry.

I think I could live with the porn, I have female friends who are open about their use of porn and sex toy use. It’s not extreme (as far as I know).

I also have a female friend who uses a sex hook up site and that was a bit of a shock, they’re very strait laced and I’ve had trouble looking at them in the same way to be honest. I think a lot of people use these sites, more than we know. The site she uses is very well to do, well educated men that you would think would be too busy (and happily married) to be engaging in this sort of behaviour. She is very attractive with a good job, I just don’t get it. The thrill perhaps.
I don’t think I’d date again if anything happened to DH as you simply just never know for sure, I’m naturally suspicious any way so I don’t think I could handle it.

I work with men, a more male dominated office environment and I’ve seen things I probably shouldn’t have and thought ewww and lots of inward eye rolling. Men are generally disgusting, disappointing and a bit pervy. There are good ones out there of course.

It's not all men, but having worked in heavily male dominated jobs my whole working life (as in being one women in 300 plus men at one stage) it's a hell of a lot of them. As in the majority unfortunately if they can get away with (or think they can get away with) the behaviour.

Im sorry it this has happened to you, if there were no red flags hiw did you find out?

If he's otherwise great does it really matter? Your call ofc.

One thing I know is that you never ever know anyone's private mind. All you ever know is what they choose to show you, which if you're lucky will be an accurate reflection of what's going on inside. But there's no way of knowing for sure.
This applies also to women, but where men are concerned, they are more likely to act on the hidden stuff. They are more likely to feel entitled, to take risks and to put themselves first.
All we can ever do is keep our fingers crossed our own partner isn't concealing anything too harmful, and that if he is he will moderate his behaviour from decency, lack of opportunity, or fear of losing us. And have a back up plan in case he doesn't.