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?

We see examples on here every day

Nope, just “I don’t know why” (sad face)

I also don’t think most women (or some men but of course it’s impossible for me to know 100%). If male brothels for straight women we’re a thing and nobody would ever find out I’d been to it I still wouldn’t want to go, because the idea of paid for sex is super gross and unappealing to me. Same with porn tbh. So I don’t think it’s the case that people who do these things are doing what others would do if they thought they could get away with it, I think there are loads of decent people - probably mostly women! - who find it inherently gross and wouldn’t go near it with a barge pole.

sorry you’ve been something so upsetting OP. You deserved so much better.

Cheating even among women is higher than you think. What you don't get with women, is the prostitutes, escorts etc, but they do cheat a lot. They just don't get caught as much.

You get these stories about men raising kids, who aren't theirs after they wives cheated.

I always used to think it was pretty much only men, but as part of my work, I've realised that's not the case.

There's a subforum on reddit, specifically for infidelity and it has men and women in equal measures. They generally give reasons/make excuses for why they don't want to leave their marriages...usually finances and kids....

I think men just get caught out more in affairs... and because of ego, even when women are unfaithful, a lot of men won't tell anyone, because they take it very personally and feel emasculated.

i think many more men than women live such rigidly compartmentalised lives they don’t even think they’re doing anything wrong by cheating.

To a lot of men, the self that uses sex workers is almost literally not the same person as the self who kisses their kids goodnight. Which is why they are so bloody good at escaping detection. They genuinely don’t feel they’re doing anything to be ashamed of. One part doesn’t really fully know about the other.

They are constitutionally unable to conceive of themselves as anything other than good decent honest people who always do the right thing. It’s a form of very deep dissociation. But the destructive rage inevitably comes out when they’re discovered. It’s not just anger that they got caught, it’s fury that anyone dares challenge their self image, or introduce their separate parts to one another.

I think in general women have a more pervasive and coherent sense of self that persists across situations and environments and can tolerate nuance and contradiction.

They’re on the whole more able to recognise their own fallibility, rather than completely separating the greedy, selfish, aggressive parts of themselves off from the wholesome and conscientious parts.

I think women who are able to compartmentalise like this and completely dissociate from their darker sides are much more likely to be considered severely mentally ill (with personality disorders, or DID) while this pattern is generally accepted - if not celebrated! - as a normal part of the male psyche.

It's not all men, but it's most.

I’m so sorry @Beguiledbeehive. What an absolutely awful shock. I’m just curious to know how you found out, as it sounds as though he was very successful at keeping his behaviour hidden for a long time. It’s much more worrying that he didn’t show any signs because that suggests someone without a conscience or at least very good at compartmentalising. Also someone exceptionally organised and with a good memory. A lot of people give away telltale signs because they are struggling with guilt or fear or simply the stress of the logistics of leading a double life.

IMO men are becoming increasingly desensitised. Porn, lack of empathy and incel culture on SM and IRL are all driving it. Women no longer want to have kids with men as much as men want to have kids.

I seriously think in a decade or two the number of women using donors will double as more women opt to do it alone or with female friends. Living with a man is unpredictable and dangerous.

Firstly, I’m really sorry for what you went through, it must have been so distressing to discover the truth about your H after so long with him.

My DM found out 10 years ago that my F had definitely not been the man she’d believed him to be. (He was long dead by then.) She found out from my DSis and me that he’d sexually abused us whilst we were growing up. (The memories had been repressed until we had young DC.) Like you, she’s definitely not stupid! She’s never forgiven herself for not protecting us.

I can say that it isn’t all men, as I do trust my DH after 22 years of marriage, and my DSis absolutely trusts her DH. (She had an abusive first marriage, though.) I have good male friends, too, but I’ve been wrong before so I would never be certain about them.

But it’s definitely not a minority of men. And decent men acknowledge this and don’t feel the need to get defensive about it.

That's nonsense. People on here have a very skewed view.

No, it's not. It's too many, that I'll grant you. But 'most' is a stretch.

I'm with you OP. I think that most men have a huge sense of entitlement leading to sexual incontinence, violence and abuse of power. Women have a much stronger sense of nurturing, duty and putting others needs first. It is probably partly biological and centuries of a patriarchal male dominant society. I am hoping that we can replace them with an AI generated alternative before too long.

Not all, but many.

My DH went on a sports trip. Of the 5 men present three had had affairs, one had an obsessive emotional affair and would have had a physical affair if he had been able to, only one admitted to not cheating.

My DH is open that his best mate ‘might be cheating’ but he hasn’t asked him. He said it ‘wouldn’t surprise me’. This was following a conversation between us about his mate’s unhappy marriage.

I’ve worked in male dominated industries and honestly, it’s many men, and often the ones you wouldn’t ever suspect.

Absolutely. In my life I've known far worse women than men.

This is an absolutely vile thing to hope for.

you can probably name them. Can you name all the awful men?

this type of relavitasition - on a thread about MALE behaviours is pathetic whataboutery.

It's extremely easy for women to get sex without paying for it, less so for men. There's also probably something to the stereotype that women generally require more of a connection to have sex than men do. This of course doesn't mean women are less likely to cheat or even have one night stands, just that they are less likely to pay for it.

How did you find out?

This. Never assume that you know everything about a person because you don’t. Socially unacceptable sexual things like going to brothels will be kept secret but yeah, a lot of men are into that.
And I always roll my eyes at people who claim their OH would never watch porn because he feels it’s exploitation. Yeah, pull the other one why don’t you.

Same here. Women can be incredibly cruel. I also hate 'not all men, but always men'. That isn't true either! TW

I was abused by a female babysitter when I was small. I hope that's ok to share here, but it makes me quite angry when people say that all men are bad and abusive and alll women are good. No.

@Beguiledbeehive I think all men are born into a world where they feel instinctively entitled to put themselves first. I think this comes out in different ways and to different extents, but all men are capable of it, yes. Of course some women can be the same or worse but generally women are more reasonable, softer, empathetic.

Depends really but within some industries, it’s probably more than half. I worked somewhere where I’d easily say over half of the men had cheated on their wives and many of the ones who hadn’t probably would if drunk and if given the opportunity. They had a work sports team that took trips abroad which involved visits to Eastern European strip clubs and even the ‘nice’ men thought this was funny and ‘lads will be lads’. Saying that, I have left that industry and now work in one where I’d say less than half of my male colleagues would cheat and many of them seem asexual.

Im now in my 60s and I do a lot of reflecting of my life over the last 40 years. Every bloke I ever had something long term with hit me. Male violence to varying degrees. I didn’t report any of them. Imagine.

It's not pathetic whataboutery. Practically every week there is another thread on here inviting people to say utterly vile things about half the population. It's all men, it's not even most men. And women can be just as terrible as men can be.

The things said about men on this site are utterly disgusting. Pure misandry.

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.

I’m so sorry, this is such a brutal thing to have land on you. But I do want to gently say this, you did have many blessings, and finding this out now doesn’t magically erase all of them.

Everything you describe was real. The care through cancer, the support, the family life, the love you felt at the time. None of that was imagined or fake just because you now know something awful alongside it. Two things can exist at once, even though it feels unbearable to hold them together.

In some ways, yes, ignorance really is bliss. If you had never found out, you would still be looking back on a good life with a loving husband, and that’s because, in many ways, it genuinely was a good life. Knowing the truth doesn’t rewrite the past, it just changes how it feels now.

I also think there’s an uncomfortable truth people don’t like to talk about. Many men are frighteningly good at compartmentalising. Sex can be a purely physical, separate thing for them, completely walled off from their love, loyalty and family life. That doesn’t make it acceptable or painless, but it does explain how someone can be both a devoted husband and father and still behave appallingly on the side.

None of this means you’re stupid, naive or a pushover. It means you trusted the man you were married to, who gave you every reason to trust him. What’s been taken from you is your peace of mind, not the reality of the life you lived. That life still mattered, and it still counts.