Questing my marriage over my husband cheating on me at his stag do

[Flossiecrab]

Hi everyone,I’d like to first preface this by saying I am not here to argue or go back and fourth I’m just merely here to rant as I am very confused at the minute, my sister has been very supportive and I’ll work out how to navigate this in due course. I am in absolute shock and just need some perspective, because my head is completely spinning.

DH and I just celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. We have been together over 20 years, we met on the first day of university and have pretty much been together ever since. We have 3 wonderful children together (DC2 is 10, DC3 is 8 and DC4 is 5) By all accounts, we have a very happy, solid marriage. I love him dearly, and I have never once doubted his love for me. Until last night.

We were looking through old photo albums and looking at photos on our his old camera from around our wedding time to celebrate the anniversary. A photo came up from his stag do of a woman I didn’t recognise. When I asked who she was, DH completely froze and started acting weird he wasn’t expecting that photo.

After pressing, he admitted that his friends had hired an ‘high end escort’ for the stag do. Apparently, his mates all chipped in around £20k altogether as a "laugh" for him. I pushed further, and he finally confessed that he did sleep with her.

His justification? It was 15 years ago, it was a "one and done" thing, and he claims he doesn't even properly remember it because he was off his face on coke. He says he only knows it happened because his friends told him the next day, and that it "meant absolutely nothing."

I honestly don't even know what I'm feeling right now. I'm numb, confused, and sick to my stomach. On one hand, it was 15 years ago, we have a beautiful life and kids, and he has been a wonderful husband. On the other hand, he cheated on me right before we said our vows, used illegal drugs, and kept this massive secret instead of just telling me back then. He said he wanted to but we were always busy with something or just generally happy and he didn’t want to ruin our moments.

I accidentally posted it on a different thread will try to get that deleted.

When you unravel all of this, the issue is he took away your consent.

the drugs and whatever are nonsense, he knew exactly what he was doing and enjoyed it enough to keep her photo all these years as a reminder. He also believed it was ok behaviour to treat women this way. Both you and the escort.

He didn’t tell you then because he knew you’d cancel the wedding. He removed your consent by withholding information that was important in your decision making.

Id find it very hard to trust him, or to forgive him. This runs very deep into morals, respect, honesty, truthfulness, partnership, all the things that are deeply important to me and my relationship with my husband.

it would likely eat away at me until I made a decision to end it. I’m sorry he did this to you. You deserved so much more than who he has turned out to be.

Are any of your children down for Radley?

If it happened on one stag do, it’s happened at them all. And I should imagine at other times. It isn’t just a one-off.
If you scratched the surface you’d be horrified and yes it is an entitled culture that goes back to their school days. It’s called entitlement.
You were the nice girl he married and there are escorts for fun at events. They genuinely believe it’s just a laugh and that people are there to consume.
At least he didn’t lie, although the details are sketchy.

Everytime you look at your wedding photos or think about that day it will be forever tainted. You thought it was a beautiful day full of love and commitment. You presumably had the dress,the bridesmaids , the vows in a church. All his male friends ( sitting in the church in morning dress ,all smart and posh) knew that he'd been off his face on coke and had shagged a prostitute a few weeks before. Presumably for 20k she'd shagged a few of them too. They knew ,he knew, perhaps his father and any brothers knew and you had absolutely no flaming idea. If there have been other stags this activity will be repeated for them too. Id always wonder if he'd had a go with someone else's stag night prostitute in the years since. If he could do it before his own wedding it would be nothing to do it before someone else's.

He is a completely different person to the one you thought you married. There’s no coming back from this. You can try to get past it, but believe me it will be there eating at you every time you look at him for the rest of your life. Don’t do that to yourself.

Hi pm me

Please. No one needs to spend that much on an hour with a beautiful, willing woman. He's saying her time was that expensive to distinguish her from a street worker. She was 'high end.' In reality - well, you'll never know, will you? And all those friends of his; do you spend time with them? Have them over to dinner? It's all so distasteful

Absolutely disgusting. The £20 'kitty' and fact they 'chuck in' £5k for presents tells me he and his friends are a bunch of entitled, over-privileged wankers who probably justified the prostitute part by her being 'high end'.

He sounds like an absolute wanker, getting coked up and fucking prostitutes. Such a tired cliche.

Ewww I couldn’t do it. It’s not even the sex bit but the type of person he must be to have friends like that in the first place

I’m so sorry this has happened to you. I’m going against the grain here but I would not be throwing away my marriage if it’s truly been as happy as you say and you have 3 children over this. Definitely have counselling together to help but if he’s really sorry I would forgive him.

It’s going to be a shock.
He hasn’t given you the chance years ago to decide how you’d like to move on. He took that from you. Your whole life is a lie.

On the other hand, it happened years ago and why blow up a good marriage?

This is one of those things I think you need to talk to someone impartial about like a Councilor. You’ll need help to decide how to carry on with this.

You married for love not money.
You're not going to get past this.

I think that there is reasons perhaps why you should, but I honestly don't think that you will.

If you're in a bit of a shit marriage this tends to fall into 'yet another thing' category but I've got a nice house or I'm going to wait till kids are older etc.

(Or if you're a bit of a realist that the odd lapse of monogamy is OK, you could get past it, then again the prostitute and all boys together shit would disgust me.
A discreet one night stand that I had to do a lot of digging to find out?
Maybe I'd be OK.)

You are not: it's been good, I'm sorry I don't think that you can get past this.

The prostitute element and all boys together cheering them on, would also be a complete deal breaker for me.
Your dh falls under the definition of twat to me.

No it's done precisely because it's been happy.

Stag and hen dos are incredibly problematic when "friends" coerce the groom or bride to be into doing things that compromise their relationship. And it's horribly frequent.

He's sorry you worked it out and he had to admit it all. He's not sorry he did it

First of all I could never be with a laddy lad, they are all questionable.
His friends are vile, just think they’ve all known this.. and thought it would be a good idea to buy him that. They have zero respect for you.
And your DH did it. He actually did it. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed. You got married to someone who had fucked a prostitute just before and all his friends at the wedding will have been chuckling about it. Fucking vile pigs the lot of them

Fucking he’ll I’d be livid! What weird arse friends chip in huge money for a rent-a-whore for someone about to get married 🤯 I’m envisioning a bunch of blokes like boris Johnson and Trump 🤢🤮

Same here.
I am a bit of a realist and maybe lifetime monogamy is not realistic for men and as long as he was good in other respects etc but the manner in which this happened would put me off.

A discreet one night stand with a woman that was not being paid and a willing partner that I had to do a lot of digging to discover? I might get past that.

Lads or 'all boys together' cheering this type of behaviour on. Disgusting.
I'd screw the twat for everything he had and let it be known far and wide.

It’s the easiest thing in there world for people to be sat outraged furiously replying
you've 15 years of history kids and emotions
I can totally see why trying to get past this is an option
I’d be reluctant in asking advice from others and start away from this thread as this is about you and how you feel it’s not them blowing there life apart

The sad thing is if OP leaves him he'll just move on with another woman and she'll be left to look after the children and live a much diminished life.
The children will have to suffer the misery of a divorce and a broken home. OP will run the race of trying to find someone who will tolerate her three children.
Ive been there, DS says the divorce ruined his life and is angry with me even though his father was abusive to both of us.
Divorce brings so much misery to everyone.
But OPs husband cannot get away with this scot free and get away with it.
In another time Id have recommended castration but this is the real world so Id give some stringent counselling a go and he will have to completely commit to it before you make any final decisions.

This nails it.
This likely wasn't a one-off at all. This type think they can do what they like because money talks and their boorish, misogynist behaviour is well known.
And the OP must surely know that having been around them for so long.

So the question is, is the money worth it? Because why else would you stay.

Nobody's trying to blow anybody's life apart.

It's doomed "because it's a case of love's young dream and they've been happy.
The dream is tainted now, there's no going back.
This is not a couple of cynical people accepting yet another thing to keep a good lifestyle.

Everyone on here will tell you to leave him. It was a really shitty thing. How has he reacted now that you know? That is the big tell and what you have to react to. I would be careful about leaving because of this when it was so long ago and if there is no indication he has done it again

This is horrific. Period. However, you do have a family together and a lot of history so I would also be seeking counselling. People refer to separation so casually on here. As if you don’t have children who you need to think of first

There is absolutely no way in hell to explain that!

It is worth about £30k in todays money.
Doing a quick google search escorts today, cost £1-2k for an entire night...
What in the hell was this man getting for that money, not just an escort that's for sure!

I think its pretty clear anyone who thinks that is acceptable probably has a history and pattern.