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.

Don’t believe this one bit, but if I did … what.the.fuck.

Its a ‘tradition’ or whatever between the boarding school boys and she contributed to one- basically paying towards her own husbands prostitute in the long run 😂 absolutely no way is anyone this passive and I’ve seen a lot on here over the years!

He was off his face on coke would be a dealbreaker for me

I think you both need to go to marriage counselling to talk it through properly. If he refuses, that says more to me about how he values you and your relationship over 15 years than the escort - you're supposed to be a team and you need to work through this together, not you carrying this alone

Your comment is rude. OP had just found this out hours ago and is trying to process a massive lie and weighing up her children, how she thought her life would look with her new reality. Commenting on her financial life is weird and uncalled for.

He didn't make a fool out of OP. He made a fool out of himself!

Reason why Clap Clinics are overrun.

Sorry you are going through this OP.
My sympathies.

You shouldn’t have posted this on here.

You must’ve known you would just get the majority of the people saying things like dump the prick.
This is something that you’ve got to work out on your own and with your husband. Throwing away a successful happy marriage and family Home for three young children is a massive thing.
With the right communication and support you can both get through this. It is not the end of the world.

So basically your life since you got married has been a lie

A lot of people on the thread are very quick to wipe out 15 years of an otherwise happy relationship. Yes, it’s a huge thing to find out and no, it’s not okay. He needs to acknowledge how serious it is and why you can’t just ignore it. But if it were me, I would want him to have a chance to rebuild the trust and the relationship. I’d be moving into another bedroom, signing him up for counselling, and later for couples counselling, and I’d give him a timescale by which he has to demonstrate his commitment to rebuilding.

The prolonged deceit makes a very bad thing so much worse. It must be beyond overwhelming. Consider talking to a licensed therapist who may encountered situations like this before. A good therapist won’t tell you what to do, but should offer guidance on getting through the hardest part of it.

The mind boggles at what one would have done for that amount of money then! And the guy apparently says he can't even remember having sex with her!

You’d been together over 7 years when this happened. Him and his mates sound like absolute scum. They all knew at the wedding. I’d feel like my whole adult life had been a lie.

I would be worried if he so easily kept this a secret from you ... there is every chance he is keeping other secrets.

This has been an absolute shock for you and you're understandably confused and miserable. However, only you can say whether you think it's at all possible he might have cheated since.

Does he regularly go off on boys' only weekends, even if it's only a couple of times a year or whatever? How likely is it that he's done coke regularly, if at all, since? Balance that against your family life and financial considerations, and what it would cost for you all to break up the marriage. You have three children and until this came out, you were happy. How well would you cope without him in your life?

And here's the thing. I'm as old as the hills and I've seen a lot in my lifetime. Women are always quick to say they'd never go near him again after finding out he's cheated. Yet, time and again, I've seen these ladies change their tune when faced with divorce and all it entails. Yes, so many marriages do end in divorce, but I promise you, people can and frequently do forgive cheating. And the old motto, "once a cheat, always a cheat" isn't quite as true as people would have you believe. Mistakes, one off mistakes, can and do happen. However, if you have any suspicion or reasons to believe he's been straying since you married, then you are probably done.

You just need to know the costs involved on either hand.

Don't think you can save it without counselling though. It's an absolute must. Whatever you decide, it will affect not just you, but three children, too. Think very carefully, because either decision will require a lot of emotional input and hard work to set yourself straight.

Good luck.

He's trash. You married a lying trashbag.

Sorry, but your marriage is over, it's now just a question of how long.

You will never forget, you will (rightfully) always question every single occasion he might have had the opportunity to stick his penis into other women, and forgiving him means accepting that he has the right to stick his penis in prostitutes.

Why on earth would you want to even consider accepting that?

And he's almost definitely cheated since. Cheating men almost always cheat repeatedly.

You're in shock right now and still trying to accept that the person you thought you were married to does not exist. Your instinct will be to want to talk to him and try to rationalise it away.

He's a liar and nothing he says can be trusted. Get on ChumpLady.com and find your rightful anger.

And get him out of your house if you can so you have time to think clearly, get legal advice posthaste and start making plans.

The person who told you this was being abusive. This is abuse. Your entire life has been completely changed, upended, you're married to a disgusting trashbag who is an outright liar and your life with him, as you knew it, is completely over - even if you do decide to let the creep stay.

Of course you cannot and will not just get over it. What a truly vile and disgusting suggestion.

Actually, you don't. You can just boot the filthy, lying, prostitute using creep out. You're not going to, but you can.

In five years when you do end your marriage, you will wish you had just done it today.

The boarding school can’t have been that good - they were totally ripped off with 20k, what absolute idiots 😂

Get legal help to sort out custody, that's your best bet.

If this was genuinely out of character and I’d seen nothing remotely in the ballpark from him in the following 15 years, I could move past it.

I’d be hurt and angry, I would insist on therapy, but everything since would matter more to me than that one night. As horrible as it is.

But if at any point in our relationship since I’d gotten a whiff of that sort of behaviour or he’d ever made me doubt his loyalty for a second, I’d be out. I’d also be very wary about his “friends”. Friends do not encourage cheating on your wife.

Hmmm, how many guys "chipped in" ?

Tell him you want one night with a male escort. How would he react to that?

The fact that he has admitted to it now and not then makes me wonder if it could be a get out clause. He could be admitting it now as there's something else going on.
Who idea was it to go through his photos?
What ever the reason for these findings, it now putting a big wave of doubt in your head that will always be there going forward. Do you think hes hiding something else? My ex broke up with me on our 15th wedding anniversary for another woman.

You can doubt his fidelity to you, because you have proof it, but sleeping with a prostitute just before your wedding, no doubt out of drunkenness and bravado and being egged on by his mates, is in no way proof that he does not love you.

Is that the kind of love you would want? There's lots of people out there who 'love' very selfishly, they don't respect their partners, I certainly wouldn't feel very loved by someone who could do this, and I would know for sure he has no respect for me.

Doing something like this out of bravado and because he was egged on by his mates would make it worse, not better.

😆