stag do strippers - AIBU?

[SadSheila]

Sorry if this is long, I just don't want to drip feed.

We moved to Australia about a year ago when DH's company relocated him. It's a short term move (a couple of years) and although it's been hard with 2 young DCs and I've given up a lot (family, friends, job, car, my own money etc.) I was happy to try it out for the experience and for the benefit of DH's career. It does mean that I've got pretty much no support other than DH and I've lost a great deal of independence from him.

I'm 33 weeks pregnant with DC3 and at the stage where I feel pretty vulnerable. I'm huge and I feel horribly unattractive at the moment. A couple of months ago DH went away on a stag do. A group of his friends rented a house for the weekend and did the usual things like paintballing and playing poker. It was hard for me being on my own with the kids all weekend, we were all ill and didn't really sleep. I let DH know this, he was sympathetic at the time but later said whenever he goes away I waste no time in telling him what a nightmare it is for me.

Anyway a few weeks ago I found out from a friend that during that stag do they had hired strippers to come round to the house and serve drinks and deal cards whilst topless. I think they also put on a show involving the stag. I felt quite hurt by this. I thought perhaps they'd been to a strip club but felt silly for asking, but there's something much more intimate about having topless, beautiful young women serving you drinks etc. When I asked DH about it he said he'd kept it quiet because he knew in my pregnant state it would upset me and because I hadn't had an easy weekend, so it was the last thing I wanted to hear. He was genuinely surprised that I was upset by it, to him it was just harmless stag do fun.

While I was in the dark about the strippers, I agreed to DH going another stag do (that's he's currently on) and it turns out exactly the same thing is going to happen. If I had known I would have said "no" because of how awful I was going to feel about it. It's a lot for me to be completely on my own with the DCs for 4 days whilst heavily pregnant, but knowing that he's going to be in presence of perfect naked women is just making me feel really sad. I sat in the bath this evening and just sobbed. Before I had DH's kids I had a body to be proud of and a career and a life, now I feel all washed up and spat out if that makes sense? That being said the DCs are my life and I wouldn't change that for anything.

Am I over-reacting due to hormones/feeling really unattractive? Do I need to get a grip?

If you've got this far, thanks for reading. It's 4am here and the DCs will up soon so I'm going to try to sleep.

Alfie- I know I just contradicted myself as we'll saying we should be able to have heated chats without verbal abuse. Oops. That's what happens when I'm forced to defend any member of my family. Time for a cuppa for me i think!

Jeez there's some crap on this thread. It doesn't matter what you think about strippers or what the op's dh feels. What matters is what the op feels. She is able to feel upset without being told "calm down dear this is just what men do when you aren't micromanaging them well enough".

There are a lot of valid and different perspectives on this and each person's is their own!

Personally this kind of disrespect of women would end my marriage i think. I don't want to be with someone who thought it was ok to hire strippers and knew I was upset but ignored it. My dh did something similar but without strippers (I think :/) when we were newly married and I was heavily pg with twins but we were not long together and he'd never been in a relationship before. I did forgive him but I would probably leave even now 3 years on if I found out there were strippers on it as I am so fundamentally against the sex industry and the casual abuse of women.

And for the second time tonight I agree with AlfieBear. I was trying to find the words and failing. Thank you

I really had no idea about the strippers at either stag when I encouraged him to go. I guess I thought they might go to a strip club, which I wasn't happy about but I bought the whole "they all went" thing before. But hiring women to come to the house is something I hadn't even thought of. I am sheltered in that respect I suppose.

This is far from over for me. If I hadn't had the conversation I did with my friend (which was incidental, she thought I knew already) I would probably still be in the dark about it now.

I looked up stripper hire for stag dos in the place they've gone to. They're all in their twenties and beautiful women. We have a DD, I'm getting really angry now.

hey, good luck with these "unique" men who find themselves unable to get out of going on stag weekends where they will participate in funding the woman-hating sex industry

never mind though, he's not "perfect" which of course excuses it (as long as you get your spa day)

Glad he's coming home for you OP.

Realise that I seem to be the odd one out. Dh has gone to several strip clubs on various stag nights. It never bothers me and I like to hear about it. I trust Dh implicitly and it has always puzzled me why some of his friends have lied to their partners about where they've been.

Offred- you're twisting words there. I don't have time just now to repeat everything I've said but you're definitely picking bits and elaborating incorrectly. You should re read my posts if you're going to try and quote me. In a nutshell, I was more concerned with calming down a very upset pregnant lady who was being wound up. Since then I've been dealing with drama queens of a different nature. Talk later.

I'd much prefer to be called an uptight fucking weirdo than have a husband who frequents strip clubs.

Some of these posts are making me smile though, which is what I need right now!

Not frequents, has been twice in his twenties, both on stags.

HappyHalloween - thanks but I don't need luck. I have a wonderful marriage and a fantastic relationship.

And for what it's worth, I don't like spa days.

which ones, sheila...the ones implying you should shut your gob and let him get on with being a man ?

Alfie...pick your own choice of rationalisation < shrug >

Alfie talks sense!

Happy to help sadsheila!
A good laugh sorts everything out.
(Ps I'm more or less with you on this stripper thing but I've ended up having to really defend myself on here which makes me worse and I'm going to end up handing him bloody money to go on another one just to defy some of these women! )
Totally kidding before you all lose your hair.

Lots of the posts on here seem to talk about whether or not the poor OP's husband could or should have got out of going to these stags. But isn't it wider than that? Is there not a question to be asked about whether she would want to stay in a relationship with the kind of man who wants to be friends with the kind of men who would organise this sort of 'entertainment' for a stag do?

Mrsm I wasn't quoting you.

Lapin Is there not a question to be asked about whether she would want to stay in a relationship with the kind of man who wants to be friends with the kind of men who would organise this sort of 'entertainment' for a stag do?

What kind of men are they?

twats

you need to ask ?

Men who organise strippers for a stage do witches.

Men who do not know or do not care how disrespectful to women and their wives/girlfriends it is to pay women to be leered at.

Also Lapin, what if it's a friend of the friend who has organised the strippers as a surprise? I'm not sure you'd be able to vet every friend that your dh's friend has...if that makes sense. I do see where you're coming from though.

You all sound like very insecure women to me to be honest.
Why would a man be a twat for being at a stag do with strippers?
Fair enough if it was a man on his own paying for a stripper while he had a wife at home that would be a twatish thing to do but ops dh was on a stag weekend, not a club where he was paying for a private dance.
what is the problem?

I personally thoroughly disapprove of strip clubs/strippers etc. They are sickening. However, unfortunately they are prevalent enough in the culture that many, many men will find themselves in a social situation where it is very awkward for them not to go into a strip situation (and to be fair, how many of us would find it easy to steam off in disapproval at someone else's hen do, an occasion very explicitly about making the hen the centre of attention?).

I say this because I think that a nice but perhaps not enormously principled man could find himself in a strip situation. I think, OP, that it is now right that you lay down the law on the matter, and that if your husband subsequently goes to a strip club then that's different. But I'd forget it this time unless you've other reason to think he's an arse.