Husband had a lap dance....?!?

[Hitchy83]

Hi all, this is the first time I've posted on here but just needed some impartial opinions!!
Back in August me and my husband planned a weekend away in Leeds as a break before baby arrived, I was 7 months pregnant. While watching TV a few nights before we went I looked at his phone and the normally stupid messages between him and his best friend (I know stupid of me to do so, it's not that I don't trust him but I've often found him telling his best friend things e hasn't told me, nothing major but stuff I thought we would have talked about). Anyway his messages referred to my husbands stag do which was 3 years ago and joked if he would be going back to the strip club in leeds to get another lap dance, I was absolutely mortified. I trust my husband completely and we've always been very open with no secrets, I did joke to him no strip clubs before he went on his stag do but he assured me that wasn't his thing so I didn't think anything more of it. When I confronted my husband he started by saying he had forgotten all about it as he was drunk, but the more I probed the more he released information, his friend had 2, he had to have one as it was his stag do etc! I tried to laugh it off as I wanted us to enjoy our weekend away but when I came home I became obsessed with finding out about the club and looking at you tube videos of lap dances to see what happens, and became really upset by it all. We never had an proper argument about it as he kept laughing it off and telling me it was his stag do and that in being silly but I couldn't help but picture a girl girating all around him in her lingere and him getting off on it. I'd managed to push it to the back of my mind but since I had our son 6 weeks ago and I look at my stretch marks and wobbly belly all I can think of is that my husband will always have this image of the girl all over him on his stag do and now ill never compare to this :-( I've since looked at his messages to his friend and they keep sending half naked pictures of celebs to each other talking about how hot they are etc. I honestly had this halo over my husband, we've been together more than 11years and I thought I knew him inside out and never thought he was just like every other man oogling these images and going to strip clubs, it's broken my heart to find out about his lap dance :-(
I just don't know if I'm over reacting and being completely naive, is this to be expected on a stag do? I spoke to one of my friends who was just as shocked but she seemed to think it was his stag do so may have been pushed into it. I don't know what to do, I love him so much and I know we won't split up over this, but I'm so secretly hurting I don't know how to get over it?
Has anyone else been in a similar position or any ideas how I can get over this?
Thanks
H x

"Thank Goodness the OP and her DH have sorted things out and she didn't listen to all the man haters."

I always find this such an illuminating statement....

As if questioning bad behaviour by men is 'man-hating'.

I have a lovely DH. A lovely brother, father, uncles, FIL, BILs and loads of lovely male friends. I am as far from a man-hater as you can get.

It's because of all these lovely men in my life that I am happy to question the behaviour of men who don't display those standards. I know no-one is perfect, but it's also actually entirely OK to remind people that there are lots of lovely, good, kind, decent men out there (of which the OP's DH may well be one), and that questioning and being unhappy ŵith shit behaviour is NOT man-hating.

In fact, it says an awful lot about your perception of men to even use the phrase 'man-haters' in a context such as this. Think about it.

Fairenuff i agree with you regarding every couple having different boundaries and believe there is no such thing as a one size fits all. Every couple is always an individual case and this is what the thread should have focused on.

Unfortunately this has come too late and has not been the approach taken on here by the likes of Any Expletive and her motley crew who have just been stirring things up and insulting the OP in a blatant relationship sabotage attempt.

I still think that perspective and rationale have been the major downfalls of a lot of the advice offered here. Someone having a lap dance on a stag do 3 years ago is not something that should have been made an issue of. If the OP's husband was going on a regular basis then yeah it would have been grounds to have a good look at her relationship, but this was not the case. It was a one off in a very typical stag do situation, which i reckon the vast majority of people have experienced at some point in their lives.

Somerset unfortunately when people start firing insults around, the perception given is one of man hating. There's just no getting away from that on this forum.

Someone having a lap dance on a stag do 3 years ago is not something that should have been made an issue of.

Daddancer - its clear you still do not get what we are talking about.

Its not just the lapdance that Op is upset about. The fact that he lied about it and the pervy text exchanges with his friend are the other issues that she has brought up.

Someone having a lap dance on a stag do 3 years ago is not something that should have been made an issue of. If the OP's husband was going on a regular basis then yeah it would have been grounds to have a good look at her relationship

Why?

Why is it not ok if he is doing it regularly? What's wrong with that?

I would like someone who believes this to explain it to me.

Either it's ok to do or it's not. That's like saying everyone can cheat on their partner once but if they do it a lot it's a deal breaker. Or everyone can use the sex industry once but if they do it a lot it's a deal breaker. Or you can look at their moral values and say everyone can use a woman's body for their own sexual gratification once but if they do it a lot they're disrespectul to women.

DadDancer, I don't hate men. I'm not too keen on you, though and am suspicious of your motives for popping up on these types of threads to defend men's use of the sex industry. Do you post on much of anything else at all ? Don't answer that...advance search tells me all I need to know

And DD, if you are fed up of me insulting you, stop fucking bringing my name up on this thread every time it goes quiet.

Are you this aggressive and nasty in real life AF?
You need to chill out a bit!

Are you such a handmaiden in RL?

Does it make you uncomfortable to see a man not get his views tolerated ? What is it to you that DD gets called out for exactly what he is? Let him defend himself, he's a grown up, after all

Kaluki - are you conveniently ignoring the point about 'man-hating'...?

MadAboutHotChoc please spare me the classic 'you don't what you are talking about' argument it's like one of those last ditch attempts to have a dig when all else fails.
I think most people were in agreement with the lying element of OP's problem, (including me although i didn't state it)and she said she had already addressed this and had it out with him. The phone thing didn't really get discussed much, but let's face it couple of blokes exchanging a bit of porn may be a bit juvenile but how is that any different to women exchanging a copy of 50 shades, and them having a good dirty laugh about it? It's was only ever a secondary issue and was in my opinion very trivial.

So the whole thread has pretty much evolved into the lap dancing element of the problem, which has rightly or wrongly been the main point of the discussion here. You must surely be able to see that?

let's face it couple of blokes exchanging a bit of porn may be a bit juvenile but how is that any different to women exchanging a copy of 50 shades, and them having a good dirty laugh about it

I think this is a very good point.

There is a massive difference. Only not everyone can see it at first.

Internet/photographic porn involves real people. Fiction does not.

Those who claim that there is no harm in the sex industry do tend to appear confused on this issue.

Fairenuff going back to your previous post regarding the issue of visiting an LDC for the one off stag do's vs attending regularly. I think morally yes your right there is no difference. However this is only half the story and there are other big differences including the practicality and the amount of time and money being spent from attending on a regular basis. This could bring in a whole range of relationship issues, from using it as a substitute for your love life, to not giving your OH and kids enough attention, to blowing more money than you can afford etc. These were what i consider to be the bigger issues and were what i was thinking about when i made the above statement.

With regards to the 50 shades of grey comparison i take your point about it being fictional as opposed to real people, but it was really meant as a comparison that men and women can both display bawdy behavior when it comes to erotic entertainment. Maybe the borrowing of a DVD of a raunchy film would have been a better comparison for this.

Any
am suspicious of your motives for popping up on these types of threads to defend men's use of the sex industry.

but that's were you are wrong, as a libertarian I defend the rights of men and women to enjoy adult entertainment and support all types of sexuality. As long as it's consenting adults then it's fair game. The 'nanny state' is something i vehemently oppose.

One question, I wondered did you actually want things like porn and LDC's banned? If not then what would you want to happen? seeing as you have very big issues with both of these.

Now lets do an advanced search for you..........nah i wouldn't be that cruel

No Im not a handmaiden - far from it!
I don't hate anyone - men or women!
I just believe everyone has a right to their own opinions and dislike arrogant opinionated people who resort to insults when someone dares to disagree with them.
This thread has turned ridiculous and I actually can't be bothered anymore!

DD- you have a young daughter. As someone who has a role listening to young people I would like to give you some insight to what maybe lies ahead for your daughter growing up in a (still) sexist society where the adult entertainment industry is mainly made by men for men and is overwhelmingly woman hating.

At what age will she have her first sexual assault? By that I mean a boy touching her body because he believes it ok to put his hands down her top or up her skirt? At what age will she be encouraged to post/ send pictures of herself semi-naked? At what age will someone show her hard-core Internet porn? At what age will she be coerced into having sex? At what age will someone think its ok to get her drunk to have sex with her, or have sex with her because she's drunk? At what age will she be told that gagging and anal are something that every girl does in a sexual relationship?

At what age will she be when she finds her partner, who she thought viewed her as an equal human being, visited a lap dancing club on a stag do?

Will you finally 'get it' ?

This could bring in a whole range of relationship issues, from using it as a substitute for your love life, to not giving your OH and kids enough attention, to blowing more money than you can afford etc. These were what i consider to be the bigger issues and were what i was thinking about when i made the above statement

And going once demonstrates a lack of respect for your partner. Not telling them because you know it will upset them shows that you value your own sexual pleasure more highly than your partner's reasonable expectation that you will be faithful to them during your marriage. Keeping it a secret for a long time erodes honesty and trust. The partner is left wondering if there is more she has yet to discover. Using the sex industry demonstrates a certain kind of moral value which the partner was not aware you held. This could lower your estimation in their eyes. They may doubt whether they want to be with a person who could treat another human that way.

These are what I consider to be the bigger issues and were what I was thinking about because those are the issues that OP has stated are important to her.

We are clearly on completely different pages.

As long as it's consenting adults then it's fair game

And how do you know which ones have consented?

That's the bottom line really.

DD,, search away. You will wade through a load of stuff that is very much more varied than your rather limited "interests"

Great post whitegold

But be warned, last time DD was asked a similar question about his daughter (this one along lines of "how would you feel if your daughter was stripping in an LDV for a bunch of slavering, baying fuckwits?" he had a major sense of humour failure

Also, on the subject of consent, the OP did not consent to her husband using the sex industry.

We cannot know whether the dancer did.

So, the only 'consenting adult' that we can be sure of in this situation is the OP's dh. And, for most people who frequent these places, that's the only consent that concerns them.

Great post whitegold - but along with what Lady says (and I mentioned the same thing when he reared his head on yet another one of these threads), DadDancer is a compete objectification-denier.

It doesn't exist according to him. The impact of objectification, i.e. the myriad low- medium- and high-level assaults that women live with as a direct result of objectification is all in our heads. He'd know, right? Living as he does, as a women and being on the receiving end of it...

Of course, he has to deny objectification and its effects, since it's highly inconvenient for his side of the argument. Far easier just to brush it under the carpet.

And yes, exactly, Fairenuff.

Oh dear, looks like you're back to copy and pasting the 'designer feminist' verses from your bible - the 'Object' website.
To quote myself perspective and rationale have been the major downfalls of a lot of the advice offered here. You have certainly proved me right with that one again!

Gimme "Object" over "PunterxxNet" any day