Partner has slept with a prostitute

[AmIACompleteMug]

Dp returned from a stag do tonight, and was behaving a teeny bit oddly from the moment he walked through the door. We have an absolute honesty policy, so I quizzed him straightaway, and he opened up. He said that at 4am Sunday morning, pissed as farts, they all found themselves in a brothel (they genuinely thought it was a lap-dancing bar, which I do believe), and two of them - dp included - paid a prostitute each for oral and full sex.

Dp has a bit of a track record for being a tart throughout our ten years together, but we've come through because - other than him being a great bloke when not thinking with his penis - I firmly believe(d) in trying to understand each other, empathise, look at the circumstances at the time of things going awry, and learning from mistakes. By and large, things have always got better and better. And I figure that if every couple were honest about all indiscretions, and if they all parted because of them, there would be very few couples. (I have also been unfaithful, in the first year of our relationship, and we worked through this too.)

But all this Miss Nice Guy stuff said, almost three years had passed since dp's last slip-up, and my trust and confidence in him had grown. Now, we're back to square one again, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm being a bit of a mug to be staying in this relationship.

Dp is a fantastic dad to our toddler; a bright, thoughtful and sensitive man (when he's sober). We have a great life in a lovely community and a lot of time together as a family (though not enough as just a couple right now - not helping). It seems like a lot to give up over (another) pissed blip. But I do wonder if my self-respect, self-worth, self-esteem and other feel-good "self-" things, are going to steadily evaporate whilst continuing to stay with a bloke who I feel fairly sure will be unfaithful again - one day.

How important is fidelity anyway - especially when so many other boxes are ticked?

What do you all think? What would you do in this situation? Would I be being a complete mug to stay with dp?!

Thanks all. Am off to bed (with ds - not dp!) to reflect ...

Do you think he would have done this if he knew you would throw him out. Do you think he thinks she'll forgive me what ever I do ?
It's good to have a honest relationship but how do you ever really trust the person that keeps having these drunken slip ups. Does it not eat away at you.
I haven't been in your situation but my own view is that yes I would want to forgive,but trust is a whole other issue.
Are you happy to have a relationship with someone because it ticks boxes.
Do you not deserve more.
You must be having doubts or you wouldn't have posted.

How would he react if you paid a guy for a shag, or had a one night stand?

If he can't understand that it is the same for your as for him, then you deserve better IMHO

and getting pissed is not a valid excuse, he chose to get pissed

i am with MBthe man has just put ( and with past discretions is continuing to put the life f you and your child at risk.

its not just sex.

just sex is easy to get over.

its trust. why would someone want to stay with a partner they absolutley cannot trust.

its like have a partner who is a v. funny drunk

"ok he has a drink problem....but he's so Funny"

if what you are doing and what he expects you to do is say - i am going to only look at his good points - he has bad point - lets not dwell - he's a fantastic father. not good enough

a fantastic father wouldn't put his life at risk
a fantastic father would not jeapordise the sanctity of the relationship between mum and dad

he's not a fantastic father.

every relationship needs boundaries.

i personally will put up wil anything - anythng at all - except shagging another woman or being hit.

its that simple. we have been together 17 years. i will work through anything anything at all. i want to leave when he is a complete thoughless twat - but i work through it.

its hard work.

he cannot have much respect for you
you cannot trust him
he's put his families lives in danger

and if you continue down this route of forgiveness after each indescresion - why should he respect you?

you want to make it work - i know that - so i would sit down and say look.
we can stay together if
you have an aids test
no more indescretions - i can't take anymore, if you dont love me - leave. but please no more torture.

i would then be offish for months. i can't just forget things and pretend everythings gingham and doris day. he needs to know how much he hurt you.

Hear hear custardo- so well said

Totally with Custy - fab post

Actually I think it sometimes does help if you fly off the handle. With some people it is not enough just to say "I'm am very angry", you have to show it.
Also tears aren't to get your own way (as some men say), they are sometimes necessary for you to be taken seriously.

I don't think I'd feel as strongly as custardo, but it would be ultimatum time for me too. You don't need to fly off the handle, just state very clearly that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable (OK, that sounds a bit super nanny - mybe that you won't put up with it), and that if he does it again you will leave. That's what I'd do anyway.

AmIaCompleteMug, I haven't read all the replies so sorry if I'm repeating anything. I might say, well I would never forgive my dh for this, but tbh, I've never been in this position so how do I know? But dh and I have had other problems that we've worked through.

All I can say really is that this is something only you can decide on. If you can work through this and put it behind you and really forgive and trust your dp again then I don't think you're a mug, you're just trying to put your and your ds' happiness first. I think this is obviously still raw for you, so don't make any rash decisions just yet. What is REALLY positive is that you guys are talking this through, I think honesty is really important. Good luck

I think you can overcome this. Re establish the ground rules and build up from there.

He hasn't hidden it from you as I'm sure a lot of men in the same position would.

Make him feel how badly he has hurt you and also get him to read something like this to make him realise the kind of thing he is supporting

Mug,I agree with what you say.

We are all weak and silly sometimes.Repentance and remorse is what really matters.

It depends on whether you see this as the ultimate betrayal. Personally, if my DH didn?t pay the mortgage, didn?t tell me and we had our house pulled out from under our feet would be a much worse betrayal than paying for a 5 minute wonder with some tart whilst pissed.

In this day & age, sex has been belittled to a point where it?s nothing anymore. It used to be sacred, it?s not anymore and I think that if you can work through this, good for you. My Dh has, to my knowledge never cheated on me, but I am pretty sure if he told me he had something bad to tell me, there are worse things than this.

Now if he admitted to having an affair with another woman, sharing feelings, emotions etc, I would not be be so lenient as that would really really bother me. Then I would cut off his balls. But I would not leave him over this particular incident. Thats only my opinion.

oh good idea, zippi. horrible article though.

it is actually more likely that a partner will have sex with a prostitute now than ever and it is more socially accepted at least by men.

I hope amiamug resolves things with her dh as she sounds like she could.

FWIW I think I understand your calm. If my dh does something which could potentially be a "deal-breaker" - lying about money, for example - I perceive it as a terrible threat to my security and my children's - I don't want to lose dh, I don't want the boys to lose their dad, I don't want any of us to lose the life we have built. I love him and so do they. So when something happens which threatens what we have, I react as though a terrible crisis has struck. Some people are oddly calm in a crisis and experience the shock later, when they feel safe again. I was deadly calm when I had pre-eclampsia too, and deadly calm when ds1 was being rescuscitated, and in several other moments of pure terror I can remember. I cried and had nightmares later, when the crisis had passed and I felt on firmer ground.

I think you need to give yourself time to absorb what's happened and not react too quickly. You may feel less calm, and less forgiving, when the initial impact starts to wear off.

So sorry this has happened xxx

You love him, he has many good points and you want to keep your family together. I understand your unwillingness to go in all guns blazing and start issuing ultimatums.

But, I agree with shoppingsecret - from what you've said it appears this man thinks he can do anything he likes and you'll forgive him. I don't think this shows respect or love, really, I think it shows a guy who knows he's onto a good thing.

It's not as if it's the first time, after all. Yes, we can all get pissed, we can all do silly things, we can all have 'slip-ups'. But if we're truly sorry for them, if we truly respect our partners and our family and the life we've built together, we don't keep on doing it. He's pushing the boundaries, imo, and will keep on doing it until there are actual, genuine, painful repercussions for him.

If I knew my Dp had slept with a prostitute, he would be out the door for at least a week.
When he first told me I would have packed a bag and gone to my parents telling him "i need to think about whether I can forgive you"
Then you wait to see if he wants you back, if he doesnt he will let you leave and you will know that the relationship isnt worth fighting for.
Next - did he wear a condom? No? tests.

If it were us Personally as we stand at this moment I would never take him back. However, if we had children I might have seriously thought about it but I know that I would be a nervous wreck and never let him out of my sight which isnt good for a relationship and not good with children.

I doubt that has helped you very much but I think there should be serious reprocussions for your DH even if you have decided to stay with him.

Hi AIACM.

I don't really understand the fuss about you being calm-we all react very differently to shock news and I remember when I heard my bad news that I would swing very rapidly from being calm to feeling so angry I could really hurt my husband.

Something has to be said for his honesty I suppose but the fact that these indescretions appear to be happening time and time again set the alarm bells off for me. Does your husband think that as long as he is honest with you, you will forgive him anything? AS far as he is concerned then all he needs to do is live his life the way he wants and then ride out the storm following his admission. What a very difficult life for you, what a wonderful existense for him.

From what I have read in your OP is sounds like you feel you have to forgive him as you still feel guilty with regard your own infidelity-that is not a healthy relationship works. You don't score points.

I think it's very easy to comment on a situation like this hypothetically but I have gone through this and no I don't think shagging a prostitute is worse/better than your husband having an affair-betrayal is betrayal there is no good/bad scale in my book once the trust is broken then it can never be the same. The shock of the situation I went through meant that I miscarried a very longed for baby which perhaps forced my hand a little into behaving/reacting the way I have done. I have no regrets though and would do it all exactly the same if I could turn back time.

FWIW My husband is a very good father too and formerly a great partner and I still don't think that these things can cushion the blow that is realising your relationship could be completely phoney. He fucked up and now he is paying the price. If I took him back instantly or let him stay what kind of example am I setting to us as a couple, to my child, to myself? I don't think a very good one.I'm at a point in my life now where I think I could forgive my husband for his indescretion, because yes we can allmake mistakes-life is about learning from them and not repeatedly doing the same again and again. If my husband so much as put a foot out of line in months/years to come he knows that it would be the end, no talking, no considering. End. He had his chance.

We are having counselling and working at having a relationship. I am just trying my best to communicate. If I am honest I would like things to work out for the future but like anything decent in life you have to work damn hard to get good things in life. My husband is working his tail off and I expect him to keep trying,it's what I deserve. If he didn't then he would have made my decision for me.

Back to your question in your opening post, yes I do think you are foolish to stay with a man who appears to have no respect for you. I'm sorry but it makes me angry that a person who should respect and love their partner could treat them with such disregard. It doesn't matter how sorry they are, are they more sorry this time than the last? I just don't buy it.

My thoughts are with you.

not a mug, no. but by gum it must hurt.

i've told dh more than once that i don't think him sleeping with someone else would necessarily be the end for us - I'm like UCM, if dh got a loan based on our house and then signed the rights over to some crooks while drunk (like what my dad did) i would find it even harder to forgive.

He's been a crap daft f*ck. Do you know what, if a woman stood up in court and said 'i was so pissed I didn't know where I was, i paid some money to a man i'd never met before and XXX happened' she'd be given so much grief. Men can be raped too, not to mention attacked, infected, robbed. Toddlers react to tone not content; you don't say [sweet reasonable tone] 'No darling don't do that' unless you don't really care about what it is they are doing. If you care, you shout NO (or scream in my case). I'm glad to hear you've done some shouting. I hope you do plenty more.

sorry, that's hit a nerve. Rough rough situation.

How many people were there on the stag do - 5,10, 15? And only 2 of them paid to use a prostitute, doesn't sound like peer pressure to me.

maybe more of them did but aren't confessing to it or these two were the ones who didn't know when to go back to the hotel and sleep it off.

I don't condone prostitution or infidelity but I think it is a lot more available than it was and men in this kind of situation do get drunk and get drawn to it.

Hopefully it won't become as common as it is in eg Spain (where 27% of men under 49 have visited a prostitue in the last 12 months)but not everyone should break up their marriage because of it.

If he was with a prostitute, get him to have a full medical before you even consider resuming anything approaching a sex life with him.

Other than that I can offer no advice.

I wouldn't kick dh out for getting pissed and sleeping with a prostitute

I WOULD kick him out if he had an affair (but not for ever)

Maybe he needs to address his alcohol problem. If these things always happen when he is pissed then he has a problem with alcohol IMO.

Not read all the replies, but Its good that you are able to think and talk about this calmly. Even for the sake of your kids, bit traumatic to wake up and find mum screaming like a banshee while throwing all daddies stuff out the window. (Ithink thats what I would do).

I suppose it comes down to the future, how are you going to feel about this in a month, 6 months a year. Can you write it off as a drunken discretion or will it always nag you as a total disrespect to you.

Would you ever see yourself doing something like that on a drunken night out?

I know your DH took it a bit further than a normal stag night, but on the whole I think a lot of woman have double standards me included. I would be ready to leave DH if I knew he had even been in a strip club let alone having a strippers boobs in his face and hand in his lap. But if I was out with the girls how far would I go, probably further than I would want DH to go, but as I said double standards.

But again full sex and BJ is a step too far for me, but that is something you will have to deide, how many steps too far can one man be allowed, what is it worth to you?