My husband just confessed to picking up woman in a bar..8 years ago

[Amelia47]

Please can you wise ladies give me some help? I've been with my husband for 24 years...he was 19 and me 23 when we met...we have two beautiful children, and a brilliant relationship....its very equal, he's always been kind, thoughtful and a caring husband and dad. But recently I was having some blood tests and made a joke about being asked to report on my sexual history...he acted a bit cagey, and then the next day confessed to having picked up a stranger in a bar 8 years ago...they went back to his car, they snogged and she gave him a blow job...he immediately felt mortified and dropped her off..I believe this is exactly what happened..he's sworn on the kids lives....This is out of nowhere..at the time he was doing the childcare for our two small kids, and we were moving to a new city for my job...we were living between two cities, trying to keep everything going. He told me 5 months ago, and I can't come to terms with it. He has made no excuses, accepts the seriousness and is trying everything to make it work. I am still in shock..I have days when I can cope and others when I curl up in tears. i feel he's ruined my memories of that special time in our lives, and I have no trust. My love for him and my kids was the most important thing in my life, I felt so secure and happy...and I feel he's just trashed it for nothing...I want to make this work for everyone but can't get past the hurt...I can't bare the thought of the kids coping with a split either.

"Even woman who enjoy casual sex and one off sexual encounters usually want something more gratifying that to suck on some stranger's dick."

Exactly, not to be crude, but I had a few ONS in my yonger days and they were more satisfying than the above.

If I picked up a stranger in a bar it would be because I wanted sex. I'd be damned if I'd climb in his car and give him oral sex and get nothing out of it myself. Nobody would do this for a stranger. With a regular partner, in a relationship where your sexual needs are also met then yes. With a stranger? Absolutely not. So either, they had sex or he paid for a BJ.

X posts re giving a stranger a blow job with nothing in return. It just wouldn't happen.

yes. rather have a cup of tea

Amelia nobody really knows what happened apart from him and this woman - but if you believe he's telling the truth, maybe he is. It doesn't have to be the case that he's minimising - if he was going to lie about it,why bother telling you anything?

If you do want to try and move on from this together, I think you would probably benefit from some couples counselling. And as others have said, five months is nothing and you can't expect to 'get over' something like this so quickly. A close relative of mine had a similar 'bomb' dropped on her by her H five years ago. They are still together and overall she is happy, but now and again she still gets upset about what her H did . Be kind to yourself - you've been put in a horrible situation an you will need lots of support to get you through.

Think of it from the woman's point of view:

Who would go to a bar with the intention of offering alturistic blow jobs???

I hate to say it, but his story sounds like complete bollocks to me.

OP I don't want to go into the 'but there is more to it than a blowjob' because tbh I'm not sure it matters as such.

The issue you have is that he has broken your trust. I would really advise you to see a counsellor together to talk about it.
I would also tell him that 5 months is a very short time and that when trust has been so badly breached, it can take years for that trust to fully return. It is very likely that it will never feel the same anymore. You and him need to be aware of that.
So he will have to be patient and to carry on proving he is trustworthy.
Also have counselling on your own and talk to people in RL. You need some support atm so that you can sort things out for yourself.

May I ask? Have you asked him why, if he was worried about a possible STI, he didn't go and have himself checked over in these last 8 years? I mean, That would have been for his own sake, if not for yours.

I'm sorry this has happened OP

But I too believe he's not telling the whole truth.

It would be extremely unusual for a woman to give a man she'd just met a blow job, and get nothing in return...or for him to not even touch her sexually.

As an adult, he'll know that a BJ 8 years ago is very unlikely to mean you're going to get an STD.

Nobody ever died because someone swore on their lives btw, it's just not possible so it's obviously a safe thing to do.

Whether you decide to stay or go is up to you, but you need to decide with your eyes wide open, and I really don't think he's told you the whole truth.

if he was going to lie about it,why bother telling you anything?

Because he was worried about the tests showing something up? And he took a gamble (and won by the looks of it) that if he threw her the bones of some story, a partial truth, she would take it at face value because it's a confession of sorts and enough to be getting on with.

I stress again; even IF it was only a blow job, he wasn't immediately contrite, as OP says (as he says). He made sure he got his fucking jollies before he felt anything like 'mortification'.

They're all the same. They ALL minimise ALL the time.

Hi OP, Just giving your post some thought now i am by no means excusing what he did and i don't think he can put a time frame on how long it takes for you to "get over it" (terrible phrase) but it sounds to me like you really want to move on so I think you should try and if that means seeing someone together or alone then do it.
If he is being honest with you and you believe him then give it a shot. It sounds like a tough time when this went on and some people do make terrible mistakes when under stress including hurting the people they love the most. He shouldn't of done it but i am inclined to agree with the poster who says he shouldn't of told you - i think he probably told you just to relieve his conscious to me this is actually more annoying he fucked up and he should have to live with it not you. Yes he could be lying and lets face it he must have touched her up at least but i think it is all to understandably easy to get caught up with who did what exactly rather than actually trying to work on moving on if thats what you want to do. Its a long relationship with all the trappings of what goes with that kids families etc to just walk away from you should try to save it if you can. Good Luck x

walter sorry but you lost me at 'they're all the same'. How can you possibly know that? We don't know op's H

He needs to understand that for you, it's as if he did this the day before he told you about it - only it's worse really, because the last 8 years have been a lie.

Ask him how long he'd expect you to need to 'get over it' if he'd done it and then told you the next day. Then add at least 2 years to that. If he's not prepared to give you that amount of space as a minimum , you need to re-think the idea of staying together.

And you both need to know that forgiveness is possible but forgetting is not. It's part of your marriage now and nothing in the world can change that.

Oh please, the old line of it just being a BJ - he's told you that to make it sound as basic as possible, it's to hide what actually did happen. I don't believe it for a second, what woman would do that unless she was either getting paid, was out her face or was being forced - is he Brad Pitt, no I didn't think so.

You have 3 issues going on here, the fact he has been lying to you for 8 years, the fact he is still lying and the fact, even if his story was true, he has cheated on you - enough to end a relationship I'd say.

You can't trust him now, simple as that, and you've to get over it, really, what a bloody cheek, just shows how sorry he is, not.

Do not brush it under the carpet, talk for as long as you need, he needs to feel the consequence of his actions, if he loves you he will stick it out and he is the one who needs to work on you, there's nothing for you to work on, it should all come from him, you are the innocent!

Don't agree with you having to save anything - why do you have to put any bloody leg work in, you have done FA wrong.

well he cant save a whole marriage on his own can he? Not saying OP has done anything wrong just that it will take two to put it right agreeably though more effort from him!

Ok then, used.

Every cheater I've ever spoken about/heard about/read about has been the exact same.

Was this what happened between Lewinsky and Clinton? Is it not possible at all that the story is true? How can strangers be so incredibly sure this is made up? I would have never admitted to an affair just before STI tests. He could have had this coming up for 8 years.

He may have been overwhelmed by guilt and confessed without thinking much. This is the kind of thing that may make you feel good for a moment, then you think you can forget, and then you are rotten with guilt inside for ever. Who knows?

It is astonishing to see how many people are convinced they know better than the wife here.

If I had just discovered this, the last thing on my mind would be to save the relationship, I think all the work has to come from him and by what the OP is saying, he simply wants it brushed away and forgotten about - not exactly the actions of someone who is making an effort to save anything.

I just hate how the person fucked over is meant to feel like they have to join in to make things better when they have been shat all over.

At this stage, I think the OP needs to work on herself only and decide if she even wants to be with a person who can do this to her.

If you have to trust your instinct when you think your husband may be up to no good, you may as well trust them the other way round (I am not a great believer of instincts by the way).

If your marriage seems to be totally fine and you believe the man you have known for so long, decide whether or not you can go through this with whatever help you need. You may never be able to forget and this is only for you to work out.

I am really sorry you are going through this

OP, nobody here knows your husband or the relationship between you, so speculation on whether he's telling you the full truth or not is only guesswork. (Incidentally, as a GP I can say categorically that lots of adults do not have a good understanding of how STIs are typically passed on, and many men worry about picking something up via oral sex.)
If you feel there may be a future for you, I think counselling would be very helpful. Lots of marriages do survive infidelity, but please don't feel rushed into any decisions. Best of luck to you.

Camaleon, giving head to the married President of the United States is a calculated act for which most women, inc ML, expect and get something in return.

Giving head to a random stranger in his car is far less likely to result in anything other than maybe an achy jaw.

I have another way of looking at his description of what he did, compared with posters such as TheStoic and others: I think it is perfectly possible that the DH has accurately described what happened, rather than there was more to that night or that this is one of a series.

For every full-blown affair involving PIV, there must have been a starting point that involved something less than PIV. If, at that night at a bar, your DH was at a starting point of a full affair, then it is quite possible that he realised this and stopped.

it was tough for both of us back then, 8years ago..his work was less stable than mine..and his Dad has just died,and he was looking after two toddlers..I was holding down a demanding job, in a new place..

Without trying to make excuses for him, I can see that such a situation could lead to a moment of weakness, which was then immediately and completely regretted.

How is he behaving now in general? The fact that he got the AIDS test done as you asked suggests that he genuinely is trying to make amends.

If everything else is great, maybe get some counselling for yourself and later, when you are ready, joint counselling.

You've said It doesn't have to be the case that he's minimising - if he was going to lie about it,why bother telling you anything Penguin, but if you read Amelia's account you'll see that he sprung this confession/story on her after she told him that she'd been asked to give an account of her sexual history in connection with some blood tests she was having.

This suggests that he had some twinge of conscience concern as to whether he may have given her a std which he'd contracted when a random stranger allegedly gave him a blow job in car park 8 years ago.

However, if this is the case, it begs the question of why he didn't see fit to tell her earlier that he may have exposed her to a std?

Could it be that he contracted a std 8 years ago while his dw was away and it was successfully treated, thus causing to him to believe that he hadn't passed it on to her? Or could it be that blowjobgate took place in more recent times?

Amelia has said that he passed an HIV test with flying colours and I'm wondering whether tests for stds including genital herpes, syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, hepatitis A, B, and C, etc, would also produce a negative result.

Whatever, I remain convinced that there is more to this story than that which he's disclosed to his dw and it's entirely possible that she's unable to move on from it because her instincts are telling her that he's not been entirely truthtful.

Sorry, but his story lost me at swearing on the kids' lives. People who do this are nearly always lying ime.

I also can't imagine why a woman would give a blow job for nothing in return.

The fact is, he might be telling the truth, he might not be, given the passage of time and the circumstances you're unlikely to be able to obtain proof either way. For you to believe him you have to trust him and your trust is, understandably, shot to shit.

I don't really know what to suggest, you've had 5 months to absorb this information and it seems in that time you are no closer to coming to terms with it, so you need to do something different. Have you thought about relationship counselling, or asking for him to leave for a while?

I also can't imagine why a woman would give a blow job for nothing in return.

Perhaps she hoped for something afterwards or later or longer term? She wouldn't have been the first woman to be disappointed after giving a blow job.