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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Perspective please - am I overreacting to what DH did?

405 replies

Whywhywhywhy39 · 22/01/2016 08:36

I need some perspective please...

DH and I have been together for 21 years since we were 19. We have 2 DC, primary school age. We both work full time. Overall we have what I've long regarded as an incredibly lucky life - comfortable home, no money worries, close to our extended family, strong relationship ourselves.

On Sunday DH told me he has herpes. He got it from a strip bar. He went there at the beginning of Dec, was going out with friends but the evening didn't happen for some reason. Instead of comming home, he found this bar and went into a booth. Long story short, he paid some woman to give him a blow job and both touched each other.
A week or so after that the herpes appeared. He was diagnosed on 23 Dec.

We had a lot of family visiting over Christmas and into the new year, all staying with us. The last ones left last week and Sunday was the first quiet night we had together, so he told me.

I feel sick, and so so so let down. Perhaps betrayed? I don't know. Why would he do this? To us, to me, to let this horrid thing into our lives. And by "horrid thing" I mean buying sex from someone. The herpes isn't nice, but if he had got it from a previous partner with a cold sore I guess it would just be one if those things. But like this!

To be clear, visiting strip bars is entirely out of character. He's no saint but this is just way beyond normal for him, for us.

But am I over reacting? Is it just a strip club, hundreds of men go to them every night. I've tried telling myself that, but I still feel sick and shaken every time I think about him in that booth.

I could go on and on. Why? And why and why. I don't know if that question can ever be answered. But please, perspective, am I over reacting?
(FWIW he has not suggested I am, this is me trying to work thru in my head.)

OP posts:
Buttercup443 · 22/01/2016 23:27

Poor you, well done for getting tested. That must have been so hard. Wine and a >nomumsnet< hug.

You are sounding so together and levelheaded.

I'd suggest he goes away for a few days to give you space and let you trawl through bank statements and computers, etc alone. I'd be requesting his passwords for emails and social media then change them to your own and see if there is anything else that might catch your eye. Not very ethical, I know. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

saffronwblue · 23/01/2016 02:32

Good luck op. This must feel like a deep betrayal of your world and your beliefs. I hope you can get some clarity.

Joysmum · 23/01/2016 06:54

So sad that your title is that you think you may have overreacted Sad

Love my DH as I do, my minimum requirement is utter fidelity. Cheating is him having to keep something secret because he knows it's beyond my boundaries.

LindyHemming · 23/01/2016 07:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

differentnameforthis · 23/01/2016 08:00

But it is NOT unforgivable, and it does not have to mean the end of the relationship. In accordance to YOUR values, not everyone's! If op decides she cannot for give this, and that does spell the end of their marriage, she is totally within her rights.

check out theforgivenessproject.com/ to see what people can actually forgive It doesn't matter one iota what "people" can forgive. The op isn't asking if she should forgive. Your advice is terrible.

Gabilan · 23/01/2016 08:52

Sometimes someone who is basically a good person makes a mistake. Often that's forgiveable. But sometimes someone you thought was decent does something so horrendous that it changes how you view them. So then it's not forgiving a mistake, it's accepting and remaining with someone you don't even like anymore. IMO this falls into the latter category.

hopskip123 · 23/01/2016 09:05

Op Im fairly sure you said you surmised it was oral sex, not that he told you it was? What exactly has he said? Also he will have paperwork from the sti clinic which he needs to show you.

needastrongone · 23/01/2016 09:46

Emma You and me on the outside may agree this is the case, that he's a bastard. I don't disagree. I think possibly, given time, that Why will too. What I was trying to say is that, at this stage, this is still the man with whom she has built 20 years of her life around, has a home with, has 2 lovely girls with, expected a future with and that doesn't switch off overnight.

Lots of posters have been wonderfully supportive and offered advice and perspective, which Why has taken on board. Some have just come on here and called him a 'bastard' and offered nothing else. It was these posters to whom I was referring.

I think, at this stage, I would still be defensive of that, rightly or wrongly. I might also be projecting my feelings too here, I accept that.

Why I hope you are still baring up today in the circumstances. Did you make a decision whether to confide in your DB?

RainOhJoyus · 23/01/2016 10:23

Massive we'll done for going to get tested.
Hope the talk went well and that was a very good idea to not let him suggest you give him a curfue so it's your fault, he's trying to put it on you.
Sorry I still think it wasn't a blow job and it wasn't in a lap dancing club in soho, no way.

mix56 · 23/01/2016 10:53

I think this more likely a ONS, OW or a fully paid prostitute.
The scenario is false, "wandering into a strip joint alone" just doesn't work for me.
He isn't living in a sexless marriage, & if he wasn't steaming drunk, or egged on by others, His story is just that, as story to minimise.
I would want to see the lab report, he may have had something else too, & has taken antibiotics to clear that up in his 3 week cover up.
He is lying, & continues to lie.
The deceit is making it worse IMHO.
Your marriage is broken.

Rubberduck2 · 23/01/2016 11:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
Whywhywhywhy39 · 23/01/2016 15:47

I'm ok, thank you.

We had a long discussion last night. He is adamant it was a one off. Went into a lap dance bar, agreed to a dance, then dancer asked if he wanted "standard or the special" and the idiot said "the special". You know the rest. I am inclined to believe him, although I have not said that to him. Please don't post 100 messages telling me I'm wrong. Time will tell if I'm wrong.

I have told him:

  • he didn't plan on telling me and only has because of the herpes. That is awful.
  • the likelihood of him walking into a lap bar and getting a BJ are about the same as me walking onto a golf course today and hitting a hole in one. A remote possibility. He needs to convince me otherwise.
  • I don't yet know what I'm going to do about it. My feeling is to work through it, but I am still processing.

He has suggestions for moving forward. A lot involved him cutting nights out/alcohol intake, spending more time with the family and taking up something more "wholesome" as a past time. I said that was well and good but didn't address the person he has betrayed - ie me. He needs to do something to show me he is sorry and is not going to do it again. He offered, without being asked, to show me bank statements and emails. He has also made arrangements to talk to a local minister.

It's odd how your body reacts to shock. The conversation took about 2 hours and at the end I just had to sleep. It was the same last weekend when he initially told me. It's like you can only take in so much emotional turmoil and then your body just turns you off.

A few people have posted about forgiveness or, if not forgiving, then moving forward with someone and living with the wrong thing they did. That makes sense to me. I don't know if I can forgive this, or look at him without seeing an image of him in a dark booth with some woman bending over him. But my next step is to see if I can find a way to live with it. We are reading the story of the good shepherd with DD1 this weekend, with the message that everyone can be saved if they are truly sorry. And truly sorry only works if you honestly intend not to do something again. Perhaps that is a path I can walk down. But if he wants me to be that shepherd, he has to find a way of making good his side of it.

I doubt I will post on this thread again. You have been an incredible help, in answering my first question and highlighting things I hadn't questioned. But I'm quite a private person and keeping this going will feel like my life is an episode of Eastenders. Thank you all so much for your advice, your views and most of all your kind messages of support. It's the cliche but the instant support of hundreds of strangers really is MN at its best.

OP posts:
Mull · 23/01/2016 15:51

Good luck for moving forward Why Flowers

Bambambini · 23/01/2016 16:15

Why talk to a local minister?

Anyay, good luck Op, hope you find a way to deal with this that you can live with and move on from.

Gobbolino6 · 23/01/2016 16:30

I think he also needs to seriously consider why he did it. If he can't understand that, he has no hope of changing it. Does he actually want to change it, or would he be perfectly happy if you had never found out?

SnoogyWoo · 23/01/2016 16:30

Minister probably goes to the same club.

AnyFucker · 23/01/2016 16:33

Good luck

I am going to make no comment on whether you are doing the right thing or not, but I hope it works out for you. [thanks

AnyFucker · 23/01/2016 16:33

Good luck

I am going to make no comment on whether you are doing the right thing or not, but I hope it works out for you. [thanks

AnyFucker · 23/01/2016 16:33

Good luck

I am going to make no comment on whether you are doing the right thing or not, but I hope it works out for you. [thanks

AnyFucker · 23/01/2016 16:33

Good luck

I am going to make no comment on whether you are doing the right thing or not, but I hope it works out for you. [thanks

AnyFucker · 23/01/2016 16:33

Good luck

I am going to make no comment on whether you are doing the right thing or not, but I hope it works out for you. [thanks

AnyFucker · 23/01/2016 16:33

Good luck

I am going to make no comment on whether you are doing the right thing or not, but I hope it works out for you. [thanks

AnyFucker · 23/01/2016 16:34
Thanks

Sorry for repeated posts, I tried to rescue the flowers Smile

BathtimeFunkster · 23/01/2016 16:34

And truly sorry only works if you honestly intend not to do something again.

And it only works if you are honest about what you have done.

Which you know he is not being. Your hole in one analogy was excellent.

then dancer asked if he wanted "standard or the special" and the idiot said "the special"

Come on, poor little innocent "idiot" asked for "the special" because he thought it meant it came with chips? Hmm

There is no way you are stupid enough to believe that.

Gabilan · 23/01/2016 16:55

Take time to process things OP. You don't have to make a decision now and even if you do, you can change your mind later.
If what he says is true, I would hate the fact that he'd paid a woman for sex and put his wife's health at risk. But it would be the accomplished lying I think I couldn't get past - I don't think I'd trust him.