Escorts - perspective urgently needed

[rebelrebel3]

So I've been reading the 'husband watching porn" thread and thinking about the spectrum of views - right through from condemnation/ disgust to comfortable acceptance - and am wondering if the same re use of escorts? My dp has a thing for this and despite claiming to have put it behind him, whenever I check up on this (ie stalk him, I know it's wrong but I get desperate at times), then there's always a last time within the last few months. Because he can't talk openly about it and lies his head off, I'm then left having to assume he does this quite a lot - I don't mean daily (he wouldn't have the time or money) but it could potentially be as much as once a week, just in terms of opportunity. At my most anxious this is what I think - but if if I had to put money on it I'd guess at 3 or 4 times a year.
We have a great relationship in all respects except this but it's hard not to let it affect everything else, especially how I feel sexually. One of the worst aspects is not knowing how to respond, sometimes I have to split up with him but mainly I'm telling myself to find a way to cope better, be more accepting etc - which is why the porn thread was so interesting. So many of you seem to have accepted that watching porn is a normal part of life and crucially, you've stopped wanting to control your man's behaviour / sexuality (or perhaps you never wanted to control him in the first place). I think I'm quite controlling and I think this comes from a place of fear and wanting to feel safe /loved for who I am, which I never have. DP feels i am intrusive and over-demanding - that I should accept there's a 'him' who I have a relationship with and other aspects that are none of my business. I don't really know how he feels at heart about the escort thing - I think extremely mixed up, but at least part of him thinks it's a normal part of male sexuality (he's said this on occasion) so when he talks about it as something he's given up, like an addiction, it lacks credibility.
Sorry this is so long- winded but I would love to know your responses - would you try to accommodate the escorts or would see this as - dealbreaker.

I don't really know how he feels at heart about the escort thing - I think extremely mixed up, but at least part of him thinks it's a normal part of male sexualit

So he thinks rape is normal.

Fucking hell, OP... I'm struggling with my response tbh!!!

Firstly, unless you have an open marriage, this is so not ok. At all!

Sleeping with other people in a committed, monogamous relationship is bad. LTB bad, most of the time. Sleeping with an escort? Totally and completely unforgivable - imho.

OP, is there anyone close to you you can talk to? Your self-esteem sounds like it's on the floor. Very worried about you

Thank you Cardinal for your lovely, kind words. Yes we own a house, share the biggest mortgage I've ever been half of, so splitting up isn't simple. We both have kids from previous relationships, mine live us, his come and go. I dread uprooting mine again after divorce, they love our home, all through my stupidness they have suffered already

Your kids are going to suffer more from having this guy as their main male role model than they will from you leaving and the upheaval that comes with that.

Your partner is making you feel guilty for past offences, in order to excuse future ones that are far worse. It's a bit like someone saying "well, you stole a chocolate bar from a shop when you were 16, so you can't complain about me stealing half a million pounds now".

I have a friend in a similar position to you. Her partner is very charming, very clever, very articulate - and a serial shagger who has used prostitutes. Like you, she seems bewildered and unable to find the moral strength she needs to leave him. She is about to put everything she has earned in her life onto a very risky gamble with him, and I just want to scream "STOP!" at her. I can't make her leave, but I think it would be enormously in her best interests to do so.

The escort thing is so not right that I can't begin to tell you but now you've given us the backstory I 100% get it. I had an affair with a total fucking psychopath man that was all very messy. Like yours, he strung the leaving of his wife out over a long period and there was a period where I knew in my heart that he was still shagging us both but lying to me about it and how he had to be around her still for the house/kids/dog blah blah blah. I just ignored it or tried to.

But because of the messiness of how we got together and the general ambiguity of the relationship status for a long time, I felt I had to put up with this nonsense. Not to mention, as someone said upthread, the sunk cost idea that I had given up so much and fucked so many people around in persuit of this relationship that I had to carry on. He also assumed always that I was as dodgy as him and would accuse me of cheating and flirting and I never did, he was the one who couldn't keep his pants on, not me.

And I will say that he was one of the worst humans I've ever come across, proper mental case and a gas lighter and a faithless, lying arsehole: a genuine piece of work that I'm convinced would be classified as a psychopth and even he wouldn't have sunk so low as to a) use escorts b) openly tell me that was just part of life and something all men do. Jesus Christ, you poor woman. Leave this man. Go. To think this is in anyway normal you have been badly abused by this relationship.

FellOut thank you so much for this, you've hit the nail in the head there, the messiness of it all, never having had a time when things were clear and clean - you get used to it and you want SO much for it to turn out ok, sacrifice so much for the same of this....And you feel complicit - that's the word I keep coming back to. I knew x, y and z and I went along with those things, how can I turn round now and say I'm not happy. Boiled frog is right too, for everyone who's said this. Sometimes I look at my life in sheer disbelief at the things I take as normal - a man who has videoed himself having sex with various women (some paid some not) without their permission and keeps these vids on his phone for me to find while snooping, also pics of his knob in the mouth of someone who looks about 19 (he is 55)....

Rebel...I'm so sorry you're in this situation.

That being said...I'm going to be blunt. Please use this as a wake up call and leave this vile excuse for a man.

Don't let him make you think this is somehow part of being a normal 'bloke'. It is not. Decent, normal men do not do this.

Your husband clearly has some serious deep seated issues with women.

And the way he turns his vile behaviour around so that the issue is yours for daring to know about it...that's emotional abuse frankly.

Please, please, please see a solicitor and the CAB and start to get some info on getting away from this vile creature.

The messiness is your problem here: I'm glad you identified with what I said because I really identified with this post and it reminded me of that horrible sick feeling of never knowing quite where you stand and how when that goes on for years (as mind did and yours has) it total confuses your perspective of what's normal.

The difference is that I'm on the other side of it now and that I can confidently say that the mist clears very quickly once you're not being gas lighted. I know it's not as easy as to pack a bag and leave, but leave you must, you really, really must xxx

So he's a criminal too then?

Because if he doesn't ask for permission it's illegal.

He sounds like a nasty cunt tbh.

I understand you don't want to complain when so much shit has happened but there is shit and then there is this.

He doesn't respect any woman.

Don't you get it? You're just a hole. Not a very interesting one too, because you're what he has every few days.

I expect you don't want to be alone but is this sleaze really better?

I'm cringing thinking of how smug that little shit is.

When someone shows you who they are-- believe them.

He's videoing women without their consent as well?! Good god, this is getting worse...

How much more are you prepared to put up with?! This is so so so bad. Get the hell out of there! I wouldn't even feel safe being around him.

FellOut if you don't mind me asking how did you get to the point of being able to see straight and having the strength to end it ? Was there a big last straw moment or did things just build up gradually ?
I am scared that with each new terrible thing I get LESS able to act, as though this experience is draining my blood... You'd hope it would be the opposite and you'd get gradually stronger.. I feel I need something massive to happen but I can't even imagine what, have very extreme thoughts about this at times. Would love to hear your experience

Oh and don't be surprised if he's shared videos of you both. Possibly online.

The videoing is shocking - another layer of crap.

As to how you can do it, well, you've made the first and enormous step today by posting here and getting a "reality check" - a whole group of us saying to you "no this is not normal, no this is not right, no it's not your fault, it is his fault because he is a scummy and quite possibly criminal bastard."

The possible next steps - talk to a friend in RL, or find a counsellor. (Out of interest, do you have friends in RL, or has he done the classic abuser thing of isolating you from any support network?)

It may not feel like it now, but you can do this.

I'm in absolute shock reading this thread. He's done an absolute number on you. He's repugnant. He's sleeping with other women, filming them without their consent, leaving videos and pictures for you to find, blaming you???? He's a vile creature and you know this. This just is not normal. Absolutely shocking. He's abusive to these women by filming them and he's massively abusive to you. The damage he has done to you emotionally is really serious. You deserve so much more than this. I don't know if you have a daughter but how on earth would you feel if she was living your life. Think about it. You'd want to kill him right? You'd get her out of there in any way you possibly could. Your emotional health is and will continue to be at risk as long as you stay with him. It's absolutely sickening OP. Please get some support and leave him. He'll destroy you

I am a man and even I'll say it.

LTB

rebel No, I don't mind you asking-it had all been getting very bad for ages, I thought he was sleeping with one of his sixth formers but couldn't prove it (he was a teacher, I had been his student too but by then was in my mid twenties). I had a pregnancy scare and he went mad, accusing me of doing it on purpose to trap him (which I absolutely hadn't, I was terrified of being pregnant because I loved him but I knew what a mess it was and how bad an environment this would be to have a baby in) and he then beat the absolute shit out of me. That was the end for me. I couldn't do another day of ignoring what I knew was true: he was a bad person and he didn't even care about beating me up when I was potentially pregnant with his child. I knew that eventually he would kill me, it might take months or it might take years but he was going to kill me in the end.

I wasn't pregnant in the end and he was fucking a 17 year old. I loved him and had loved him for ten years and I missed him despite his many bad traits and psycho tendencies. But as the years went and go on I have never for a single second regretted leaving him that day: he was a bad man and I maintain I would have ended up dying at his hand in the end.

Rebel, you might be in shock at the replies at the moment, hence not feeling able to do anything more drastic. Give yourself time for this all to sink in. But you will need to leave him. You see that don't you?

Yes, he's a really vile man, and very abusive. It's true what all the pp's have written.

When was your lobotomy again ?

Your relationship started with dishonesty. Of course it's carried on that way.

Wow - FallOut your story is shocking, I'm so sorry you went through that, thank god you managed to escape. Aminuts thanks for that thought, I have 2 gorgeous teenage daughters and you're right, I'd want to kill anyone who treated anyone like this.

Yes I AM in shock and the reality check has been incredible today - really painful but in a good way. Hard too as I'm not close to anyone now apart from him - as Hedgehog said he's definitely had a role in that - though I do still have my male friend, the one he caught me texting! I promised to give him up at the time but never did which shows I'm not a total sucker I guess! Feel quite hopeful thinking of this

Can your family help you get away from him? Can they support you and could you stay there?

Didn't read the porn thread as to me it's a non-issue (on occasion I watch it too), but there is absolutely no way I'd tolerate my DP using escorts! Having sex with someone else is a world away from watching others have sex. Ditch his ass!

rebel the most shocking thing about how it ended was that he beat the life half out of me and yet until that point had shown no violent tendencies (I knew him over 12 years and had been romantically involved for over 8) and just did not seem like the type. He was a kind of teddy bear of a man- little and squishy and harmless seeming.... anyone who knew him was very surprised to hear what a lunatic he was and how violent he became- he had (what I know now see was a very carefully constructed) public persona which was very different.

And that worries me for you - your partner sounds quite mad, manipulative and terrifying in his sociopathic tendencies. Is beating you half to death his next move? I don't mean to scare you, it just he sounds unpredictable and cruel.

Jesus christ what a scum bag! A smug scum bag. Shagging whoever he wants and it's somehow your fault OP for not being fine with this? I could not look at let alone live with a man who has such little regard for women. God I hope you don't have children together.

And for what it's worth I look at my husbands phone all the time and he can use mine when ever. Because we are on the same team and respect each other.

Sadly no help from family. Only way out would be to sell the house - doable but slow.