Husband used ‘massage’ parlours numerous times. How to move on?

[Bengal12]

So I’ve found out that my husband of 9 years have made repeat visits to ‘massage’ parlours for ‘happy endings’.
Found a couple of old messages on his iPad by accident and confronted him straight away. He denied it for a week claiming it was just a fantasy but both messages had him saying ‘I’m in the street, what’s your door number’ so I refused to believe him. He eventually fessed up but it took him a week where I was in a complete shock, could not sleep, eat or focus.
He tried to play it down saying that although it’s been going on for 5 months, he only had gone a couple of times.
Well, by this stage I had cross checked his blocked numbers against his car satnav and google searching the number + massage and I knew it was more than that.
Cut the long story short, he finally said that it was more like 10 times and gave me full access to his phone and iCloud so i accessed all his old deleted WhatsApp messages and I know it was actually 12 times he paid the hookers to get his end away. He claims it was ‘just’ hand jobs at the end of a naked body to body massage but there are 5 messages where he asks if they would do full Dec with the massage. Each time the response is ‘no’ but that does not mean that he could not have called to book full sex with someone else... not that it would make it any worse as he has done enough to make me feel disgusted and utterly betrayed.
Yet... I am still thinking that we should give our relationship a go, I do love him.
Let’s be clear, I do t need him and I have lived by myself before - perfectly happily. But other than this the relationship was perfect! Can’t believe I’m even saying this as clearly it was not but we had good sex life, lovely holidays and a good social life.
He is not sure why he did it, says the first time it happened it was after a normal massage - she offered him an extra and he did not say no... and then he got a taste for it and. Kept going. He also says that he was worried about not being able to come as often as he used to (I’d every night) but he is in his late forties! And I thought I made it clear to him that I did not mind - because I did not. He has always complimented me on my figure/ looks etc and says it has nothing to do with me not being sexy enough, it’s just his stupidity.
I want us to stay together but it’s been over 2 months since I found out and I’m still having thoughts about him actually paying someone to wxxnk him off and other women sliding their pert bodies over his.
I was a complete wreck for a month but have pulled myself together out of the black hole and I’m now starting to think logically. But perhaps I should think with my heart? Opinions and experiences welcome...

@Bluntness100, humour and sarcasm are my coping mechanisms. I don’t find the situation funny, far from it. But I refuse to be defeated and pushed back into the black hole of despair I found myself for about a month after finding out. Where I cried, threw up and shook uncontrollably and couldn’t control obsessive thoughts. But then still had to put on a professional front at work and a happy face in front of the kids.
I only told my boss recently as I did drop a ball on one of my projects and he was very gently enquiring if I was OK as it was a rookie error. I also needed to go for the therapy sessions during lunch- and I don’t usually take breaks preferring to finish earlier. And he said that he had not noticed anything and it was so typical of me to be so swan-like. Not graceful but calm/collected on the surface while no one knows what’s going on beneath.
Sometimes I can be flippant so as not to betray the extent of hurt I’m experiencing, perhaps I’m in denial but I’m definitely not finding it funny or being an attention seeker.
I am asking for other people’s perspective as I have been uncomfortable with the professional advice I’ve received thus far but not having been in the situation before I feel confused and don’t know myself what I should be thinking half of the time.

And no, I cannot quite bring myself to ‘shag’ him...

Oh OP. You poor love. You’re still in shock I think which is why you’re trying to cling to any explanation possible that would make this salvageable :( and shame on your counsellor, is she actually BABCP registered? She sounds inept, it’s not for her to tell you your relationship is strong and worth fighting for. She should be giving you space to come to whatever conclusion is best for you yourself, not trying to push you towards staying.

What you said about doing nice things like collecting you from the station and spending on holidays and gifts made me feel sick to read, it’s his guilty conscience, that’s why he’s been trying to make things right by doing nonsense like giving you a lift home while simultaneously keeping you in the dark unable to make decisions about your own life. He’s trying to buy your forgiveness and for that alone I’d be so incredibly insulted I couldn’t move past it. How little he thinks of you that paying for holidays and gifts will make it right that he has betrayed you so deeply.

At the end of the day, he didn’t do it once and then feel sick and vow to take it to his grave (which would still be unforgivable for me but seems lesser), he did it, loved it so much he did it another eleven times, got off with another woman’s hands (cos they wouldn’t allow him to fuck them like he wanted to), the knowledge he was betraying his wife wasn’t enough to stop him from having that precious orgasm and a part of him clearly wasn’t fussed at all about you, not when he was messaging them or traveling to them, the thought of my OH eagerly hopping onto a massage table naked with a hard on eager for a bloody hand job from a stranger over and over again, I could never go near him again, ever.

Wake up OP. He doesn’t respect you. He doesn’t see you as enough for him. You love him but whatever he feels for you in return sure isn’t love, I don’t know what it is but it’s not what you deserve. To be able to betray someone that deeply and exact that amount of suffering on them you must loathe them on some level I always feel.

God I’m so sorry. Don’t throw your life away trying to make it work with a man who wasn’t remotely bothered whether he kept you or not. Sickening.

On the professional advice front, see it from a different way. If you saw your gp about a mole and they said it would probably be ok, would you get a second opinion? You’ve tried this counsellor and she isn’t giving you what you need. Try someone else, because being a “swan” (which I can completely relate to) will wear you down over time.

The counsellor is useless, is your cheating husband paying her to say things that support him?

There will be more than 12 occasions, this is his hobby, he does it to indulge himself because he's 'worth it'

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts, opinions and advice. Hugely helpful, all of them.

Will be looking for a new therapist as I can see why the current one’s advice didn’t sit well with me. She kept referring to it as an ‘infidelity’ but - as we know there is infidelity and there is infidelity.., all of them bad but it’s one thing to fall in love and quite another to pay for a 20year old from Thailand to wank you. I am so naive that I believed his explanation that the first time he was offered a hand job after a normal massage. As one of you pointed out, a respected masseuse wouldn’t so he must have actively looked for a dodgy one.

I feel stronger but still incredulous that this is all happening...

Really concerned about your counsellor, sadly there are some craps ones practising and you may have encountered one, please please please go to the BACP website and find a handful of local ones from there, go and have a trial session with a few and pick one you gel with. This would be a good idea whatever you decide about your marriage.

And I think you will never be able to trust him again, which will eat away at you and erode any love you currently feel. What he has done, the extent of the lying (he lied to you for a WEEK, even when you asked him! WTF!) is so awful. I wouldn't be able to get past this in your shoes.

Qualified counsellors usually don’t tell you what to do. They help you work out what’s best for you.

the black hole of despair I found myself for about a month after finding out. Where I cried, threw up and shook uncontrollably and couldn’t control obsessive thoughts. But then still had to put on a professional front at work and a happy face in front of the kids.

Call me naive but I don't think a good relationship not marriage has you feeling like this at any time.

It's disgusting, disrespectful, immoral, no integrity, deceitful, utterly selfish, deceitful behaviour.

*or marriage

He doesn't deserve to be married to you or anyone op; he fundamentally thought it wax ok for him to pay for sexual services (and was trying to set up full sexual intercourse as well) while in a 'monogamous' committed relationship and cover it up. He's not partner material, he's not relationship material.

He’d be gone.

FYI - I know someone that offers these ‘happy ending massages’ they always say no in messages or phone calls to questions about sex as prostitution is illegal. However, they will offer the service f2f once they’re more confident they’re not dealing with police etc!

Well prostitution isn’t but running/managing brothels which these things usually are, is.

“Qualified counsellors usually don’t tell you what to do. They help you work out what’s best for you.”

OP exactly, as a PP wrote..this! Out of interest, has your counsellor told you what to do?

Also please take into account that we are not qualified counsellors here! The general MN consensus tends to be LTB and is coloured largely by past experience and reading other similar threads.

All of us are different and we all have different stories. We work out what is best for us individually. Now I had a crap marriage but would never, on only reading a few sentences from someone who’d experienced similar, say LTB.

I know couples where one has had an affair which resulted in them splitting, and I’ve known others where they’ve managed to save the relationship and work at it. I think communication and total honesty between them was what got them through it. You are very much in the driving seat here. I would say the best thing to take from other posts is it will have opened your eyes a little more and consider different perspectives. I do hope you manage to come to the right decision for you.

If his fantasy of sex outdoors was due to the risk of being caught, do you think he was getting off on the risk of you catching him? Because that is really horrible.

I know a couple of people with counselling qualifications. Both would be fairly credible to the outsider but in reality they hold views that would make me question their suitability. One of them turned a blind eye to repeated cheating in their own marriage and firmly believes it's a woman's responsibility to maintain the home.

It took me three attempts to find a decent counsellor for myself. It's not a case of shopping around till you find someone who tells you what you want to hear - more that you can tell they are tailoring their advice to you rather than slotting you into some pre-set scenarios/beliefs they've already studied.

My Psychologist told me that my husband’s physical violence wasn’t necessarily a reason to leave a relationship and just a sign that the realationship was weak. .

Honestly, I think some of these counsellors have to be broad minded which is great, but sometimes it goes too far. You have to find someone that has common sense and similar values to your own. Of course a relationship can be salvaged but I guess the question is, is it worth the risk of it happening again ? Do you have a few years and a few thousand to sit in counselling ? Do you have the energy to do the work and if it still didn’t work out how would you feel ?

I know someone that worked in the sex industry and she said that there were so many married men that it wasn’t funny. People from all walks of life and she could name so many people we knew. You are the only woman and you’re a wife not a private eye ~ why WOULD you be aware of someone going behind your back ?

I think it’s an issue that he’s spending family money on sex services, his view of women, his lack of communication, putting himself and you at risk of stis, driving so far for sex and out of way, not confessing, level of research finding services etc.

If you’ve no kids I’d be inclined to find someone who is nice AND a gentleman. You CAN have both. Life is short.

As for your elderly parents, if they’re conservative they won’t like the fact he was running around the countryside paying for prostitutes. Paint yourself as the innocent victim which you are, it’s all in the delivery and the wording.

do you think he was getting off on the risk of you catching him
the thrill of getting away with something heightens the experience, the gleeful little boy who disobeyed mummy and stole an extra slice of cake

I stayed with my ExH for many years because I didn’t want my parents to despair because both their DCs divorced. When I finally made the break and told my DPs why they were concerned about me, not how it reflected on their parenting skills.

Your DPs will want you to be happy. Tell them what has happened and let them help you move on.

Yes counsellors often present a different viewpoint to provoke you into thinking. It is also important they are non-judgemental so there may be an element of her showing she is accepting it. My counsellor said a lot of things I didn’t agree with or was offended by tbh and I haven’t seen her for a year and it still winds me up.

How to move on? Ltb.

I’m glad others have pointed out that you don’t just end up with a prostitute for a massage

My XH was and is a fan of prostitutes.

He too had an “innocent” massage
At Bubbles Spa, with all blacked out windows on a city side street in a dodgy area. Funnily enough, my second husband has massages too. Weird thing is, he booked in at PhysioDirect with a qualified sports massage therapist.

I had a similar situation to you, in that - there seemed to be nothing wrong with our marriage. So... how could I fix it?

I found out much later, he’d been using prostitutes since he was 19 (we married at 28) and never stopped - through my marriage to him, or his second marriage - second wife came to me when he claimed to her it “was the first time, honest”

So the thing for me, was that there simply was no “rebuilding trust”.

Firstly, you ever hear the analogy of a broken plate? You can glue it, you can use it, you can even like it. The repair might be barely visible any more, and really strong. BUT... it will always have been broken.

Secondly, how do you ever rebuild trust? It’s this point about there having been nothing wrong in the first place. What can we fix? How can you know he’s not still doing it? I would never have trusted again.

My friend had an affair - cliché, with her PT. She went to counselling, was able to pinpoint with her husband the opportunistic element coupled with feeling crap about a post pregnancy body, which suddenly felt sexy again, which he hadn’t even commented on - ignoring her and their child for his hobby. They had a LOT of counselling. I really think they survived.

My XH offered me nothing - the same lies as you’ve had that it wasn’t often. The same nothing to fix situation. And an activity that can be easily hidden - how will you ever know he hasn’t done it again?

I left. Not the first time more fool me.

My counsellor was shit too, but at least he wasn’t unprofessional enough to say completely unwarranted things about the strength of our relationship.

What fucked me off most though, wasn’t even the actual cheating. It was the fact he chose to play Russian roulette with my sexual health. Don’t let anyone fool you with all the crap about how prostitutes are the “cleanest” affairs, because they get tested regularly. There’s a bloody reason they’re getting tested so often. And plenty offer “bareback” for the right price.

And simply the ethics of it. Any small amount of reading around the subject exposes just how often these are vulnerable women with little other choice - or literally forced with no choice. There are some women who post on here who are sex workers, who’ll tell you they’re happy and it’s a choice. And I believe them. Not so much the pimped out ex care drug addict 19yo working in “Bubbles” spa though

That’s the man you’re with. I didn’t want that - even if I could trust he’d never do it again.

OP. My ex told me he felt emasculated because I'd helped him with debt, salvaged his business (by basically buying it off him and restarting it in my name) and generally helping to support him when things went down the tubes for him. At this stage I still thought he was my lovely romantic soul mate. My person. My kids didn't like him either.

Turns out he was asking clients to pay him direct which has caused me HUGE financial issues, and shagging around behind my back. But because he felt 'emasculated' he felt his actions were somehow justifiable.

Op your husband's mask is now off. This is who he is. And I get the flippancy thing. It somehow makes it easier to cope.

What your husband has done is indefensible. He's charmed the pants off your counsellor and she's lapped it all up and thrown you under the bus.

I really hope you find the strength to dump his sorry arse but I get that nothing is ever as black and white as it seems when you write out snippets of your life of a forum.

Sending

@over50andfab, the counsellor did not exactly say ‘you should stay’ but the statements she has made, examples she’s given and the way she asks questions has led to an unequivocal conclusion. Yes, she says the decision is mine to make but also makes a lot of references to people giving up all too easily ‘when the going gets tough’.
So if push came to shove, I couldn’t say that yes she definitely said ‘you should fight for your marriage’ using exactly these words. But she would have strongly implied that - but then she could turn around and say that I’ve misinterpreted her intentions. Easily done, esp when you’re on the edge and emotional.
Chatting here is helpful, as it gives me a different perspective even if the almost unanimous view is to LTB. I wish I could see things in black & white, I very much used to think that infidelity would spell the end to a relationship.
But as it turned out, I didn’t follow the theory in practice. You never know how you’re going to react until you’ve actually been in that situation.
A couple years ago a friend of mine found out that her husband had a child with another woman- a result of an affair that went on while she was pregnant with their second child. He kept it quite for almost two decades before telling her - she did not have a clue. My reaction was - ditch the bastard. And I honestly thought she was demeaning herself by going through with therapy and trying to save the marriage - which she did and they seem happy.
But at the time I could not understand why she bothered.
Perhaps I started the therapy too early (2 weeks after the d day). But I was actually experiencing a physical pain in my chest + all the other symptoms I described and felt like I was losing my mind.
So it was for my own sake, not to save my marriage.
And perhaps, the therapist got the wrong vibe from me at the time. I kept saying I love him, How great our relationship was, how comfortable we used to be with each other. I am not trying to find excuses for her, I am being objective. I have actually taken action today and called her to cancel the next session and found someone else on the BACP website.
I feel I’m in a better place now to Get the help I need.
A number of articles I’ve read said not to make rush decisions in the first 2-3 months after discovering an infidelity. I always assumed that this referred to splitting up and was almost congratulating myself for NOT making a rush decision. But, perhaps I did rush after all - by letting him stay.