Massage Parlours

[User2102]

I'm a long-time user but have name changed for anonymity on this thread as I think some old posts might be a bit identifying. I'm in a bit of a state and could do with some advice. Please be gentle with me. I've been married to DH for 12 years, together for 18. Two fantastic DS' aged 9 and 5. We're happy, good sex life (at least once a week) and our life together is, I think, good. Several holidays a year, no money worries, good friends, happy family. He has a high-pressured but high-paid job, I'm training for a new profession after several years as a SAHM. This post is long as I don't want to drip feed and am finding it helpful to write it all down.

I was borrowing DH's phone a few days ago (couldn't find mine, wanted to do a quick search - both of us have that thing where it's unlocked in the house) and a predictive thing came up on google "fbsm". I was curious and clicked on the top link - it was for a directory and forum listing and reviewing places for "full body sensual massage". I was suspicious and went straight to his searches and found that he'd been on and off this site for a few days alongside searches for other individual massage parlours. I felt sick and a bit shaken but kept it together. He'd popped out and so I hid my snooping and decided to do nothing. We live rurally in the south and he was due to head up to London for the night the next day to catch up with friends. I was surprised he'd booked such an early train - I guess I now know why.

I think the reason I was so suspicious was that DH has form for this. Just after DS was born I found a load of searches for massage parlours offering a "happy ending" (judging by the style and content of the search and pages) on our shared laptop. Again, it was a case predictive search text, followed by me digging deeper. I confronted him and he apologised, said that he was just curious and would never do anything about it but was worried I might not want sex again after giving birth. We got back to some sort of equilibrium and tried to put things behind us. I certainly felt as though we'd moved on.

After the latest discovery I did some more digging on our laptop and found his username (but not his password) for thus forum site. I registered for the site myself and could see that he's been a member since 2014. No reviews left, but reading through the other reviews and chats that are on there it's clear that this is all about finding and rating sexual services. Whilst he was in London I decided to look at his phone activity (if someone's logged into Google on a PC and is using Google on their phone, you can use the PC to monitor through myactivity.google) and saw that he was using maps to find an atm, and a random address in Islington, plus more massage parlour searches.

Now he's back and I'm carrying on as normal - God knows how. I have no "proof" that anything has happened, just the same uneasy feeling. I haven't mentioned anything as I almost want to keep my powder dry and see how things play out, but at the same time I just want to scream at him for putting our relationship, beautiful family, home, life at risk like this. How dare he be so disrespectful to me, to these women and to everything we've built together. On the other hand, I just want to turn a blind eye and not have to deal with any of this. I just want to rewind and wish I'd never found anything - although I'm having to stop myself looking for more.
Has anyone lived through thus sort of thing and either found a way to confront their partner or found a way to bury it and carry on?

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You need to take lots of screen shots while you decide what to do. If you decide to split and divorce you will need good proof to be able to get as good a settlement as possible.

Whatever you decide, I hope it all works out for you, what a terrible situation to find yourself in.

Thank you daffy, am on it, good idea. I'd taken a couple, but will go through the Giogle stuff and get more.

What is it you waiting for ?

If you want to confront/end your relationship you have all the proof you need.

If you want someone to tell you it's ok to stay with a man who uses prostitutes, then I suppose you might get one or two who might tell you book yourself in for that lobotomy and "stay for the children"

Every time he goes out or to London you will drive yourself mad wondering what he’s doing, that’s no way to live. You know what he’s doing, tell him you know and go from there.

Yes, I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm not a person who can just live with it. Looks like we'll be having that conversation. Might be difficult to get online for a few hours as DH and kids are milling around.

You deserve so much more than his sneaky and seedy behaviour.

He’s spending your family money on sexual services, abusing your trust and putting himself in risky situations.

Get mad, don’t stand for it!

This is who you are married to, there isn’t a different less sleazy or me truthful version waiting around the corner. You can bury it if you wish but it will be at the expense of your MH.

Can you afford to put a private detective onto him the next time he goes out to London for the day/evening? Then you would get photographic evidence of him actually visiting one of these places, which is really what it sounds as if you need.

He is no doubt already visiting them and already did in the past. I would not believe a word he says about just being curious. Nobody makes that many searches for something like that without having some kind of personal interest. I don't go looking for furniture paint because I'm curious, it' because I want to paint my furniture.

So really I don't think you need proof to know he is doing it. You have enough proof though, if you like, from his Google location searches for an ATM close to where the prostitutes work. I bet if you checked his statement, he will have pulled money from a cashpoint there on at least one occasion. Money that tallies with the price of sex at one of those places.

My ex had several searches for sex clubs in Dublin in his Google history. We were long distance, so Lord knows what was actually going on. We had had a massive argument, but sorted it out. We had just been talking on the phone, he was very loving and kind and planning my next trip to visit him. Within seconds of getting off the phone, he was looking for a sex club and visited one of their sites. He also made several searches for erotic massage places.

I didn't find this out until literally months after it happened though, and quite by chance. I got checked out for STDs, all came back clear... phew.... I think you need to "box clever", don't let on that you know, and if you want actual hard evidence, have him followed.

You could track his activity for a couple of weeks online (or do retrospective search) so that you have proof of his patterns of behaviour - eg twice a week etc so that when you have the confrontation you know that when he comes back with it was only this once because of xyz - you know he is lying - just like he did 9 years ago.

This is who he is. You will need an STI test.

I am sorry this has happened. You should set yourself up with some high quality therapy to see you through so that you can cope with this fallout for your DC.

I learnt a while ago that nice family men can be just as big twats and often come with less red flags day to day , let’s face it Ozo, he probably never stopped. I would try and keep quiet for a day or two and whip through his bank statements. I suspect this goes on every time he goes away. I think you will never trust again, so it won’t work. Give yourself a small bit of breathing space to mentally think through financials etc

This is awful op. I'd get as much evidence as possible so the screen shots of him clearly looking for an atm then looking for happy ending massage and a random address. Can you do some digging and see if the address is associated with massage? I think loads of evidence is important because he'll likely try to deny it all.

ps There is no unseeing.... and for me personally, there was no fixing it or forgetting about it. He denied and denied as I had no actual concrete proof, and I could never forget about it. In the end, he was verbally and emotionally abusive towards me, and that, together with the lying and gaslighting, was the inevitable end. He is still sniffing around, but I've moved on. I could never forgive the obvious use of sex clubs, prostitutes and the double life. The lies were somehow worse though. I just wondered who the hell I had been spending my time with.

He denied it with so many ridiculous lies that in the end, the lies felt much worse than what he had been doing. He told me it was his work mates messing around on his phone (he was off work and at home at the time), then he said he had no idea how those searches were there, then he said a friend had borrowed his phone, then that it must have been searches from his other phone that was stolen.

Of course this was all crap - plus I work in technology and he could never lie to me about anything IT related.

The lies and his gaslighting and abuse killed off any remnants of love I had for him. I could never go back to him, never entertain the thought of a future with someone who was so blase about putting my health at risk, lying to me so easily and I realised that I was not in love with the REAL person.

If you search his username within the forum, or Google the forum with his username in speech marks you'll see if he's commented on people's posts.

I'd calmly ask him to sit down and open the history in front of him and tell him to explain. And then tell him to explain why he's lying to you when he claims he was just curious.

DH has form for this. Just after DS was born I found a load of searches for massage parlours offering a "happy ending" (judging by the style and content of the search and pages) on our shared laptop. Again, it was a case predictive search text, followed by me digging deeper. I confronted him and he apologised, said that he was just curious and would never do anything about it but was worried I might not want sex again after giving birth.

Sorry to be so blunt but this is what happens when women brush things under the carpet and continue in a relationship when they're being given strong evidence of a man's outlook and behaviour.

Pathetic excuse in his part and still totally unacceptable - he was saying he felt it was ok to seek sex elsewhere behind your back, using the sex industry if you couldn't/didn't want to have sex following the birth of your child!!!! That in itself ...

If turns out he also thinks it's ok regardless of whether you have regular sex or not - but it was there in lights at that point.

I understand you may feel you need (even more) concrete proof - you have more than enough but I fully understand how you'd want it.

As a result I would NOT confront him about this but would quietly, skilfully gather further info and watch him as he goes about his business doing this ... The poster about the PI may have a point if you feel the need for a photo of him entering the premises. You don't but ..

Bear in.mind if you confront him with hat it will have been a mistake, it will not have been a massage parlour or masseurs work base .. or .. he will not have had anything sexual in there. Unless you plan on on bribing them to CCTV him getting a wank/blow job/having sex ... This will just go on with lies and excuses and covering up better (and perhaps abstaining for a while) indefinitely.

He's a sex worker user, he's a sex industry client, he's a punter - who does so whether he has a partner of not.

There's no point confronting him, trying to resolve this. The only resolution for your mental and physical health is to separate from him.

I would work out all the practical, financial etc necessities at your leisure so you are in a position to move.

You will meet someone else sooner or later who does not behave like this. There are men who don't use prostitutes (call a spade a spade, it's what this is).

OP this would be a complete deal breaker for me.

Please get yourself checked and have a smear re HPV check.

Check bank withdrawals and the reviews as recommended by PP as him leaving a review is unequivocal proof. In fact on his phone he may have saved the password so you could log on to his account directly.

Please protect yourself, whatever you decide to do.

You can't brush this under the carpet for a 2nd time. Its bad enough he was 'looking' last time but I guarantee he did more than look back then. You found out and now he's doing it AGAIN. He has no respect for you at all. He is sneaking around and lying to you and putting your health at risk too. You have all the evidence you need to end things. He will try to wriggle out of it and say he hasn't actually done anything but it shouldn't matter what he says. Make your mind up to end things, then just do it.
You deserve so much better than this.

I think I would use a PI so that I had some concrete evidence to discuss with him. Otherwise you are likely to get fobbed off again when you try and discuss this.

Despite the hurt, angst and upset he caused before, he has carried on. You have only found out by chance. He never stopped, he just told you what you needed to hear. He has shat all over your marriage, your lives, your family. He is paying for sexual services. He will never, ever stop. For anyone. This is who he is.

I would gather as much information as possible. Proof he is spending family money on prostitutes. Screen shots, bank statements. Gather all financials and get them in order.
I’m sorry op

I don't even think you need any more evidence. I certainly wouldn't waste money on a PI. The fact he's been looking is enough and he will attempt to lie his way out of any evidence you produce. Just tell him you have evidence of what he's been doing and that your marriage is over. Because, to be quite frank, it should be.

To go against the grain (as I tend to do) I don’t think a massage that ends in a hand job is that big of a deal. It’s probably almost clinical in nature and the for the masseuse just another day at the office. It’s not like there is one particular person he’s fixated on and lots of emotions involved. Again my views in this respect tend to be very different to most people. I certainly don’t think it’s worth ending a marriage over. What would piss me off however is the sneaking about and lying about it!

Agree you need to admit it’s over

The woman giving that hand job is not doing it because she finds him attractive is she? She is being exploited for his seedy needs. Unless I missed something, he has 2 hands and a wife.

His USE of such a person is an indication of his entitlement and view of women

The woman giving that hand job is not doing it because she finds him attractive is she? She is being exploited for his seedy needs

I often wonder who is truly being exploited in this scenario. I have friends in the sex industry and they relish it. Thoroughly enjoy what they do and earn a pretty penny doing it.

Unless I missed something, he has 2 hands and a wife

I’ve often heard it said that having a wife is like having a delicious meal with all the trimmings but sometimes you want something quick from the Drive-Thru!