Found out DH had private lapdances

[SugarPlumRoar]

I'm trying really hard not to be dramatic here and I'm not going to LTB because the reality is the relationship now is so different to what we had back then but I feel so bloody sad and angry and every other emotion that I feel I shouldn't have because it was so long ago.

A number of days ago DH admitted during a conversation that he had a private lapdance whilst we were living together but before we married so over 10 years ago. Upon questioning it seems it wasn't just a drunken one off he felt guilty about it was 4 or 5 separate occasions.

I've never been a fan of strip clubs but acknowledged back then that his group of friends would end up there as it was a newly opened shiny object. My red line was always no private dances. He knew this. He knew I felt like a private dance was a personal thing that it's a sexual interaction as you're getting excited and getting turned on by a naked women dancing on and for you and to me it felt like a form of cheating.

He would occasionally mention back then he had been in this club but always maintained he never had a private dance, this lie he's kept up for over 10 years.

He claims to remember little about the times he had the private dance or why he paid for them despite knowing I would show him the door if I found out.

It wasn't a drunken one off which I could maybe accept that he did and regretted. There is regret now from him as he's seen how upset I am but there wasn't at the time, he thought so little of me or our relationship that he crossed the red line several times and then came home to me in our bed.

He's sorry now and maintains he wouldn't do it now and I do believe that but what's done is done. He's lied to me about this for over 10 years. He admits he took me for granted back then and didn't appreciate what he had at the time which stings a bit too.

He keeps asking how he can make this better and is desperate that it doesn't affect our relationship now and I don't know what to tell him. I agree I don't want to ruin our relationship now, we've had hard times and are in the best place our relationship has been despite the hard knock of a miscarriage a few months ago.

How do I stop feeling so bloody awful about this and put it behind me?

This is something that happened a really long time ago and so if you've already decided you're not going to leave him, surely you will be happier if you let it go?

If you are hurt (it sounds like you are) and you can't let it go, but you also won't consider leaving him, have you thought about what you do want? What do you hope to gain from discussing it with him?

I am also curious as to why, if you are hurt and you can't let it go, why aren't you at least entertaining the idea of leaving?

It's cheating.

@wildraisins, I totally agree but it seems this view is a minority one.

@wildraisins it's not that I can't let it go, the information is so new to me I don't even feel like I've wrapped my head around it to even start letting it go.

We have otherwise a very good marriage and have built a lovely life together in which I believed we were both equals and it was built on trust and respect for each other.

@Collidascope No I don't think he's full taken responsibility for this. And I'm struggling with the fact he hasn't. He says lots of things like how much he loves me and he always knew I was the one etc but then when I point out his actions say differently he will then say he knows he took me for granted and didn't appreciate me like he should have back then, it feels like he's told himself in his head that because he's admitted this that its all ok and he's taken responsibility.

It wouldn't matter that it was a long time ago to me.

I wouldn't want to associate with a man who thinks paying for sexual services is ok.

@speakout It's cheating

Thoroughly disagree. Don’t see the harm. Private dances are strictly no touch. It’s entertainment. Nothing more.

I disagree. It's paying for the easier of degrading another human.

I've had a lapdance in my very stupid, early 20s when out partying in another country. Paid for by a male friend for the laugh. Thought it was funny and I was cool. Actually those women didn't deserved to be used and treated like that.

We need to stop these ways of 'entertainment'. It does women no good either as strippers or as the loved ones of stripper users.

Very wrong to have done this and perfectly reasonable to be upset. The question is whether you can forgive things from ten years ago that have not been repeated since.

A lot would also depend on age then (and of course now)- very different from a man child of 21 doing this than say a man of 41.

So I agree with @speakout

Thoroughly disagree. Don’t see the harm. Private dances are strictly no touch. It’s entertainment. Nothing more.

So if you invited some friends over and someone stripped down to a string and started to gyrate themselves over your OH it would be OK?

I would be devastated.

I don’t think it would cause me to leave but it would ruin the relationship and change it entirely.

You say the relationship is built on respect and trust and that’s absolutely not the case.

My DH had a stripper come to an apartment he was staying in for his stag do. His friends arranged it. We had discussed it before he went and I really really didn’t want to. I didn’t want to give him ‘rules’ and be controlling. But I knew that strip clubs would be involved and I just knew that I’d be upset if a private dance happened so had to say something. He promised me he wouldn’t have a private dance. Obviously he did, just not in a club. At the time I was devastated. It is cheating to me. In his case the woman was fully nude and rubbed all of her body parts all over him. Got his hands and put them on her body. His friends obviously filmed it and whilst torturing myself I asked to see it. It was cheating. He wouldn’t accept that but I used the same thought process as others on here and asked if I went back to a mans house after a night out and danced for him like that, would it be okay? Of course not.

I knew it wasn’t his choice but at the time I was honestly furious that he went along with it and broke a promise. Now I look back and realise how awkward it would have been to get up and walk out. Still, he chose to appease his friends and break a promise to me which was the biggest betrayal. That I’d asked him directly, not to have a private dance but he did anyway.

If I found out what you just have, I think I’d lose it. Paying for it. Multiple times. When you’ve asked him not to do that. He chose himself and his needs to objectify women over your relationship. Ok, it might be in a good place now. But I really think it will take a long time to get over and I just hope it’s worth it!!

Don’t listen to people who are downplaying it. Your boundaries are yours and you were open with them. We’re all different and that’s okay!!

EmmeG

Totally agree.
And I am sorry you had such an experience.
It is sexual activity whether or not money changes hands.
And in fact it is worse if it is paid for.

It's worse than cheating for me because it shows you how he really feels about all women. Which is that they are merely 'entertainment' as PP put it, to be bought with money. Any man who doesn't see it as sexual or misogynistic would be completely fine if it were his mother or daughter stripping. But funnily enough I don't think that's the case hmmmm

goldielockdown2

Agreed.

@IJustWantSomeBees

If you don't want to leave him you'll just have to let time dull the resentment. There is no quick fix for no longer feeling angry when your partner cheats and deceives you.

I always think it's quite selfish when people confess to these things so many years on. He knows your very unlikely to leave because you've now built a life with him, the only purpose it serves is to ease his guilt.

^The last paragraph of this post.

In addition to reflecting on the fact he has just shown himself to lie/be a liar, I would also be upset about this.

I understand you not wanting to leave, OP, and I would feel the same way. But, as you are currently doing, I would be struggling with discovering he was a liar AND that he had been manipulative about when he disclosed it.

I know you’ve said there are no other lies/deceptions, but a week ago you would have said he’d never got a lap dance or lied about that either.

And it seems harsh to call him manipulative when he’s been a ‘good boy’ for now telling the truth, but, as the quote above - it was telling the truth on HIS terms and at an advantages time for HIM.

I really don’t like the idea that with all HE has done YOU are the one that needs to ‘get over it’ or wait til your resentment fades. If it was me, I’d probably be thinking of a way to even it up, so he gets a punishment, not just you. Thinking quickly about what I would want, maybe something v expensive just for you. Or saying you are having brunch and then yoga every Saturday morning with your friends, meaning he ALWAYS has to mind the child/ren on a Sat morning. (And Sunday is not automatically ‘his’ turn, it’s shared. Saturday is yours.

This is probably TERRIBLE advice. But I would not let his lie and then guilt-relieving exercise make ME be the only one who felt shit.

@goldielockdown2

It's worse than cheating for me because it shows you how he really feels about all women. Which is that they are merely 'entertainment' as PP put it, to be bought with money. Any man who doesn't see it as sexual or misogynistic would be completely fine if it were his mother or daughter stripping. But funnily enough I don't think that's the case hmmmm

So true. Or their girlfriend / wife!

@Collidascope No I don't think he's full taken responsibility for this. And I'm struggling with the fact he hasn't. He says lots of things like how much he loves me and he always knew I was the one etc but then when I point out his actions say differently he will then say he knows he took me for granted and didn't appreciate me like he should have back then, it feels like he's told himself in his head that because he's admitted this that its all ok and he's taken responsibility

I think the first thing is to realise is that there's no rush for you to make a decision or to get over it and act as though everything is fine and dandy. You need time to take it in, and his desire for everything to go back to normal is childishly unrealistic. You don't need to fit in with his timetable for how long you're allowed to process this.

Frankly, it doesn't matter if what he did happened a long time ago. In a way that makes it worse because the past - that you thought was established and stable - was actually something completely different. The foundation of your relationship has just been shaken, and I would guess that there's a good chance you wouldn't have married him if you'd found out at the time.

It also sounds like he needs to take responsibility. While he refuses to do that, I don't really see how you can move past it. If you're viewing what he did as cheating and exploiting women, and he's viewing it as just some youthful transgression/transaction, then you're not on the same page. The fact that he couldn't answer when you asked about you giving him a lap dance suggests he knows really but is too invested in not believing that it was a sex act. Probably because that would make him feel bad about himself.

In short, you've every right to feel angry and you should take as much time as you want to come to terms with it.

[quote BananaPop2020]@Sandals19, I don’t know why you are incapable of responding to the direct and succinct replies I have made to you. Again, have a look at the SEV legislation and then come back to me.[/quote]
OhI'm perfectly capable and have done so.

(Only succinct to you, apparently).

But keep quoting legislation that is unenforceable and not enforced in private "dances" in strip clubs.

In any case the op also sees private dances as a sex act (which they are) and that's what matters with re. trying to advise her.

Frankly, it doesn't matter if what he did happened a long time ago. In a way that makes it worse because the past - that you thought was established and stable - was actually something completely different. The foundation of your relationship has just been shaken, and I would guess that there's a good chance you wouldn't have married him if you'd found out at the time.

This.

It's using someone's investment (an investment based on deceit) to manipulate them to accepting something unacceptable.

More lack of integrity on top of the essentially cheating behaviour, knowingly crossing the red line, and lying by omission - repeatedly.

@SugarPlumRoar

I appreciate everyone has a differing opinion on if a lap dance constitutes a sex act or if you would be bothered if your DH/DP had one but for me personally I do believe it's a sex act.

DH unfortunately doesn't believe it is a sex act though he couldn't really answer me when I asked him if I were to give him a lap dance what would effect would he be hoping it had on him and what would he want it to lead to. Apparently that's different because I'm his DW. I disagree.

I'd like the space to process this but lockdown isn't really affording me with that as we're both working from home and DD needs homeschooling and I think DH is terrified that if he gives me too much space that I'll decide I'm leaving. I'm not leaving I just haven't told DH that it's 100% off the cards

His actions are about power and control over women and is the reason why he felt completely fine going to strip clubs in the first place where women are sexual objects which exist to be submissive in relation to the men, regardless of whether lap dances are performed. It doesn't seem from your posts that you grasp this. Of course, he knows its a sex act, that's the very reason he went there in the first place. Why even ask him if it's a sex act when it's obvious that it is.

He's successfully held power over you as a woman by lying about the lap dances until after your marriage. And is now trying to make out that lap dances aren't sex acts. It's all tied into his lack of respect for the dignity of women, including you. I understand you're in a difficult position now because you always accepted his behaviour and his lack of respect for women. Since you willingly married a man like this, I agree it doesn't make sense to split over this. If you're someone who's OK with the premise of strip clubs and were fine with that sexual boundary being crossed in a relationship, having a lap dance isn't here nor there really from that viewpoint.

Mix I've never said that I was ok with strip clubs, I said I acknowledged that his group of friends would likely go there as it was newly opened where we live and to be quite frank they were mostly made up of a bunch of immature sleaze balls. I made my feelings clear to him that I don't view strip clubs in anything but a degrading way but equally I knew that I'd be fighting a losing battle against his friends who already viewed me as controlling and yes I took the path of least resistance so to no play into their perception so I put what boundaries I could in place.

Would I make the same choice now? No I'd have stood my ground as I have done since but I was young and hindsight is a wonderful thing

[quote SugarPlumRoar]@wildraisins it's not that I can't let it go, the information is so new to me I don't even feel like I've wrapped my head around it to even start letting it go.

We have otherwise a very good marriage and have built a lovely life together in which I believed we were both equals and it was built on trust and respect for each other.

@Collidascope No I don't think he's full taken responsibility for this. And I'm struggling with the fact he hasn't. He says lots of things like how much he loves me and he always knew I was the one etc but then when I point out his actions say differently he will then say he knows he took me for granted and didn't appreciate me like he should have back then, it feels like he's told himself in his head that because he's admitted this that its all ok and he's taken responsibility.[/quote]
That life you built together wasn't what you thought it was though, was it? You weren't equals. He has been lying to you for years.

I don't know how you can say it is "otherwise a very good marriage". For me there would be no "otherwise" in this. If my partner had lied to me like this for this long, I wouldn't know what to do, but nothing would be off the table.

I just don't know how you can at this point be so adamant that you are not going to leave him.

It's like you're denying yourself an element of control of your own life. For what?

If you walked into a party and there was a naked woman on top of your husband would you be upset? Oh and he’s not asking her to get off but enjoying it.
Context is everything

Just to clarify, I'm definitely not saying I think you should leave him (there's way too much LTB advice on mumsnet!)

I'm not really giving you advice either way - could be that this can be sorted and you can eventually let go, forgive and move on.

I just think you're restricting yourself by saying you definitely won't, as if it's not even an option. This is unexpected and you are obviously badly hurt. Don't martyr yourself.