Could you forgive or move on with your husband after this?

[Noodleskaboodles]

So I'll try to make this as short as I can...

Background, we've never had the best relationship, we have struggled with sex more than anything else (I would like to be having sex at least once a week whereas he would want sex once every 3 months if that -we meet somewhere in the middle with once a month, maybe once a fortnight) so I guess that's why this cuts a lot deeper...

My phone broke today so i pulled one of our old ones out of the drawer to use while i get mine fixed. It turned about to be husbands old phone. I charged it and switched it on, and in the messages there were tonnes of unsaved numbers (dating back to 2019 the month after I had our daughter to nov 2021) where his half of the conversation had been deleted but the received messages were all there and were all similar to the attached screenshot. I questioned him this evening about them and he said that a couple of years ago he "made a mistake" and was messaging prostitutes. he says he never actually followed through with meeting any of them.

I asked when did he last send one of these and he said a year or more ago. I asked to see his current phone to prove this, he handed it over and when I went into the 'deleted conversations' tab there were at least 10+ of unknown numbers with message threads. I clicked to recover them and he snatched the phone back saying "that's not fair though". I was like fair????? WTAF!!! He refused to let me look saying I should trust his word but I told him he can hand it over and let me read the messages or we're over! He refused and we argued on and off for an hour or so about it. During the 'breaks' he was on his phone fiddling about with something. After all the arguing he finally said "fine, read what you like!" And handed over the phone, all of the message threads I had seen had been permanently deleted. He refuses to admit that he has removed them, and has stated throughout that it was just messages and no physical contact at any point

AIBU? Should I be taking his word that he didnt actually have sex with anyone else? I'm pretty sure i already know the answer, but it kills me to throw away a 10 year marriage over this, and to disrupt life for my 3 year old

Im really sorry you are going through this. I can only imagine the suffering of knowing your husband is this kind of person.
He's clearly still doing this, otherwise he would have given you his phone. Snatching it from you is a clear sign of this.
Me personally, I couldn't forgive this behaviour. He is cheating. He probably met numerous prostitutes. It is very hard to accept when you love someone, but the truth about him is not pretty. You deserve much better.

The fact that he even messages prostitutes is enough reason to kick him out.
Nasty man

Clearly you can’t read … To state my opinion clearly - you cannot call OP’s dh a rapist as you have no idea what he has actually done, if and who he has actually had sex with 🤷‍♀️ To call or insinuate he is a rapist is just vile. I have stated quite clearly, I am referring only to OP’s dh, whom we actually know nothing definite about 🤷‍♀️Don’t read in between lines, don’t assume, don’t infer.

This , 💯 this , the site tells you everything you need to know about men who use prostitution.

Sorry this is in response to the person who suggested you look at uk punting

Not that you need convincing to leave him, but if you find yourself wavering, just ask yourself :

"If my husband sleeping with prostitutes doesn't cross my line, then where on earth is my line"

Because any man capable of this, would (imo) have no problem having casual one night stands or snogging random women on nights out etc. He has smashed all boundaries here.

It's a horrible feeling that I remember well - I had been with my 1st H for 16 years, when I found out that he had been cheating for our entire relationship, with 10 or more women. We had 2 children together (aged 7 and 5), the perfect life, house, car, money etc. It was very hard to just up and leave. We limped on for another 4 years, and amazingly he carried on sleazing around, so I just snapped and left him. It was a truly horrible time.

This was almost 15 years ago, and I am now happily married to a much better man.

You can and will move on from this, I can promise you that. In a couple of years you will look back at this and feel angry, but not heartbroken like you are now. Women are amazingly resilient.

I wish you only the best.

I agree. If you want to have a debate about prostitution, then please start your own thread.

You haven’t managed to answer any of my questions to you, just keep defending a man who uses prostitutes, I’ve never accused him of being a rapist by the way, so maybe it’s you who can’t read? Too much time spent caping for disgusting men to read what women say I guess. 🙄

@steppemum Absolutely- same goes for women who find out their partners are doing webcamming stuff etc.

It's people who are bloody devastated , some are much tougher than others and in a better situation to take immediate action.

And I see from the screen shot, that they were talking from July until September. As a self employed person with a customer base (Doggie day care), there is no way I would give any customer the time of day, if he/she had been wasting my time by booking and cancelling, on and off for 2 months. I wouldn't take a booking from someone flaky, when I can give that time slot to customers that I know are reliable.

lying, manipulating, deleting messages and gaslighting you over them aside.

He’s paying for sex with prostituted women. These acts are not consensual when money is changing hands. I

do you really want a man in your life who would rather pay often vulnerable or addicted or abused women to perform acts for him you would never do or he dare not ask you to do than build and nurture a decent relationship with you

that’s the kind of man you’re married to and the kind of man who is a role model for your child.

you and your child deserve better. Draw your line hard.

I am so sorry and I know exactly how you are feeling. I stumbled across the fact that my (now ex) husband had been sharing intimate images of me online in a whole range of perverted sites where men rate each others wives. We were married 15 years, together nearly 20 and have 2 children. The night I found out he, like your husband, wrestled his laptop off me and deleted stuff before I could see the full extent of it. It had been going on for years. I had no idea.

Honestly, you are 100% doing the right thing. He has betrayed you, he has no respect for you or your child. I'm astounded daily on here at the number of men who act like this. Society is so messed up. We're here for you.

Oh my god @MumLass I'm so sorry you went through that, what an evil man. I hope the police took it seriously and he was convicted

The poster is looking for support and advice. Those of you hijacking this thread to rant about prostitution are not helping her. It is juvenile, utterly selfish behaviour. You have spotted a high horse and by God, are you going to clamber on it to shout and bellow for your own satisfaction. Just start an AIBU to think Prostitution is rape thread. You are so selfish and self-absorbed to do this in this context. And as for ‘educate yourself’, appalling, idiotic comment. You people are an embarrassment and about the very worst of the site. It is just you all roaring ‘but me!; I….’. No interest in the OP at all. Stop it. Stop it and grow upl

👏👏👏

There's no way they were "just messages" and he didn't go through with anything. He is treating you like a mug and I'd be packing his bags, ten years of marriage or not.

No I couldn't. Are they definitely women?

@MumLass I think I remember your post-if not it was an identical situation. They are a total disgrace- they really don't deserve decent kind partners who no doubt are out there busting a gut for them . They should stay single and can then be up to this sordid shit as much as they want-

I'm about to sack off a decorator who blows hot and cold answering a message really keen then pin him down to a date for pricing the job and he vanishes.

No-one in business has time for this so the husband is a valued customer

How are you doing OP?

They want both. And they feel entitled to both.

They think their "hobby" is their business and harms no-one (relatively speaking). They are obviously wring on two counts there (their partner and the sex workers) but they choose not to see inconvenient, inconsequential little details like that.

That is the mentality of a punter, and it will never change.

(By both I obviously mean the steady partner, the family, the conventional setup, and the extra, varied, secret sex).

That's why a man like this, having been caught to some extent before, felt no need to stop ... And when being caught again - with his incriminating messages about to be found - reacted with "that's not fair". His reaction is really that he feels it's unfair on him.

It wouldn't occur to him that his behaviour to his partner & mother of his child is "unfair" at a stratospheric level.

Women are there to provide roles & services, they should stay in their box. Monogamy is a joke but women have to believe you are so they stay with you and you get the things you want from them. After all sex workers are a blow job or a fuck in a room in a flat, that's all - they can provide nothing else, they do that for whoever can pay the (not very high at the McDonald's end of the business) price & who doesn't seem like a total psycho .. and the vast majority of the men who use them would never ever get into a relationship with a sex worker. Non sex workers are needed for everything else.

Being single also doesn't get your laundry done, meals cooked, kids borne and cared for, emotional support, life admin., an automatic plus one at every event you need one for, conventionality/respectability/conformity, someone to care for you if you are ill, someone to be with when you age etc etc etc.

What a vile specimen. I'm so angry for you, but at least he's shown you who he is while your daughter is still so young. They adapt well at this age.

Even if you suspended your disbelief for a minute and accepted that those texts didn't obviously show that he'd been a repeat customer to the same woman, the fact that he was defensive over you looking at those deleted messages tells you everything you need to know.

Beyond the deceit and infidelity, I would be absolutely furious if my husband put me at risk of STDs in this way. How can anyone that claimed to care for you do that?

I hope you're feeling as okay as you possibly can under the circumstances