Boyfriend of 2 years has just admitted to sleeping with a prostitute a few months before we met

[MaryMitchell777]

I have been with my boyfriend for almost 2 years, and truly believed he is the love of my life. He has just admitted to sleeping with a prostitute in the UK 3 or so months before we met. This was the only time he has and he says he wouldn’t do it ever again and obviously hasn’t cheated or anything whilst we’ve been together. He says he was extremely drunk, not that it’s an excuse, and disappeared off after the night out and slept with a prostitute, then returned to the hotel room he was staying with his friends . I have always felt so safe and secure with his loyalty in our relationship that I feel completely blind sided by not knowing this this whole time. I feel like I don’t know him when he’s been my best friend and I’ve planned and envisioned my whole life with him. Because of other people the topic had come up multiple times in our relationship and he had lied that he never had so there’s also this element of distrust. I understand him lying, as I see this as a huge deal breaker so to an extent can get why he would hide this embarrassing thing. It being not long before we met makes it extra hard cause I’ll never know if he’d repeat the mistake. But I don’t know if I should be getting over this and seeing it as a mistake in his past. If only he’d never done it…

With the amount of prostitution there is, it is really clear that a lot more men than we want to think are visiting sex workers. As long as it was a one off, it would not be a deal breaker for me, as long as he seemed genuine when he discussed why he would not do it again.

How did this come up?

It sounds like he could have continued to lie and you would never be any wiser.

I would be very concerned as to why he’s come clean now and like with most people who ‘come clean’, they only tell a small part of the truth and there’s often much more.

I’d hazard a guess that this happened at least whilst you were in a relationship.

'Slept with' as a phrase minimises what he did, which is to pay for sex with a woman or girl who may have been unhappy, desperate, vulnerable and/or trafficked. Trafficked.

You're obviously uncomfortable, OP. Listen to those feelings. Those feelings are your voice and your decency coming through.

Startingagainandagain I agree ,He has messed up for sure ,however he has confessed now .Unless he makes a habit of it then it may be due to a mixture of arrogance /youth/getting drunk and so on . He wont be the last I doubt .

The problem is he lied about it and said he'd never done it before. Now apparently he has done it - but only once.

You have no idea if he's still lying and has been doing it for years - it wouldn't surprise me in anyway if he was still lying to you. I wouldn't trust him at all.

I think my theoretical views are close to this. Everyone can make a mistake. What prompted him to tell you now and what are his views on sex workers now? I imagine the reality of using one is often pretty depressing/functional and some people need to learn their mistakes the hard way. I would want to get past it , albeit I'd find it very hard in reality.

If there are other red flags about how he views sex/boundaries/ more vulnerable people or women in general, then it's a deal breaker

He was 25, not some 19 year old drunk youth who didn't know any better- and how can you believe his 'confession' when he's previously lied? He might have been paying prostitutes for sex every week for all anyone knows.

My husband confessed to me early on in our relationship that he had used prostitutes in the past. I turned a blind eye for multiple reasons, partly becuase I was infatuated with him at the time. But now I realise that it said a huge amount about how he views women and his enormous sense of entitlement - believing it's ok to buy another person. If you're not entangled in a big way with this guy I.e. you're not married, I'd be getting out now. It's clearly a big issue for you in itself as well as the lying, not sure you'll be able to move on.

I would end the relationship and get an AIDS test. Has it occurred to you that he’s put your life at risk by not disclosing this and getting tested himself? I couldn’t forgive that.

I know of at least one person who admitted to having sex with a prostitute while on a stag do. ( not the groom) he was single at the time.

he’s a uni friend of mine who admitted it a year or so later. He really regretted it.

he has now been married 20+ years and from what I can tell is a loving, committed respectful husband.

as much as I despise women being exploited through ‘sex work’, I do also think that people can make mistakes.

and lying about it doesn’t make it worse in my view. Of course he’s going to conceal this info knowing your views- it isn’t something he can change about himself.

I'd be very cautious about forgiving something that you have said is a dealbreaker, particularly a dealbreaker that was actively concealed. It creates a precedent that your boundaries are negotiable and lying about things that are important to you is OK - I can't see that as being a basis for a healthy relationship.

You could say this about people who buy clothes from shein or other fast fashion companies where people are exploited, often underage. I'm not saying supporting prostitution is a good thing but people seem to be quick to slate men who use prostitutes when they themselves are probably supporting other types of exploitation without a second thought.

@Startingagainandagain

By reading this thread it seems that everyone here is a saint and has never done anything daft in their youth, real life does not work like that.

I've done plenty of daft things.

Paying someone for sex when you have no possible way of knowing if they are trafficked / coerced / abused etc (because you absolutely cannot know for sure so you're risking contributing to a woman being all of those things) is not in the 'daft' category in my opinion.

It says an awful lot about how someone views women. And he was willing to risk contributing to a woman's abuse in order to get sex on demand.

It's not unreasonably judgemental for people to feel being with someone who made that choice is an unsuitable partner for them.

Right. So until women stop buying cheap clothes (which is all many can afford) we can't criticise men using prostitutes? Because, I'd have thought even the most willfully blinkered male cheerleader could see the difference between buying something you need because you have to cover your own body, and buying someone else's body because you want to have sex.

Something he did as a one off before you even met, with a consenting woman. If he is kind and faithful now, I wouldn’t hold it over him.

Consent can't be bought: that's the whole point.

Of course there are elements of prostitution that are not consenting, women who are trafficked or coerced by others. The fact is though, some women choose to earn their living that way, and that is their choice same as any other job is.

You can never know if a prostitute is genuinely consenting or is trafficked / coerced / abused etc. Ever. Men who are willing to take the risk of contributing to women being trafficked / coerced / abused in order to have sex on demand are not men who fundamentally respect women. How can they be?

He didn’t ’sleep’ with her, did he? He fucked her as an object.

I couldn’t be with such a sleaze who thinks this is ok.

@Goodluckanddontfitup

The fact is though, some women choose to earn their living that way, and that is their choice same as any other job is.

How can a punter know for sure which kind of prostitute they are paying for sex with - a genuinely consenting one or an abused / trafficked / coerced one?

They can't.

Good men who respect women and see them as equal to men simply don't take that risk.

Exactly this - plus the question of why he's suddenly decided to come clean

Personally I'd worry that someone's seen him leaving another prostitute's premises and that he's trying to get some sort of story in first

How can you ever be sure that a woman, or man, or anyone, isn’t being coerced into doing anything though? There are posts on here all the time about people being forced for example to do high pressure and stressful jobs they hate by partners etc who are living off them, or those that aren’t allowed to work by possessive partners. Yes the likelihood of coercion being involved in prostitution is a lot higher, and quite rightly that is illegal and needs to be actively stopped. But it is a fact that some women, and men, want to earn their money this way. Just because we disagree with it and wouldn’t want to do it ourselves, we shouldn’t be allowed to take that choice away. But that just my opinion.

You are right to question your relationship. This calls into question your whole idea of your partner. He is not the man you thought he was. He lies. He doesn't think women are people but commodities to be bought. This is not a mistake. It goes to the whole basis of his being whivh is corrupt. RUN.

He denied doing something that was a dealbreaker for you, so that you would carry on a relationship with him. I'd say that makes him manipulative and dishonest at best.

That would be it for me, regardless of what that dealbreaker was. My opinions on men who sleep with prostitutes don't even have to come in to it.

Why did he use a prostitute, or was he.so drunk he didn't know what he was doing? I would find it disgusting, but it was before you knew him, why on earth would he tell you? I guess at least he is being honest although I would prefer not to know things like that about his past. Put me off a completely.