Please help Husband and strip club

[ReadyforthechorusLTB]

My husband went on a works night out last night, he came home in a terrible state vomiting on the carpet that I cleaned to save the poor kids standing in it.
Anyway, I've picked up his pants and noticed an obviously stain at the front inside.
I confronted him and he said he went to a strip club. I asked to see his bank account immediately and he has spent £775 ! There is multiple charges some at £115 and even one for £230. Apparently this is the first time he has paid for a dance. I have downloaded a year's worth of statements and I can't see any other incidents.
To make things worse he slipped up and said he went alone after everyone else had gone home. Why?!!

Pre kids I would have walked away. But I have two young children, and leaving would completely change their lives for the worse. He earns more than I do, we have no outside support and I have no family to go to, and I couldn't manage the mortgage payments on my own.
I feel physically sick. I'm not sure how I am meant to trust him again!
Does anyone know what happens at strip clubs. What has he paid for. Is this just dances!

Sigh 😞

I felt sick reading your first post OP. I’ve been through similar. It’s awful. I too felt trapped to stay because financially and practically at that time I couldn’t cope by myself with three children and my work hours.

Mentally I had to shut myself down, almost disassociate because the feelings were so utterly unbearable. I decided I was going to stay but do what I needed to do to make myself financially able to support myself and our kids, and I did it. He thought it was all forgotten and he ‘got away with it’ but eventually bit by bit I was breaking inside. I became sicker and sicker mentally as the attempts to shut off the feelings of anger, disgust, shame and hurt poisoned me.

I could never look at him the same again.

I changed after that. I will never be the same person I was the day before I found out.

Eventually once my life was finicially better and I’d built a life outside of him I asked him to leave.

Within 6 weeks he was shagging someone else he picked up in a bar. Refusing to have adequate time with the children. Trying to ‘punish’ me in various spiteful ways for daring to end it.

He couldn’t see that what he did was what broke us. Your DH probably won’t either. He will convince himself it meant nothing, it was all the alcohols fault not his own shitty broken inner moral compass and sexual incontinence.

Even if you can’t leave right now, make a plan to make it possible that eventually you can. Don’t roll over and just take this behaviour. You need to focus on finding a way to get into a postion you can leave if your want to, not just stay because you have no alternative. You might decide to stay anyway but then it’s a choice you are making, rather than a corner you are backed into because leaving isn’t viable and you feel trapped financially.

Except I haven't danced in one club.

I've never actually counted. But it's many.

And yes, yes, yes to men exaggerating what they "got" for their money. I would literally come out to the bar and see the customer (who'd just spend £200 for example) regaling his friends with the sordid antics he and I had just got up too. I would simply walk past, lean in, and say "oh, really?" And they would go very quiet and red-faced. It's like they had to try and justify they hadn't just wasted £200 on basically nothing.

Men prefer to give the impression that of course got something extra than ever allude that they were the one fleeced by who they so naively see as a thick as mince woman who can't do anything other than take her clothes off.

I too have male friends who utterly bullshitted about what happened in my local clubs. I didn't know any better as this was in my pre dance days. Of course when I then joined the circuit, and some of the girls would socialise at mine, these guys too were left red faced when the woman in question was sat in front of them, grinning "do tell me about the time I gave you a hand job for £30 then went home with you."

It's also a stupid male ego thing. Of course they weren't just a punter like everyone else. They were so desirable that of course the stripper really liked them. That's why they got such imaginary special treatment

As I've explained before, the absolute last thing the club wants, or the other dancers want, is what's known in the trade as a "dirty dancer." And whilst it might not be for glorious moral reasons, it doesn't change that it's the absolute worst thing for business. Kills everyone's earnings.

Im lying?

A very quick Google search of reviews of these clubs confirms I'm not lying. Not even a little bit.

Didn't bother reading the rest of your post because you saying I'm lying tells me you're not quite what you say you were.

I think some of you really underestimate the women working in these clubs, to assume 'extras' go on so often and in 'almost every' strip club.

I do pole fitness and dance for fun, so I know a fair few strippers. They are just normal women - none of them are escorts. The ones I know would find wanking a man off for an extra £50 disgusting - and I know a lot of them.

It's just as likely (probably more so) that this man just got too excited, as it is that he got 'extras'

You are so wrong @WillYouPutYourCoatOn but you won't see it because you think your experience or opinion trumps everyone else. And it doesn't. Not all men lie. Stop rubbishing other people because you feel the need to legitimise what you were doing.

My husband wasn't gloating; it wasn't for his benefit. He actually said he felt unnerved and threatened by the experience because he though he was being set up. Why the fuck would be want to glorify that?!

As best as I can decipher:

The charges are
Club 1
£23.00 - This is his drink and the drink for the dancer who's already joined him
£57.50 - £50 dance (probably a double dance, so 6 minutes) plus £7.50 card surcharge
£8.50 - Drink just for him.
£115.00 - New dancer, more clued up than the first, instantly sells a £100 dance. Typically 15 mins. Note the double amount of card surcharge for double the amount, £15.
£92 - She upsells a bottle of club champagne, affectionately known in the trade as "château du shit" it's about £3 a bottle, the club sticks it's fancy label on it. It's nasty and the girls won't drink it. Ever. This is why your DH was so sick. He did. Most likely the whole bottle.
£115 - Another 15 mins.
£132 - Another 15 mins, and DH has learned that £90 bottles of strip club champagne are vile, and orders a regular drink as well.
£25.50 - he's at the bar now, determined not to spend a fourth £115
£230 - same dancer gets him back in for a half hour. Probably under the guise "let me show you how much better half an hour is"

DH is now really moody when he sees that half an hour is not much better and he's blown £600 on absolutely nothing and shite champagne. Out he stumbles. Into...

Second place
£10 - Entry fee
£16 - His drink and a dancers drink. Absolutely no château du shit. No thank you.
£48 - A £40 double dance with an £8 surcharge. Having also learned his lesson that when a dancer keeps telling you to spend another £200 because it will definitely get sexier, they are indeed lying and it's exactly the same as the 3/5/10 minutes you've bought. But feels obliged to spend a token amount on the girl who's probably just sat with him for far too long thinking she can get him to spend as she's oblivious he's just been rinsed next door.

Whilst it's massively frustrating that he's spent that amount of money, the only honest consolation I can give you is that it was with a clean dancer, and not a dirty one that hadn't been spotted yet. Because dirty dancers don't earn any money. They aren't capable of engaging someone and talking them into spending big bucks. They aren't alluring, clever saleswomen. That's why they're dirty. That's all they are capable of offering. He was with a proper, big earner. And she is clean as a whistle. No "antics" went on.

I don't need to legitimise anything. I'm very proud of my dance career.

I literally love how women who are "married to some bloke who went in a strip club" tell dancers with years and years of experience how the industry works. With absolute conviction.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. That's exactly what happens. Must be, if your husband said.

Ok love.

When do you think he made the stain in the front of his pants?
Im so sorry op he’s a shit bag. Try to breathe and get your thoughts into some sort of order. You don’t have to make a decision today.

I mean, Google is pretty good at backing statements up yea, tbf.

Putyourcoaton break down of the spend seems quite concise,I've known guy's I've worked with to spend £400 in no time,these clubs are set to part punters with as much money as possible.

Do you feel he is genuinely remorseful? Has he made real efforts to try to make amends? How would he feel about his family known?

Lol. It's not a statement it's an opinion. Of a punter. Can you not understand that?

Much more reliable than someone who's done thousands of dances in god knows how many clubs over more than a decade, meeting circa 2000 dancers, and I can't even think how many punters in that time. Oh, and I ran one for 6 years.

But Google... definitely Google, where the men who definitely don't exaggerate have left reviews. That's they way to go

I would be hard pushed to think anything beyond a dance has gone on here. Strippers are currently working hard to protect their jobs and clubs from being shut down all across the UK, and again none of my stripper friends offer extras.

regardless of that, it’s down to where your boundaries lie OP

Good question.

Hmmm. I would say the last dance.

Because the first girl was no good. I'll tell you why, at the end of a dance, the first thing out of your mouth is "do you want another dance." And he bolted straight to the bar, after only 6 minutes with her. So it wasn't then. He couldn't get away from her fast enough.

The big earner doesn't want him to "stain his pants" because typically guys don't want to carry on after that. So unless he did right at the end of her £230... And maybe that's another part of why he left.

And maybe that's why he only had one dance in club 2. Feeling too minging in the pants area. But finally went for one, it felt gross, so he left.

It's hard to tell without seeing the timing of the transactions.

Men get a hell of a bad press - all rapists until proven otherwise seems to be the current thinking. So it is worth saying that I know so many men who do care about and respect women - they may not express it as caring about feminist ideology, because that it not necessarily what it is about. It is simply about respecting other human beings, and most men do. Which was the point of my post. The OP's partner has behaved in a way that calls his value system into question and she now has to decide whether she can live with him and with that knowledge.

Mumsnet gets a disproportionate number of posts about men who have fallen short in a big way - but that does not necessarily represent all men. It represents the men who Mumsnet posters have written about. Their gripes are absolutely valid of course and it is good that others are here to provide support and advice.

I’m sorry he has done this to you, OP.

I was a dancer/stripper - whatever you want to call us, for many years. In all my years doing that, I learned that no decent person ever steps foot in one of those clubs.

The money he paid could all be for dances, like he said. The more I was paid, the more clothes I’d take off.

As PO have already said, customers cannot touch us dancers (some do though), but we can touch them.

I am not going to say LTB. It is your life and you need to do what works for you. Staying for money though comes at a huge price, it’ll likely be to the detriment of your self worth and self esteem.
Can he leave the house for a few days to allow you some thinking space? Not your issue or problem at all where he goes in that time, worry about only yourself and your children.

Im afraid this would make me want to do whatever it takes to better my chances to improve my financial situation for the future, so i have the choice to leave.

So from now on he needs to pick up more of the kids & home work so you can do the necessary training to earn a lot more.

OP, I'm sorry this has happened. As you say, he's thrown the grenade and it's horrific.

Please don't let all the LTBs and "it's better to be poor" people sway YOUR thoughts.

Being poor is relentless, soul destroying and devastating. Been there most of my life, and all of it with kids.

Only you know this man. What does your instinct tell you? Is he a sleazy disgrace who will continue to squander your money on sex workers? Or is he stupid, naive and unlikely to ever do anything like this again?

It isn't staying because he can provide money. It's staying because as a couple you can provide the best life for your family.

If you feel you'd never trust him, or want him physically, ever again. You'll need to leave.

Only you know, once you've vented and thought about it.

Good luck.

Which is why you need to use this to vent but please don't listen to the answers.

Only you know.

It is fact that a lot of these clubs allow and encourage touching/sexual acts. That is an actual statement of fact. It is also likely that's whats happened here given the prices and the stain. Although tbf, only op knows if her DH is the sort to shoot his load due to labia trailing across his face.

I'm not sure why that statement of fact comes as a surprise to someone allegedly in the industry.

It is fact that a lot of these clubs allow and encourage touching/sexual acts

Sorry, what? You are literally lying.

Why as someone who has clearly not the first idea, do you think you can keep making this up and declare it "fact.". Do you know who writes this shite on Google? People like you who invent things and try to convince people to believe their made up stories.

It is a lie. You aren't "surprising" anyone. You're lying.

Would you tell a policeman of 15yrs how the police force worked, and tell him "fact" that it was the opposite to what he did every day? I mean you've never been a policeman. But don't let that stop you. You've been in a police station once, don't you know! What does the senior policeman know eh? Jayden, Billy-Bob and Kletus have written a Google review about one of the stations too!

Do you think you sound anything other than fucking stupid convincing?

ponders if evil stripper stole her husband because that's the only thing that does make this level of bullshit understandable

I agree with this (ex stripper/dancer). Sexual acts were certainly not encouraged, ever. Big no no.
Not to say it never happened, but highly, highly unlikely. And definitely away from the premises.

I do not think OP’s DH would have gotten a wank from a stripper. She wouldn’t want the risk of losing her job and he’d be able to get an escort to do it for less money.

The payments were likely him paying the dancer/s to remove additional clothing. That’s what it’s all about, getting as much money as possible.

He is a fool OP. You sound utterly lovely. Please try and see if he can stay elsewhere for a few days / as long as you need, so you can have something breathing space and time to think. You are not obligated to make any decisions whatsoever until you’re ready to do so, weighing up all pros and cons.

I wish you well