Does he need to know about my sexual history?

[Muffinmoo]

I have been in a relationship for a year with the most wonderful man - but I haven’t been entirely honest with him about my sexual history. I’ve not outright lied, but just not proffered the information.,

Long story short, I suffered CSA by my maternal grandfather. That screwed up my ongoing relationship with sex, in fact my first sexual experience when I was 18 I was so drunk I don’t even remember it. The same guy has actually been accused of rape / assault on more than one occasion since. I didn’t (and tbh don’t) even think of it like that but I do remember not talking to him the next day and being in shock.

Then when I was very early 20s I started ‘sugar dating’ as a way to earn extra money whilst studying for my first degree. It was one shade away from outright prostitution. He was over twice my age and the third person I’d ever had sex with. But I chose it. After a while, actual escorting seemed basically the same and so I did that for most of my 20s too, before ending up in an abusive relationship with an ex client.

I have done well turning my life around and succeeding despite this. I have two degrees, a masters, and a very high profile and well paid career in a very competitive field. I had to do a lot of work and healing to confront all of it and then obviously the connection between my childhood and my choices since. I had essentially been recreating that abuse and hoping someone would rescue me. I guess that was me in the end!

My partner knows nothing of any of this. I am scared he will reject me even though he has given me no indication he would, but I know people would look down on someone with my history and men can be so weird about it, despite the fact it’s men who create the demand, and the shame should be on them, it just isn’t.

I don’t want to keep things back from him but equally it would help explain some other current issues in my life, such as my slightly strained relationship with my parents who knew about the above but actually encouraged it and in a lot of ways benefitted financially from what I did. When I made a very difficult decision to give it all up we didn’t speak for nearly a year.

Does he need to know? I just don’t want him to see me differently. He looks at me like I am the best thing he’s ever seen in his life and I’m just so worried that will change 😞

Equally, building a life with someone who doesn’t know such a big thing feels wrong somehow.

What’s your problem?

Yes I think @Eyesopenwideawake is right here. Ultimately what kind of relationship do you want? If you want one with a deep connection and trust then you will have to be vulnerable and trust him with this information. It is a risk but I suppose we are taking a risk every time we are vulnerable.

Ignore the people who have a problem with sex work, there will be some people who judge you but that is down to their upbringing and own issues. There are lots of us who understand what you have been through and view you with empathetic eyes.

There are things i haven't told my partner about my sexual past and never will, there is the v really possibility he wouldn't accept it.

For you, a year in, he may want to know why you took so long to tell him and might consider that a lie in itself.

Perhaps ask yourself why you want to tell him, is it really for him or for you? if the latter, would specialist counselling be a better course of action?

Ultimately, it comes down to how you feel about him, if you love him, keep your past to yourself, you risk causing him a great deal of hurt and pain, he loves you for how you are now, leave it at that is my advice or you may end up regretting it.

I think your reply clearly shows that I’m not the one with the problem.
You posted on a forum and i replied.

You just post on people’s threads being needlessly combative and horrible. What’s the point?

Gosh, it's so depressing how little people understand that the selling sex was probably a direct result of the abuse she suffered. I very much doubt she would have done that had she not been abused in childhood.

Victim blaming is rife and so depressing

I'm curious how it works if you happened across an ex client while out on a family day or something and they spoke and how you would then go about explaining that...Anyhow my problem would be the fact you hadn't been honest from the beginning...I had some traumas that affected me and I made it all very clear to my now hubby that some things affected me because of things that had occurred in the past and that gave him the choice to stay or go. Luckily he stayed and we got married and have a wonderful family several years on I couldn't have not said anything and the honesty worked out as a couple of years into marriage it was no shock when a person was freed from his prison term and people started mentioning it and hubby was like yep I know and we don't need to know now

@Rayqueen I wouldn’t recognise an ex client if they jumped in front of me waving a banner… I have blanked a lot of it out. I remember only hotels and a few experiences but not anyone’s face, and there is no way they would recognise me on account of me looking totally different but also I was just an object to them. Even my regulars I highly doubt would remember me. It has also been a whole decade since I last did it.

Could you explain how I'm victim blaming?

Well having a relationship based upon lying is not going to go well so you will probably have to tell him. Consider if you would rather tell him as you want to with support, or perhaps have him hear from someone else some partial truth with the fact you withheld it? You don’t have to tell him but if it will be long term that will have consequences, if this will end things would you rather that happened early in the relationship or when you are deeper in.

The bigger issue is that you appear to not be processing your emotions about what has happened. If you were to just blurt this out any reaction but a perfect one from him may harm your relationship while you are in this state. Perhaps you need some therapy yourself, both to deal with what happened and also help you with opening up.

Regardless of if this has an impact on your current relationship or not you sound like you need help processing this.

I’m amazed at the number of people who think withholding information in a relationship. Even people saying they wouldn’t be with a man who had been engaged in sex work but still advocate hiding it?

No one has “a right” to know your past, but is withholding things of this magnitude in a relationship a wise move? If you withhold information you have no control about when your partner finds out, or how.

This situation sounds like the OP needs more/different/better therapy due to how she is still processing this.

Explaining the full context of childhood through to the impact in adulthood allows someone to get their head around something. It also allows the information to be delivered when both are emotionally best placed to have that conversation. Having part of the story “discovered” at a time of high stress when there may be other issues going on in the relationship is just going to make a difficult situation terrible.

If you have issues that would be normally resolvable going on in a relationship and then your partner is then told “she used to be a prostitute but has been hiding it from you” is likely to amplify any other issue. Having withheld information often makes it harder to get someone to listen fully to the context as can see you as having not been honest up to that point.

If your partner isn’t going to want to continue a relationship due to your past it is better to know that early rather than living under the constant risk of the truth (or partial truth) coming out later and ending it then. Also a relationship that ends early because he can’t handle that history is unlikely to have a vindictive spreading of that information, if it is the straw that beaks the camels back in a fraught time with other factors it is more likely to have more people learn about it.

@Muffinmoo
Im so sorry that you have gone through this. I really have no advice on what you should do. I think you need to speak to a therapist that can help you navigate this.

But I just want to say how you have turned your life around is amazing. You are an incredible, strong lady.

@Thisistyresome thanks for your detailed and thoughtful responses.
Yes I do agree in principle and hence the reason for this thread which seems to have been pretty much equally split in opinion.
I have had therapy though probably not as detailed as I would have preferred due to financial constraints which are not so much of an issue now. My fear of telling him stems more from my parents’ treatment of me and reaction when I finally spoke out about how damaging their attitude had been and how they basically told me how ashamed they were of me but simultaneously did not want me to stop. If the was the reaction from them, how can I expect my boyfriend to react differently? If my own father thinks it’s fine for men to pay to use me, what if my boyfriend’s attitude towards me changes because I allowed it to happen and I’m also ‘worthless’ in his eyes too?

I do not inherently like to lie in relationships but equally I would resent losing something I spent my whole life trying to find. Yes, he may not be right for me if he can’t handle it but equally even if it’s not what he intends or wants, he just may not be able to help seeing me differently.

@Rosie00 thank you, I do appreciate it :)

@Muffinmoo You know, rationally, that your fears are probably unfounded but subconsciously there's a part of you that's terrified. I rarely say this out loud on MN but I'd be really interested in working with you. Lots of info on my AMA.

I think you are perhaps more raw than you think.

But I think you also need to bare some things in mind. Your parents are the outlier, their reaction is not normal. You seem to believe it is normal for people to not have an issue with men using prostitutes but do blame the women who get dragged in. I don’t recognise that as the normal response. I can’t think of anyone I know who would not think less of men who used prostitutes, even those who know people who would they see it as a significant negative aspect of their character. Your friend at the time sounds awful too.

On the other side, people will have a negative view of a partner who previously were engaged in sex work. But you should also not assume that will be an overwhelming negative, every partner will have aspects of them or their past that people are less keen on. People are the totality of themselves not just a single aspect. I suspect your perception has been coloured by some awful people in your life (your parents response and your friend) who may have coloured your expectation of a “normal” reaction.

When you “because I know some men have a weird and unjustified reaction to it” I think you have the wrong mindset about this. It will be a common to have an adverse view od sex work and people preferences are just what they are rather than “justified” or not. I am concerned you risk interpreting any response by your boyfriend, if you told him, in an overly negative a way. It is fine if he has a preference that this had not been part of your life, but you also would rather that too. But that does not mean that it would automatically result in him losing all respect or love for you. I don’t think the normal reaction to hearing this about someone is to make you see them as “worthless.”

That doesn’t mean that speak to him is without risk, he may not be able to handle it but that would not be him regarding you as worthless or seeing it as your fault. The worst case scenario is always possible but I think you are seeing them as the likely scenario rather. There are lots of ways it could go, including: him providing the perfect response of being instantly supportive; a response when he needs some time to process it and then being supportive; him ending things but on a positive note; him being supporting but ultimately not being able to handle it; or your worst case that you imagine. But I think the latter is least likely.

What you need to think about is how you would feel if it were one of the middle scenarios? How would that impact you and how you feel about him? Also, how would you feel if you continue on but never told him and how would that effect you?

@Thisistyresome when I say unjustified, I mean more an objection based on some kind of immorality - I don’t feel it is inherently immoral on the part of the provider if they aren’t hurting anyone. I am not saying he isn’t entitled to have any kind of negative reaction because as you point out of course it is something that makes me sad and would rather hadn’t happened in many ways as well.
I feel somehow thinking I was ‘ruined’ would be unfair in the same way some men feel about their female partners having had a lot of previous sexual partners. Ironically I have slept with very few people ‘in real life’. I don’t think that line of thinking has a justifiable logical basis.

I know my parents’ reaction is not the norm and it will forever be a source of confusion and pain for me that their reaction was not to protect me but to encourage, facilitate and immediately ask for increased rent. I appreciate I was an adult but they knew about my history and CSA. Had that been my daughter I would have begged them not to and told them how loved they were and to not risk their safety, physical and emotional.

it is hard to not let that feed into how I expect others to react. I was honest with my some friends and for them it was a source of entertainment and ridicule.

I do think he would be shocked but I am hopeful I know him well enough to think that he wouldn’t immediately discard me as damaged goods. It will of course be hard to reconcile my history with who I am today given and what I have achieved, my career etc.

Regarding selling sex, I think you need to be honest and let him make up his mind on that. If he finds out, it could spell the end of your relationship.

Be honest as in confess as what she did and it might end her relationship? Victim blaming...not seeing any nuance that it might have happened because she's been abused and acted as if it's just something she wanted to do and it's something to be judged for and be dumped over.

Victim blaming is where you blame the victim for the crime committed against them. I haven't blamed the OP for being a victim of sexual abuse.

Interesting… do you believe I am less deserving of understanding regarding SW because I was complicit / made a choice? Would you have the same view of someone choosing to stay in an abusive relationship, for example, due to trauma bonding / feeling unable to escape? Or engaging in self harm? Which is largely what I felt this period of my life was about.

For me the abuse and SW are inextricably linked, a recreation of what I suffered and attempting to exert control over my sexuality which was taken from me (it clearly did not end that way as SW is in no way empowering in the slightest) and a subconscious attempt to continue abuse so I could be rescued and try to change the narrative.

You have. The sex work is a consequence of her being a victim of the crime.

Appalled you cant see that what you are doing and are splitting hairs over it.

It 100% is victim blaming.

I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone who witheld the fact that they sold sex.

Exactly. Just ignore that other poster she doesn't get it and it's offensive.

In your shoes id tell all or tell nothing.

Because they are linked. Dont tell anyone about the sex work without the background that led to it. Because it will give completly the wrong impression

I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone so callous, that they saw fit to blame the victim of child sexual abuse for the fact they went on to do sex work.

Disgraceful. Just stop posting. Youre making it worse.

You're making stuff up. That is not what I said.

I wouldn’t assume the poster is female… my guess would be the opposite based on their stance that I should disclose the SW but not necessarily the CSA that essentially caused it. All that matters really is I sold sex I guess! That’s obviously all my partner needs to know… the most important thing 😂