My Partner slept with an Escort, how do I move on?

[MugOrJustHopefull]

My partner(M55) and I (F48) have been together 2.5 yrs and our start was far from conventional. He was married when we met and left his wife for multiple reasons which he says were already existing before me, and that meeting me was the catalyst of him leaving rather than leaving her for me.

I moved a long way 6 months ago to be with him and our physical relationship is phenomenal and always has been.

I am a very rational person, I have encouraged him to open up and express his thoughts and feelings, which he has done, especially over the last 18 months. I've never shouted or screamed at him and that's something hes not used to, just calm conversations.

Recently, I knew there was something wrong and as much as I tried to get him to talk, he would just shut down.

He left his PC open and I looked at his search history and he had been goggling escorts and there were 4 photos of a woman.

I asked him about the escort searches and he said he'd always thought they were more realistic that standard sights. It was clear to me that there was still something he wasnt saying, I asked him over and over to which I just got - i don't know what you want me to say,and then again - shut down.

I mentioned the 4 photos of a woman and he denied knowledge, so I said id show him, but they had been deleted and the thumbnails said "recently deleted".

Anyway fast forward 24 hours and I finally got him to confess he'd slept with an Escort. He said it was only once and before we moved in together so around October time. I stayed calm and rational as always and we talked, he cried, I didn't. He said it was a huge mistake that he regretted the second he'd done it.

Well, fast forward another week and we've discussed it, I know who she was, where and when, bits and pieces of what they did / didn't do and what she looks like. She is of course slim, young and pretty.

I really want to try and move on with our
relationship together. He's given me all the standard lines of its me that he loves and wants to be with and grow old with and he wants us to have a life together.

My trust in him is shattered and he works away a fair bit so I know that will be torturous.

BUT.... although I can forgive in time I don't know how to forget.
I just don't know how we move on together

If he used an escort back in October why is the website open now on his computer?

1 - You mean EX-partner right
Also he already cheated in the past - he cheated WITH YOU for pitys sake!

What did you expect?

Also the fact that it is with a prostitute makes it a thousand times worse - he paid to cheat on you.

Leave now and forget he ever existed. also make sure you get a full set of STD test, you've no idea where-else he's been dipping his wick.

This sounds like such a miserable relationship.

The short answer is - the only way to move on from this is without him.

In time he will be nothing more than a loser you once knew and mostly forgotten.

You caught him out in a lie as well as actively looking for an escort - or four.

This isn’t even someone who paid for sex deeply regretted it, which would be bad enough.

He’s a liar, a cheater and the type of low life who pays for sex.

I encourage you to leave him OP.

My husband slept with an escort.. and I’ve stayed. Trust has never been the same and we have so much going on at the moment where I can’t leave.

You will never be able to move on and the trust will never been what it was, sorry

You met him through his cheating, he is always going to cheat.

Draw a line and move back home. I hope you aren't invested financially in this.

There's a good reason why you don't know how to move on together.....

it's because there isn't a way to move on together, only separately.

OP, I'm sorry to be blunt but you have only been with this guy a couple of years (only living together for a few months), you don't have children together. Just leave him.

He has shown you who he is. Twice.

Once when he cheated on his wife to be with you and again when he googled and slept with an escort.

Who knows what else you don't know.

You have not been together that long. Surely you are too old to play games like this.

You deserve far better.

I find your words about encouraging him to open up, not yelling and always being rational worrying. The possibility exists that you were being manipulated all along.

It's part of softening you up and testing you.

Why was it important for him to change to a partner like you -
Sympathy, power, control, able to continue using sex workers?

Look at the evidence. Suddenly he became emotionally withdrawn out of no where (even with your 'good behaviour'), you felt it, pursued it and he left the laptop open

It wasn't an accident. None of this is an accident.

It's all part of how he operates. It's like a mixture of a test and a painful paralysing emotional attack.

How much pain he can get away with you and yet continue to use escorts and whatever else he does? Pain which can be rationised maybe away with no yelling from a new and compliant partner.

It's not loving.

You are not in a relationship, there is nothing to cling on to. He doesn't care for you, at all.

You move on by finding a 'man' that doesn't leap from one relationship to another the second he gets bored, and who doesn't believe sex and consent are something that can be purchased.

Paying for sex is a no go for me, nearly always these women sell their bodies through desperation or force, and every man who decides to pay for the use of their body knows it. The lying and deceit is simply another level. But I’m sorry you knew that, as he was cheating on his ex wife, no matter what you chose to pretend to believe, and you also know deep down it’s not the first time he’s cheated on you. Be it with a woman who was willing or one who is forced into prostitution.

Agreed. Someone who pays to use a woman's body for sex is disgusting and it's a compete dealbreaker for me.

It won’t be the first time, or the last. Sorry.

So he formed a sexual relationship with you whilst he was still married. That makes him a fucking cheat, whatever way you look at it. I bet his wife "didn't understand him" - am I right? To add to his charms he also twice (probably more) used sex workers. And to make it even worse you are trying to act as some kind of counsellor to him, to ease his distress and rationalise his behaviour. C'mon OP. He was a bastard to his wife and now it's your turn to find out.

I’m sorry you’re in this situation.

Perhaps you need to take some more time to really think about what has happened and what it means for your relationship. You say you are normally a rational person, but you are also talking about ‘forgetting’ that your partner cheated on you by buying consent and then lied to you about it when challenged.

Rationally you must know your relationship will never be the same and there is no ‘forgetting’, nor should either of you want to forget. If you want to continue the relationship it should be with eyes wide open, he needs to truly understand why he did it and what would stop him doing it again, and you need to decide whether you want to continue in a relationship with someone that you might never truly trust again.

I could possibly forgive some infidelity depending on the circumstances, but the bought consent and then consistent lack of honesty afterwards are, to me, massive red flags about how your partner views women, respect and integrity in general.

Sorry.

More than once you've felt he was not telling the whole truth.
You've opened Pandora's Box by asking for the finer details (who, what, where, when, description of the woman) and have that info forever in your head.
It's likely that, despite any promises he makes, the knowledge you now have will slowly eat away at what's left of your relationship, even if you both try really hard to get past it.
Find yourself a man who treats you better.

ugh dump him please!

Do you really think so little of yourself that this lying, cheating (c2!), emotionally incontinent man is the best you can do?

You were the mistress and now the tables have turned. Did you think you’d be different?

When trust is broken there's no going back. He had sex with a prostitute. He'll do it again.

You want to waste your life on this lying, cheating, misogynistic cunt? Why? You sound more desperate than him to safe it, and he is the one that cheated.

Sorry, what do you not understand about the situation?

He cheated on his wife with you.

Now he is cheating on you with a prostitute/ victim of human trafficking.

In answer to your username; Mug. Definitely mug.

He was married when we met and left his wife for multiple reasons which he says were already existing before me, and that meeting me was the catalyst of him leaving rather than leaving her for me.

You believed that crap? He cheated on his wife. Now he's cheated on you.

I can't believe you're surprised.

You could have 1000 on this thread messages saying basically this.

What are you going to do OP?

I think it's time to move back to your old haunts. You've only wasted 6 months.

If someone shows you who they truly are, believe them.

There’s nothing to consider here OP. Trust is completely broken and he’s shown you for the pig he is. High chance he will do it again if you take him back and high chance this may not have been the only occasion/only woman.

Not only is he a cheater but a man who uses prostitutes too. Gross on both accounts. Get rid.