Partner living a double life for 3 years

[Kay3345]

I’m looking for some advice as I’m too embarrassed to speak to my friends about my situation…

I met a guy online dating 3 years ago. He was perfect for me, funny, intelligent, professional, sensitive, and seeming wanted the same things as me for the future. We clicked immediately, met up, and fell madly in love. He is older than me, I’m 30 he is 44, but it never seemed an issue for us. He has no prior children and no ex wife. He claimed to have never settled down because work previously always took him out of the country. We have had a lovely relationship, filled with happy times and fantastic memories. We have always got on so well. We’d had a few petty disagreements, but nothing heated and never any arguments. He tells me all the time how attractive he finds me, how happy I make him, how lucky he feels to be with me, how I’m by far the best women he has ever been with, everything a women would want to hear! I get on well with his family, support him in his career, cater to his every need. Our sex life has always been good and regular.

Fast forward to now, we have a 6 month old baby together and I’ve recently found out he has been sleeping with 3 other women the whole time we have been together. He met them a long time before he met me, 7+ years. He met them semi-regularly for sex and messages them all daily when at work. He met them all on an escort website and pays for all interactions with them, physical and electronic. Despite them being escorts, he is very clearly emotionally attached to them, and has explained to me that their relationships were “special” and that he had a laugh with them and a friendship. He cares deeply for them and has even suggested to them in the past about beginning a relationship with him. He was also still on multiple dating sites, regularly reaching out to local women by sending them an explicit picture of himself to spark conversation - as to whether or not he has also met with these women for sex is unknown, but I suspect he was. I have found two phones hidden in the house which are filled with 20,000+ explicit pictures and videos of other women, and approximately 50 videos of him having sex with escorts. I know now that he would transfer the content from his everyday phone to these phones so I would never find it.

Since finding out, he has blocked the three escort women, I have deleted his dating profiles, the ones I know about anyway, and he claims to not be doing anything unfaithful anymore. He claims he wants to be with me and our baby, and that he was just in a really bad habit and in too deep, and that by me finding out about his dirty secret, it has helped him stop that lifestyle. He has given up his job and agreed to re-locate to a new area by the end of this year, so we can start afresh away from these women who all currently live within 10 minutes of us.

The problem is, it has completely broken me. I don’t know if I should trust him anymore or if I should stay with him. My mind tells me to run, but the fact I love him, and worry about what will become of him if I leave, is currently making me stay. His family would be devastated, and our baby will grow up without her father around, because I have doubts he would prioritise her over himself if I were to leave.

Can men like this change?
Can you cheat on someone in this way and still love them?
Is it plausible that he was caught up in a cycle with these women and didn’t know how to get out?

I’m very lost and very torn.

Can men like this change?
Only if they really want to, and then they'd do it because they wanted to rather than because they've been caught out.

Can you cheat on someone in this way and still love them?

I think yes but you'd have to have quite a skewed view as to what love looks like and I think in order to do this and feel OK about doing it, you'd need to love yourself significantly more than the partner you are knowingly betraying.

Is it plausible that he was caught up in a cycle with these women and didn’t know how to get out?

No, he's not a baby. He could have stopped seeing them/spoken to you or a friend or a therapist or gp. He didn't stop because he didn't want to stop.

I found very similar on my husbands phone when our child was 8mo. It was shattering and I stayed because I felt like I owed it to our son, we went for individual and joint counselling and I really did my best to try and make things work even though something in me had just died in terms of my feelings about him. I knew I'd never feel secure with him or be able to trust him again the way I had before and I would always know that this was something he felt okay to do to me, knowing it would hurt me. He put on a great show of making amends and 6 months later I found a whole lot more and realised it was all just a sham and he'd said and done whatever he needed to for me to stay and to make the problem go away, rather than actually change. I left him and never looked back. I didn't break up my family, I didn't take away my sons father - he did that and I'll never completely forgive him for that.

I think you'd be saving yourself a lot of heartache if you leave now. I wish i had just left at the beginning but at least staying for the months I did stay allowed me to start quietly saving into my personal account and I went back to work full time instead of part time like we had planned so I was in a better financial position to leave.

100% agree .."the man you think you are in love with doesn't exist" he's portrayed himself (acted) as the perfect, loving partner, but that isn't who he is. He's definitely a compulsive, manipulative serial liar.

Forget what he's said or says ..look at what he's done ... are you able to live with that..? (No judgement, genuine question).

Feel so very sorry for you & the level of pain you must be experiencing..your dream life has just flipped into your worst nightmare, it'll take you some time to get over & process the shock.

I know how it feels, I've been in a similar situation... supporting all those late nights/weekends away & taking business calls happily thinking he's a good man working hard to support his family... when he wasn't ... he was blatantly lying to you, repeatedly in your face, abusing your good nature, and spending your daughters £ on other women.

If he had told you when he met you that he had been paying the same 3 escorts for 7+ years & considered himself in a special relationship with them would you still have been interested in him ...?

I think you have no idea who he actually is as you've never really met the real him ....

Sending love & strength. Talk to your good friends, this situation will take some processing Get your free hr advice from a family solicitor specialising in supporting women so you are clear what his financial responsibilities would be if/when you split.

Good luck, & I think you (& your daughter), deserve so very much more x

What a devastating situation , the ultimate betrayal. Personally the relationship would be over for me but only you can decide what’s best for you . Your daughter is a baby and I don’t think this man will he any kind of role model for her and if you left and he didn’t show up for her she wouldn’t remember him anyway .

I’ve only read the first page of comments but came to say that I think given the scale of what he’s done, he’s unlikely to change. If you stay with him, you need to accept that your life will be full of him seeing and paying for other women and hiding it from you. If that’s what you want out of life and is something you can put up with, that’s fine. If not, you’re only going to waste your future years with him.

@Kay3345 come on!!!! where is your self respect??? how is your sexual health??? toss him right in the bin and tell his family what he has been doing/ he is just not worth it!! He obviously only loves himself or he would never do this to you! lying cheating shit!

Wow - he's spent a significant amount of time figuring out how to lie to you, trick you and manipulate you. This is no casual accident - he's worked and worked at it.

Lying to you has been one of his primary goals each and every day you've been together.

I genuinely can't comprehend how you can stand to see him again. He'd make me physically sick

My mind tells me to run, but the fact I love him, and worry about what will become of him if I leave, is currently making me stay.

Forget about him and how he feels or what might become of him as he clearly has not been focusing on you and your daughter- do not take responsibility for making him be okay. He’s old enough to take responsibility for himself

This is an incredibly selfish man-it’s astounding what he’s done. He’s lied to you about practically everything. You need to end this relationship because you are worth more than this. Your child should not be raised by this person really but obviously shared custody may be unavoidable. I’m so sorry to hear your world has been turned upside down. Do not let him get away with doing this to you. The least of the consequences of his actions should be that he loses you.

Spot on.
Sadly OP, I think this is irreparable. Even if you stayed, you will be tortured with the sheer scale of deceit and infidelity.
Time to set yourself free.
Sending you the strength you need to find

End the relationship. In time you will look book on the lies and deceit and realise the man was a compulsive liar who used prostitutes whilst proclaiming to be in love with you, whilst having a baby with you, whilst leading you to believe you were building a future together and living a happy settled life.

You need to get checked for STIs as I wouldn’t trust him to have practised safe sex regardless of whatever he say

You deserve so much more.

You're still young.

Leave him to his prostitutes and lies and pity the next woman he gets involved with because I seriously doubt he will change.

This is very good and bears repeating.

I also think the very way he represented himself to OP has to be understood as part of his long con. He isn’t a good partner with whom you can have secure intimacy, happy family days out, that much desired “a laugh” etc… He is a sociopath who enjoys running multiple relationships with women, misrepresenting himself to each one as sincerely focused on them and their beauty/interests/wellbeing. That is what he likes. That is the world he has carefully and without regard to your wants or needs constructed. He does not feel shame as ordinary people do. He’s not built that way. He enjoyed lying to you, and them (all thise women). He actively seeks out false, shallow, and deceptive relationships.

You can’t compromise with a sociopath like this. Try to end it swiftly and as cleanly as you can. It will be safer for you and your daughter.

love him, and worry about what will become of him if I leave

He never worried what would become of you and your daughter when he was sleeping with all of these sex workers and living his disgusting seedy life.

I don’t understand why you aren’t finding your anger - in your shoes he would be out on his ear, I would tell everyone what a disgusting pig he was and I would hope his dick fell off!

This must be incredibly hard for you and I’m very sorry. But I really hope you don’t waste another second of your precious life on this excuse of a man.

I'm sorry you're going through this. Open your eyes. He won't change they never do. He's only sorry because he's been caught. He wasn't prioritising you or your baby when he was shagging about. Your not responsible for what happens to him.

I find your post difficult to believe, your boundaries are non existent and your partner is misogynist with a very low opinion of women and is a sexual predator.

Babe. He’s a walking red flag parade. 🚩🚩🚩
Like… I’m sorry, but three years of lies, hidden phones, 20,000+ pictures, 50 videos, escorts, dating sites, unsolicited d**k pics? That’s not “oops, I got into a habit.” That’s a second life.
Do I think he “loves” you? In his way, maybe. But in the way you need? No. Love doesn’t hide burner phones in the house. Love doesn’t pay escorts and then come home and say “you’re the best woman I’ve ever been with.” That’s manipulation.
Can men like this change? Yeah, with a lot of therapy, humility, and hard work. But here’s the harsh truth: he didn’t confess, he got caught. Big difference. And most men who change only do so when they’re dragged through fire — total loss of the relationship, consequences, facing themselves in therapy. Right now, he’s doing damage control to keep you.
And girl, I have to say it: don’t stay because you’re scared he won’t step up for the baby. That’s on him, not you. Babies can thrive with one strong, safe parent. What breaks kids isn’t “one parent” — it’s growing up in a house where their mother is crying, broken, and doubting herself because their dad was living a secret sex life.
You’re asking the right question, though: Do you trust him?
And your gut is already screaming no.

if you stay: you’ll need couples therapy, and he’ll need individual therapy for compulsive sexual behaviour. You’ll need full transparency (no secret phones, open accounts, proof of commitment).

if you leave: will hurt like hell, but you’ll be free of the lies, the shame, and the waiting to see if he slips again.

I can’t actually believe you are thinking you can stay! He’s a total sex mad pervert! Your life is going to be utter misery if you stay. You know now what he is capable of - a man who pays for sex is tantamount to a rapist as true consent can’t be bought. This man views all women as a means to an end and that includes you. He will never be faithful and you will never be happy. Thank god you found this out before sacrificing your life to this sick fuck.

You will never be able to trust this man. Im so sorry this has happened to you. Do not stay with him, you will regret it.

Op gently this is not something changeable! This is who he is. He has the sort of personality that needs multiple women at once. He cares for them all deeply - bullshit - he’s a man incapable of normal feelings and relationships. He will go through life breaking women whilst also finding broken women to have relationships with. He’ll always care about them but be as trustworthy as a fox left in the henhouse.
Get yourself out and look at various counselling and support programmes. I am so sorry you are going through this. It’s not you - it’s him. It’s also not all men and you will recover from this and I’m sure go on to be happy again x
Ps please don’t worry about what will happen to him if you leave - he will recover remarked quickly and continue shagging escorts and women he meets online!
And the fact you know deep down he will basically not bother with your child should you split up should be all the more reason to split up!

You would be insane to stay with him. Even if he did manage to stop this behaviour (highly unlikely), he will still be the man who chose to do this while in a relationship with you. The man capable of this seedy amd disgusting betrayal will not have gone away. He'll just be either reluctantly behaving himself (probably temporarily) or simply hiding it better next time.

I was in a similar position with a similar aged baby, and chose to stay for our child's sake. In retrospect, I should have left immediately. He used my (misplaced) shame about his behaviour to take control of the narrative with our friends and family, which made it harder for me to leave later as I couldn't rely on people who had once been part of my support network. He has never stopped lying, to me, to our child, to the partners he's had since me, etc. He sees women as prizes to be won and as staff to be managed, and deceiving them as part of the pleasure of every relationship.

Like yours, this man had everything going for him except the lying, cheating, and using people. I thought it ought to be really easy, and obviously better for him as well as everyone around him, for him to wake up to himself and stop living a double life. If he'd managed to, he would have been absolutely formidable. Unfortunately getting to your 30s or 40s without even wanting to change for your own reasons makes it very unlikely that you can, and especially unlikely that you will, based on no more intrinsic trigger than having been found out.

In my ex's case, I now realise that he's too shit-scared of self-knowledge ever to change his behaviour. He'll live the rest of his life compulsively self-soothing with the evidence that he's definitely cleverer than everyone around him and women definitely love him, rather than ever have an honest relationship with someone other than his dog.

He might not have a choice any more, but you do - get out of there.

My exh was like this, except it was more than 15 years and many, many escorts. They don’t change and they don’t really think of women as fully human with their own agency, needs, etc. We are just there to service their narcissistic egos.
Don’t throw an away any more of your life on this pathetic excuse for a partner and father.

I thought exactly the same. I’m so sorry you are going through this, whatever choice you make please remember you and your child are your priority, not your partner or his family.

So, basically, he's been paying 3 hookers.

If you move away, he'll just pay 3 more hookers in whatever area you move to.

He might think he had an emotional connection to them and that moving away from the area will magically fix that...

But, in reality, those hookers are just spinning him a line to keep the money flowing their way - in exactly the same way he's been spinning you lines to keep the honey flowing his way.

So sorry. What a scumbag he is.

He is manipulating you and gaslighting you.

You deserve more and so does your baby.

Please get yourself tested. You shouldn’t be the one feeling embarrassed, he should.

This tells you what you need to do. If he will only prioritise his own child if you are together then you are best off leaving now than further down the line when she has more of a relationship with him.