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Original poster

Partner living a double life for 3 years

248 replies

Kay3345 · 28/08/2025 13:35

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.

OP posts:
TwistedWonder · 28/08/2025 18:48

Maybe I’m being cynical or just been here too long but I’m starting to smell BS on this one. Surely no one on the planet thinks this is a man who deserves a second d chance? And how the fuck does this bloke get the time and energy to have a full time job, partner, young baby and still films himself sticking his dick in escorts on a daily basis?

Hmm

TeaBiscuitsNaptime · 28/08/2025 18:50

I would leave if I were you. His explanation that he was single because of his job feels a bit off too. You couldnt trust him again really and he could bring back stds also. Do prep well before you do leave though, especially with a little one. You're daughter is more likely to be affected if you stay with him then leave, If he's into escorts and filming X rated stuff that much. His friends mightnt be safe to have around either

lacookierahcha · 28/08/2025 19:00

My God what have I just read. Am so sorry for you. You know you HAVE to get rid of this piece of shit don’t you?!

lacookierahcha · 28/08/2025 19:01

TwistedWonder · 28/08/2025 18:48

Maybe I’m being cynical or just been here too long but I’m starting to smell BS on this one. Surely no one on the planet thinks this is a man who deserves a second d chance? And how the fuck does this bloke get the time and energy to have a full time job, partner, young baby and still films himself sticking his dick in escorts on a daily basis?

Hmm

Yes me too. Cannot be real. Nobody would be thinking of forgiving this in real life no?

Toooldtopretend · 28/08/2025 19:02

You can’t live your life with someone you can’t trust. This betrayal is huge.

Please do not waste anymore time on this man or you will inevitably look back and say “I should have left him x years ago when I first found out”. I know it’s tough but go through the difficult bit now and so you can build a happy future for yourself and your child. Onwards and upwards! X

Laura95167 · 28/08/2025 19:04

He might love you, might love you with everything he has... it didnt slow him down.

His feelings dont matter his behaviour does.

(Alternatively you might have just been a "beard" or respectability)

Thisisbetweenyoumeandtheinternet · 28/08/2025 19:05

That’s vile.
you can do better for yourself and your child.

Walker1178 · 28/08/2025 19:06

I’m sorry OP but it would be a no for me.

A single isolated incident I could possibly get over but only with boundaries put in place to stop it from happening again. This was an integral part of his everyday life for years, aside from keeping him locked away forever nothing is going prevent him from doing it again and I’d be incredibly surprised if he can just give it up.

Get out and find someone that will make you happy, someone you can trust - because every time this guy walks out the door you’ll be tormenting yourself wondering what he’s up to.

Keyhooks · 28/08/2025 19:08

This is really sordid, even by MN standards.

He will not want this getting out.

Make sure everyone knows just what a scummy lowlife he is, particularly his family.

BellissimoGecko · 28/08/2025 19:11

Christ on a bike. He’s awful. I’d leave him right away, get tested for STIs. You can’t trust him. At all. Ever.

Why would you even consider staying?

CoffeeLipstickKeys · 28/08/2025 19:14

Sorry you’re going through this
postcode won’t change his behaviour or predilections
He has lied,obfuscated ,put a lot of emotional energies into lying on an industrial scale. Spent Finances on escorts. Diverting money he should have spent on his family to sexual liaisons with prostitutes.

He will relocate and still be the same man in a different post code. He will just get better at lying and hiding things.

Havingaswimmoose · 28/08/2025 19:16

Yes he can love you and still do this.

You have to decide if you want to be loved by a man with his lifestyle
I just hope he showers, at least washes his hands before touching your daughter.
.
Your daughter is best off away from him. She'd have an awful father and blame you for subjecting her to his filth.

Omeara · 28/08/2025 19:25

What a prick.

He’s a stupid & deluded one too. His ‘friendships’ would be over the second he stops paying. Does the stupid fool think they’re genuine.

Foundress · 28/08/2025 19:29

TwistedWonder · 28/08/2025 18:48

Maybe I’m being cynical or just been here too long but I’m starting to smell BS on this one. Surely no one on the planet thinks this is a man who deserves a second d chance? And how the fuck does this bloke get the time and energy to have a full time job, partner, young baby and still films himself sticking his dick in escorts on a daily basis?

Hmm

Indeed it’s happening more and more on here. OP starts a quite fantastical thread and then never bothers to return. I do feel sorry for the PP’s who have given considered, detailed and sympathetic answers to the OP. What a waste of their time.

jinn2025 · 28/08/2025 19:29

Men like that NEVER change

momtoboys · 28/08/2025 19:33

I am so sorry you are going through this, but to me this is unforgivable. I could not even look him in the face let alone have a relationship with him.

Endofyear · 28/08/2025 19:36

Oh OP what an absolutely awful shock for you, I can't even imagine the horror of discovering this. I hope you will reach out to your family and close friends as this is too much for you to carry alone. You must not feel shame or embarrassment - you have done nothing wrong and the shame is all his.

For what it's worth, I think you would be incredibly foolish to continue in a relationship with him. You would be signing yourself up to a lifetime of feeling insecure, mistrustful and always wondering if he's started again.

I can tell you that the greatest predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. He is not a young man, he's behaved like this for a long time and he's very practiced at deception. In all likelihood, he will continue to cheat. This is who he is.

You say you love him - but you love who you thought he was - the deceptive face that he showed you. He's a liar and a cheat - you're not in love with the real him.

Please don't stay with him - you and your baby deserve so much better.

Lavender14 · 28/08/2025 19:48

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

And also op just in response to this - it is not your responsibility. He's made the decisions he's made KNOWING what the consequences would be. He chose those consequences actively. When I left my ex I did really worry about what would happen and where he'd end up - that's because I was a good partner who was invested in him as my husband and took care of him. He did not do the same for me. It's hard to watch someone you love or loved suffer but this was his choice. And the thing to remember is that you are also suffering. And he was just focused on himself.

It is not your job, nor the job of any other woman to fix or take care of broken men. Especially when they are fully responsible for their own misfortune.

Hungrybrood · 28/08/2025 19:50

Run!!

Thingyfanding · 28/08/2025 19:51

It’s over.

He will not change.

Applesonthelawn · 28/08/2025 19:55

No he can't and won't change.
You need to concentration on yourself and your daughter, and get to the bottom of why you think you can carry on loving someone like him. That's the only piece of weirdness in your post that you are able to change.

savethatkitty · 28/08/2025 20:01

I'm so sorry OP.

First, get an STI test immediately.

No. No. No. Men like this will NEVER change. Ever. Not for you, not for your child. He will beg and plead, but don't believe him. He won't change.

YankeeDad · 28/08/2025 20:01

I believe that you do not actually love who he is. You "love" the man you THOUGHT he was, but that man is a fiction who does not actually exist, and never had.

You probably also loved how he made you feel in the past, and those feelings within you were real, but they were based on an illusion, and you cannot unknow that.

The good news is you are capable of feeling real love.

But you need first to love yourself, which will be so much easier if you leave this man, and then love your baby, and then perhaps, in time, find a partner who is worthy of your live, as this one is not.

NotMyKidsThough · 28/08/2025 20:03

My father did this. At least twice, but my newly-discovered half-sister and I both think he did it at least another time as well. He left his first family and took his Mum (I know) and all the furniture with him, leaving a wife and a daughter five years old. They never saw him again and certainly didn't get any maintainance from him. He married my mother 5 years later, but didn't bother to get a divorce - he was divorced by first wife AFTER marrying my mother. He left our family with 3 children having married someone on 2 month's acquaintance. She found out and divorced him. 4 years later he married again. So far as we can prove at the moment, 4 weddings, 4 children, 3 legal marriages, a bankruptcy and a jail sentence before dying unmourned by anyone at 55 of a heart attack, and even then managed to mess up other people's things by crashing his car into someone else's when he was dead. If he'll do it once, he'll do it again. It's up to you if you let him, but don't kid yourself he'll give a damn what happens to you.

carly2803 · 28/08/2025 20:03

he won't change

he will also find another escort agency close by and carry on

get angry and get him gone. He has had his cake and eaten it, so take back control

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