Was I wrong for never telling my wife that I used to visit sex workers before we met?

[JibJab3030]

I (38M) have been married to my wife (36F) for six years, together for nine. Before I met her, I was single for a long time and honestly not that interested in relationships. During that period, I occasionally paid for sex. Not constantly, but enough that if I added it all up over the years, it would probably be a few dozen different sex workers.
Once I met my wife, all of that stopped completely. I’ve never cheated on her, never even came close. We have what I thought was a very honest and solid marriage.
The issue started recently when we were watching some TV show where a character mentioned hiring escorts, and I casually said something like, “Yeah, been there, done that.” She got quiet and started asking questions, and I answered honestly. When she realized it was more than “a few times” and had been an actual pattern in my past, she got extremely upset.
She says this is something I should absolutely have disclosed before marriage because it changes how she sees me and because sexual history matters in a relationship. She feels deceived and says I hid it from her for almost a decade.
My perspective is that everyone has a past. I never lied to her. She never once asked me if I’d ever paid for sex or asked for detailed numbers about previous partners. If she had asked directly, I would have told her. To me, this was private information about my life before we met, and since it had zero overlap with our relationship, I didn’t think it was relevant.
Now she’s barely speaking to me and says she doesn’t know who she married.
I feel I have done nothing wrong and that if this was a dealbreaker for her than it was on her to ask me if I had ever paid for sex before.
I want to know how the users of Mumsnet feel about this. Do you agree with me or with her?

goodness ....where we have come to as a western society

They are, but yeah, it's lifted from Reddit. By someone who agrees, though.

edited my comment because I changed my mind and wanted to delete but could only edit. May contact mnhq to do so if thread not deleted since others suggest it has been reported.

This - 1 million percent.

Now do us all a favour @JibJab3030and fuck
the fuck right off of here, you repugnant little man.

Personally, if given the choice to go out with a man who paid for sex in his past, I would never choose to continue the relationship.

Disclosure to your now wife earlier on would have given her a choice.

You lied by omission.
Your wife probably will not trust you again.

Expect her to call quits on the relationship.

Next time date a woman who agrees with you on major issues of intimacy.

Hi OP,

I can see the logic in your argument; she never asked and you never lied. If it was important she should have asked..

The problem is the subject matter. She never asked because in a million years she would never have expected to have had to. I have never asked my DH if he is attracted to young children, if he has taken heroin, if he has ever beaten someone so hard he put them in hospital.

Now before you get angry saying what you did isn't comparable consider that maybe to your wife it is and to many of the posters here who you consider to be unreasonable.

You think a woman's body is for sale. You think you can pay to use it for gratification.

Not every woman has the same view on this.

But I can only tell you from my own pov being with my ex, totally in love and feeling - naively perhaps - that we shared the same outlook on so many things the utter shock when in answer to a genuinely jokey enquiry if he'd ever paid for it he responded

"Yes I have and I'm not in anyway ashamed of it. I'd recommend it to any young man who had earned himself good money. She was absolutely gorgeous, a model too and making herself some extra cash. Good on her."

I was instantly and entirely repulsed by him and could not get past it.

I agree with her. It would be an absolute deal breaker for me knowing that my ‘partner’ thinks it’s ok to rent a vagina.

You’re grim.

Don't feed the troll!

Yep, trolling. No decent man would say that, even about an imaginary daughter.

Yes I would be absolutely furious if my DH did this and kept it from me. Because he would never have never have become my DH if I knew.

If she chooses it of her own free will I have no problem.…

Jesus Christ, just when you think a thread can’t get any worse, you read this.

Ok, if you genuinely can't understand why then at least try to accept that it is how many women feel, whether you understand it or not. At least you'll know that you should disclose it next time, and there will be a next time, because your current marriage is done.

There are two points here:

1. paying for sex
2. telling your partner

On paying for sex I accept that there are a minority of woman for whom it may be a genuine choice to do sex work, but on the whole it is not. You are taking advantage of someone else’s misery. I don’t understand why any human would do this to another. Op - out of interest why not just hook up with someone at a pub or club? Re telling your partner, this I agree is on her. If she was interested in your sex life prior to her she should have asked.

Eww, of course she should have been aware that you’re a misogynist that's sees women as something you can purchase consent from. And how exactly did you ensure they weren't trafficked or pressured, or were you happy to accept you might be raping them?
I wouldn't have touched you with a barge pole.

Women are not commodities to be bought or sold.
Paying for sex is not consent.
The vast majority of sex workers / prostitutes would rather not have sex for money: lack of choice is not choice.
Men who pay for sex see women as there to fulfil their needs.

I would divorce you and cut all contact immediately.

If someone there was trafficked that is not on me

And there we go, you don't see any problem with raping someone. You're pretty fucking thick if you don't understand why women are repulsed by rapists.

Yes. "Other women might be trafficked and coerced into prositution, but the few dozen whose vaginas I rented happened to be happy hookers who do it for the love of it."

And, OP, "rape" doesn't just mean forced sex. It's any sex that's coerced.

I don't buy all this faux naivety.

Let me ask you this : at the time, did you tell your Mum? Like when she said "hey son, what have you been up to lately", you replied "Oh, been to the footy, had sex with a prostitute and played golf with Bob"

Bet you didn't.

Oh I bet they do...

Yeah, like hell would you be fine with a daughter being paid for sex and risking a beating or being murdered.

Haven't read through all the comments but I think, as you can see, sex work evokes strong ideological/ethical/moral responses in people.

Putting aside the ideological/ethical objections, if I were your partner, I would have the following concerns:

• sexual health (had you been tested before you started sleeping with your wife?) - as with that many partners (whether you pay for it or not) the chances of an STI would be higher.
• compatibility - you are clearly able to separate the physical from the emotional, and that would reveal different approach to intimacy than the one I have, which to me would also suggest you may have a casual meaningless encounter

I would also assume that once you got to know me you would know that this is something I would like to know, or would deem relevant. I agree with previous posters who think it would be an odd question for her to have checked with you, because it definitely isn't the norm to pay for sex work.

@JibJab3030

”if someone was there was trafficked that is not on me” are you fucking kidding me?

if they had no johns, they wouldn’t be needed in the first place. If every man stopped buying sex, women wouldn’t need to be trafficked. You are part of the fucking problem by creating the demand.

it IS ON YOU. you fecking eejit.

What country are you in? As far as I know we don’t have licensed brothels in the Uk and in the countries where they do such as Germany women are still brought in under circumstances we would think of as trafficking.
I would recommend you do some research into the industry from the anti- prostitution side since you seem to have plenty of knowledge on the pro side. Once you have done this you may be able to have a sensible conversation with your wife about it.

For me, I would be upset this hadn't been discussed prior to marriage. It would give me a serious ick and I would spend time considering staying in the marriage or not.

I am on the fence about sex work in general. I dont feel as strongly against it as some other people on here but at the same time theres a big part of it thats grim like sex trafficking, girls feeling like they have no option but to turn to this to earn a living etc that I really dont like.

The reason I feel like Id want to be informed prior to marriage is because sex is intimate. To me, it means something deeper than what it probably does you. I would feel a bit icky just knowing ut was quite a high number but again, thats just me personally. Id have wanted to have the chance to discuss, ask what questions I felt were important and then considered my feelings on it before marriage. I would ask now but in my younger years probably wouldn't have asked out right. Maybe thats wrong but I wouldn't just assume that my partner had used sex workers (I only know 1 person who has), so I wouldn't think to being it up. However, I would expect my partner to have disclosed that the information if they had in fact has slept with sex workers and go from there and make my mind up with the facts.