I found out my husband visited an escort

[NiftyKhakiPoet]

I found out yesterday that my husband visited an escort earlier this year and I’m completely devastated.
We’ve been together a long time. As far as I knew we were happy.
I found messages on our shared iPad from February. He had contacted a woman through an escort site asking if she was available. She replied with a menu of services, all of which involved some form of sexual “relief”. He booked an hour, later messaged to say he was there, and she sent him instructions for getting into the building.
When I confronted him, he initially completely denied it. He said the messages couldn’t be his, he’d never been there and there must be some sort of mistake. Eventually, after a lot of questioning, he admitted he had gone and had a massage with a happy ending. He says it happened once, he has never done anything like it before and genuinely doesn’t know why he did it.
I asked him to leave yesterday and he went to a hotel last night. His apology was pretty rotten, basically that he was sorry he had disappointed me and let me down!? He asked what he could do, but I honestly feel he should be the one coming up with that, not expecting me to tell him. He hasn't been in touch since.

The other thing I’m really struggling with is how much the whole thing disgusts me. The fact that my husband went onto an escort site, chose someone, arranged to meet her and paid for a sexual service makes me feel physically sick. I can't get the messages or what happened out of my head.
This morning I noticed he had signed his iMessage account out of the shared iPad. I sent him a screenshot of that and he read it but didn’t respond.
I love him, which is what makes this so painful, but at the moment I can’t imagine ever trusting him again and I didn't think he would be capable of this. I also keep wondering if I really believe this was the only time.
Has anyone been through something similar? Did you stay or leave, and if you stayed, were you ever genuinely able to get past it and trust your partner again?

Couldn't agree more. People love to throw something as completely disruptive and life changing as divorce around very easily on here. Have an honest conversation with your husband bout why he did this. I am not in any way blaming you but people drift apart. Maybe try marriage counselling to see if that is what happened.

Why does he feel the need to go to an escort?

This is a misconception in the majority of cases. The men I've managed to have reasonably straightforward conversations with didn't have a 'need', it was simply about variety. It was nice for them, sort of like hiring another car or going to a different restaurant.

They tended to be eager to explain how willing the women were to be used. I usually shut that down - how likely is the naked woman you're paying £200 to tell you she fucking hates the work or has learned to operate on autopilot while she blanks out the customers?

Wome can chose to do whatever they want . Some women chose sex work ,that's their personal right .Good luck to them .

And these men, multiple men, have openly admitted to visiting escorts @GarlicSomething ?

What can I say, I'm a good listener! And one of them was a husband, shortly after our divorce.

Ugh.
I know several women who have ended up in prostitution and not one of them actively decided to do it as a positive choice.
Most of them have had terrible upbringings, ver low self esteem and little other options. Some had been forced into prostitution. Some by their family members who should have loved them not allowed this to happen to them. Some by being trafficked and being forced (raped) daily.
There are some.women who willing go into the sex industry but the risk that they are not there willingly is extremely high.

Multiple men have just openly admitted to paying escort girls to you. Odd

I have apologised to the OP and I genuinely mean it. I hope you are doing as well as you can be OP and I am sorry you are going through this. I too would be devastated.
MrsTerryPratchett
I didn't imply that I was a police officer, however being a 999 call handler wasn't my only job within the police and it was in other roles that I met sex workers. Sorry though, I appreciate I could have been clearer on that.

To me this would be worse than if he had cheated with a one night stand. Not only has he betrayed your relationship but he has also paid for another woman's body like a commodity. A woman who is most likely to be trafficked/vulnerable (drugs/victim of abuse). I would never want to see the filthy bastard again.

Why be so nasty?
I do apologise when I believe i'm in the wrong, which I was on this thread for posting stuff that wasn't appropriate.
I am allowed to have my own thoughts and opinions though based on my life experiences. Why do you want to tell me what I can and cannot do?

Men who think women can be bought and sold are repulsive. You need to separate the act and the person. It’s not just the act that was disgusting it’s HIM that’s disgusting. He is not the man you thought he was. Change the locks.

Yes. I once forgave an affair but any man who had been with a sex worker would never touch me again.

To my mind all sex work is rape. Consent is not consent if it’s paid for any more than consent is not consent if you have a gun to your head.

My husband agrees with this and my sons will understand this truth when they are old enough

I fail to see how visiting prostitutes can be deemed acceptable, i have friends who describe it as 'transactional' like your just buying any other service or product, a very cold and calculated way of looking at it.

I think what makes it wrong in my head is a combination of 3 things

1. Transactional sex would be emotionless so i don't see how you would get the excitement needed to finish.
2. The person visiting the prostitute will sometimes and probably more often than not be in a relationship with someone who is none the wiser.
3. The prostitute although happy to provide the service is probably more often than not forced into a position where they have to do that job to survive, therefore she probably doesn't want 10 sweaty men banging her everyday really. I'm sure there are those that enjoy it and do it for the money but for those that are only doing it to survive it sounds wrong, it's like consensual rape if that's even a thing.

Each to their own but i couldn't use a woman like a piece of meat. After all that is/was once someone's little girl.

Strongly disagree. In the UK as most civilised societies we have limits to what a person ‘can’ consent to. So you can’t consent to be murdered. And you are not allowed to consent to be maimed, like having your hand cut off for fun. Anyone underage cannot consent to sex which is why any underage sex is rape.

It is my firm view the law should also reflect that people cannot consent to be raped. If you have a gun to your head, you are not consenting. If someone chucks £100 or £10000 at you after, you are not consenting.

Most of the sex workers I knew were used and abused by men from pre-pubescence. If you include the ones who were abused as a teenager, there were only a tiny handful who made a free choice as an adult.

As a friend put it to me "my dad paid my pocket money after having sex with me, why shouldn't I take it from other men?" Tbh what can you realistically say to that?

So no, very little genuine free choice.

Shouldn't you actually find out more about the lifestyle you're pushing before coming out with this crap?

He is shooting himself in the foot by saying that he doesn’t know why he did it because if he doesn’t know that then he can’t know he won’t do it again.

I’m sorry he did that to you and is now falling woefully short of repairing the damage he has done to you. Maybe couples counselling will help if they are willing to call out his BS and establish what caused him to use a sex worker. I can’t think of any reason that would allow me to stay and work on the relationship but if there was one I would definitely want a professional to meditate that so that I didn’t get bamboozled by their regrets and attempts to get the best outcome for them

I agree.

I guess statistically there must be some sex workers that love the job and do it freely.

But there are also some sado-massochists who fantasise about having their fingers chopped off.

By the happy hooker logic we should allow everyone to go around chopping each others’ fingers off because a tiny minority want to do that freely for their own satisfaction. No. We have a law that says you can’t do that. And sorry sado massochists you’ll have to get your kicks elsewhere.

Equally sorry to the statistically insignificant number of happy hookers that need to go get a new job. Go work in tesco or nursing or learn to fly a plane. Do something else. Because your ‘right’ to do this job doesn’t trump our need to protect the massive majority of sex workers who are trafficked, abused and need protection.

I would never, ever, forgive this. The cheating aspect is only one part of why. The issue for me is that it would mean my DH was the sort of disgusting misogynist who thinks sexual consent can be bought. It can’t. Any man who buys sexual “services” is exploiting a woman. I couldn’t respect or love someone like that.

What a horrible shock.

”I don’t know why I did it” is just not good enough. Had he chatted about it with mates? Has been building up to it chatting to women online?

Arranging it through an account that’s linked to the shared iPad is fairly dumb, and makes me think perhaps he has not been furtively seeing escorts for ages.

I could probably forgive this; it’s transactional sex and a betrayal but not an affair. Yes it’s disgusting to use women this way; but he can learn the error of his ways… maybe. A long journey though, and only if you want to.

I use the term female because I worked for the police for 25 years

yeah, you “implied” you worked as a police officer @user1464187087 🙄

I have. I have got no reason to make this up. What would I gain from it?
I've also seen the other side of it where the women are desperate.
Please don't insinuate that i'm lying, i'm really not.
I can't say a massive amount on here and admittedly that may cause you to be wary of what I say, but i'm not a liar.

You need to leave this thread. You won’t though sadly.

Are you calling me a liar? I am female, it's a descriptive word I used when I worked for the police and had to create police incident's. For example 'IC1 female, F5'10, long brown hair, medium build, wearing a blue top, black jeans and red trainers.'
My name is Louise.

Please don't call me a liar, it's really disrespectful.

Why, because i'm sticking up for myself?

Oh grow up and read your first couple of posts.

That is why.

Another thread I’ve been on where you’ve waded in and then retreated with a half asses apology

I will join the others in just ignoring you