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?

Could you visit this weekend?

Wrong quote apologies. Meant for the quote that you quoted.

Is that aimed at me?

I'm sure this is precious little comfort right now, but I've known a few women to think they had a good marriage, discover infidelity, kick the husband out, and then - by having that distance - realise that actually the marriage wasn't that good at all. It was just what they were used to. It might not be true in your case, of course, but men who use prostitutes and then react in the callous way your husband did are rarely wonderful, loving husbands in every other regard. Good luck with it all anyway.

I'm really sorry. It's super bleak. That's what I mean about the compartmentalising. Men who have daughters and use other people's similar age daughters this way.
It's awful, I don't think you will ever find out the whole story. But you already know enough.
He's probably embarrassed, although not personally ashamed. People can behave incredibly strangely when you find out something like this about them, it's one of those situations where you realise you can never really know a person. Try and seek support in real life if you can, remember it's not your shame and secret to keep.

Absolutely not. Apologies again.

Who was it aimed at?

once is enough. I would be sawing his penis off with a rusty knife leaving the bastard quicker than you could say "stupid wanker".

But the fact he shut down access to his account so fast shows there is almost certainly more to hide

What a pathetic man . I am so sorry op

Retail workers on National Minimum Wage get disciplined if they aren't sufficiently cheerful to customers. Source: I worked for a while at Sainsbury's. Strangely, even when I was contemplating suicide during ny shift, I never told my customers how much I hated my job.

The prostituted woman is in a far worse position. If she isn't enthusiatic enough with a punter, he could "discipline" her with his fists or worse. One bad review on Punting.net or BackPage could see her bookings and takings fall, and a quick look at those websites tell us that punters are very ready to post bad reviews.

No prostituted woman is going to tell a punter that she hates being prostituted.

We aren't discussing women's choices. We are discussing men's choices and what those choices say about men's characters, specificially what the OP's H's choice says about his character and what that means for the OP.

OP- It gets recommended on here a fair bit but the Belle Burden book Strangers is really good, her husband has a very brief affair and the day after she finds out he walks out. Not to be with the OW either. There are no apologies, remorse, sadness, no explanation, seemingly no feelings at all, very callous, it really reminds me of your husband's behaviour.

Thank you and sorry that I misunderstood.

There absolutely are many, many women who choose prostitution. Educated, self reliant women who have made that choice. Don’t for one second believe all sex workers are damaged, down trodden, weary women trying to put food in their children’s mouths. It’s just not the case. I’ve even seen one beautiful, educated, very intelligent and savvy woman on Instagram who details her life as a professional ‘girlfriend’… her clients are mostly married men. Could even be your husband! All those married to a lawyer…. 50% have had or are having an affair. 50% of men on a site such as fabswingers are married men. Prostitution is rife there.

It wasn’t the first time Op, he just became complacent as time went on. Sex workers or not he’s cheated and really isn’t that arsed is he? Next he’ll be telling you it didn’t mean anything…. but the reality is that you didn’t and don’t mean anything. Keep remembering that Op.

A number of years ago I had to do some work around a project that supported ‘sex workers’. There was very little choice or agency involved in the lives of these women. Many (most) had a history of child abuse and also adult domestic violence. It was grim. Truly depressing stuff tbh and miles away from the fantasy of career choices etc.

We aren't discussing women's choices. We are discussing men's choices and what those choices say about men's characters, specificially what the OP's H's choice says about his character and what that means for the OP.

I have the Belle Du Jour book, so written by the exact woman whose profile you describe. Her pharmacy shopping list, with cystitis powders and thrush treatment on there as regular purchases, tells you about the toll that being prostituted took on her body, despite her degrees. If any other means of making a living made someone routinely ill like that, it would be considered a HASAWA violation. And you can bet that men wouldn't tolerate it.

The fact that your child just went to uni provides a glimmer of hope that he hasn’t exposed you to a smorgasbord of STIs.

ive noticed a pattern in my social circle of men losing their minds at this point in life. I’ve seen some just leave the marriage which isn’t bad. Others have cheated or asked to open the relationship as soon as the youngest leaves for uni. It’s like they were just waiting for the chance to get back out onto the dating scene.

Many of them regret that choice. I’ve even seen couples get past this phase. I’ve never known one to involve sex workers though.

The fact that your child just went to uni provides a glimmer of hope that he hasn’t exposed you to a smorgasbord of STIs.

@Ponderingwindow how so?

OP has already said only just up thread that she didn't come on here for this, she's come on for support.

So just at the age when she might be wondering how she could make some extra money to pay for uni.

Do these men not ask themselves how they would feel if they turned up to a brothel and found their daughter there? Or do they tell themselves that their well-raised girl would never do that?

If the latter, it tells you that they know that most prostituted women are from bad childhoods and hence vulnerable, and they exploit them anyway.

I'm with you OP. There's no coming back from this.

Actually many pp were indeed discussing women’s choices… you don’t have one without the other. That is not the same person and Belle de Jour was written in 2006, just because she suffered with Thrush and Cystitis doesn’t mean every prostitute does.
The one I’ve seen on Instagram is called JasMonroe and has about 20k followers. The comments are always from other women asking how to get into her line of work. I responded to one comment by asking did they really want to become a prostitute and I was told to ‘check my bias’ by Jas Monroe.

I'm so sorry OP. This is the bleakest time. You will heal and grow again but this part is rough.

So, OP, it's over. You can't get past it, and I SO don't blame you. What a stupid, stupid man. He's about to lose EVERYTHING, and for what? A few minutes of bodily pleasure. He's traded a wife, a family, a home, a future, and a shared history, just for that. And he'll have to split assets with you.

That was one very expensive prostitute visit.

Op has explained she started this thread for support and advice. Please go and start your own thread if you want to debate the wider topic

You misunderstood my use of the term "profile". Educated, self reliant women who have made that choice is the profile I was referring to. Belle fits that profile. The evidence from pornography is that repeated sex, several times per day daily, is injurious to women, causing tears, prolapses, and yeast or bacterial infections. Belle is not by any means alone in getting ill from her punters.

Belle is an outlier in being a graduate from a non-abusive home. Most prostituted women are victims of CSA or childhood DV.

The OP is reeling from the realisation that her husband has paid to exploit such a woman. He will not have screened her for CSA history when booking. He will not have asked her whether she likes having sex with entitled men for money, and she wouldn't answer truthfully if he asked her, for reasons I've already outlined. At worst, he sought out a vulnerable woman to exploit. At best, he doesn't care whether she was exploited or not.

OP is reeling from this realisation. Having "happy hooker" myths peddled on her thread isn't helpful.

I would caution you against believing everything you see on social media. The Tate brothers have just admitted in court that they rented their fleet of expensive cars to create a false image of wealth. Anyone can claim to be a prostituted woman online to get clicks, with their real income being from monetising their social media accounts and not a punter to be seen.