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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Husband signed up to dating website

183 replies

ShockedBeyondBelief · 04/01/2010 15:09

I've name changed as I post a bit in other topics and don't really want mumsnetters or people in RL to know about this.

I found out at the weekend that my husband has joined an online dating website, specifically looking for sex. He says it was a stupid mistake, that he hadn't contacted anyone and he wasn't planning to.

But obviously even if that's true, I'm still pretty gutted, although am feeling a bit detached and unemotional right now.

I have held my hands up and said I'm partly responsible for this, as our relationship has been very up and down and sex life pretty sporadic since we had our 20-month-old ds.

What do I do now? I have no idea how to move on from this. I don't feel I can tell RL friends as I don't want them to hate my husband. Has anyone been in a similar situation?

OP posts:
Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:09

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Your DH hasn't actually done anything very terrible.

Maybe this is what the two of you need - a bit of a wake up call to work on your relationship and to get things back on track since the arrival of your DS. Do you have GPs or other family you could leave DS with for a few days while you and DH take a break in a hotel?

Original poster
ShockedBeyondBelief · 04/01/2010 16:10

That's it hbfac. We're going round in circles with him getting quite peeved that I don't know whether to believe that he didn't use the website to meet anyone. Because he would say that, wouldn't he?

I guess if I'm honest, I just want a real life person to say "he is a twunt" and let me bitch about him. Not really very constuctive...

OP posts:
GypsyMoth · 04/01/2010 16:14

how do you know he's not done anything terrible?? not likely to say is he?

thing is,a £65 fee is serious. its a 'proper' site with a proper profile. which site was it? there are many free sites. why did he choose this one? maybe he had tried the free sites previously? what did his profile look like? had he been honest in that?

Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:16

If you think that £65 for an online dating site is "terrible" you should probably get out a bit more.

Get a grip .

Original poster
ShockedBeyondBelief · 04/01/2010 16:16

Had been thinking about hotel getaway before this but just don't want him to touch me right now. We had already started going out more together and getting friends to babysit. This is why I cannot understand why he did this. And I was feeling so positive about 2010. Arrgh!

OP posts:
GypsyMoth · 04/01/2010 16:20

well i've never used these sites,no need to either. however my ex's fee was in region of £30 for a limited time,3 months i think....thats what i'm going on.

Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:20

Don't overthink this, but don't brush it under the carpet either.

You won't solve your couple problems by going off sex, however. Psyche yourself up and go for it!

LadyBiscuit · 04/01/2010 16:22

God Bonsoir you are so fucking patronising sometimes.

I am single and I know the cost of dating sites (presumably as a married woman you aren't as familiar). £65 is relatively expensive for a month's membership and is the average price for 6 months on most of them which is a bit of an odd thing to sign up for when you've made a self-pitying 'stupid mistake'.

GypsyMoth · 04/01/2010 16:24

op....talk to him more....you need to find out the truth and extent of this. snoop around if you have to,but do you honestly think this is a one off??

FluffyForLifeNotJustForXmas · 04/01/2010 16:25

Which one was it, have a look at the membership fees and look for yourself. You can get one of us to do this for you if it's too upsetting.

I used them, I'm single. They don't cost £65 a month.

Malificence · 04/01/2010 16:28

Don't over think it?
He's spent £65 of their (limited) cash on a dating site - imho, no-one pays that kind of money for something they don't intend to use. Unless he's so pathetic he wants to see if anyone fancies him for a little ego boost.
He hasn't signed up to an expensive gym, he's signed up to a shagging dating site, that is pretty unforgivable in my eyes.
The intent was there, if only for a short while.
He's got some serious talking (and listening) to do.

hbfac · 04/01/2010 16:29

Shocked - Isn't half of it working out what you need from a conversation with someone else - and you seem to know that! If that's what you need right now (the "he is a twunt!" conversation) - a. you can clearly do that here (!) b. Is there no-one you can do that with in RL?

For me, for eg., it would be, I think, my sister, who would be v. good at that, but then be happy to forget about it if things then worked out. Sorry I can't lend her to you! But is there not anyone like that for you?

I can see why you feel in a bit of an impasse. Your interpretation is that intimacy and lack of sex has led him to do this but, having found out about it, the last thing you're able to do is a. discuss the whole thing objectively and b. offer sex and intimacy.

Well, you can say that, and tell him that you both need to get to Relate pretty quickly.

Also, it's not you that has to do all the work. Him too. Though, i guess you're worried that he is not so brilliant at dealing with things if the signing up to a dating agency is his way of dealing with difficulties in your relationship.

veryconfusedandupset · 04/01/2010 16:32

If the person you love doesn't want to have sex with you it can be hard not to let it knock your self esteem. Whether £65 is a lot of money depends on how much you have. He might have signed up to see if he got any responses - presumably if several people send you messages saying they are interested in you then it must cheer you up a bit, even if you have no intention of taking it further. Maybe what he was initially looking to do was to make himself feel a bit better about himself - but he has ventured into very dangerous territory. From what I have read elsewhere dating sites are cheaper or free for women, but men often have to pay - did you get a good look at his profile? that would presumably indicate what he was looking for.

Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:33

This afternoon I was chatting to another mother at the school gate. Her DP managed to impregnate his estranged wife when they were accommodated in the same bedroom for a wedding they were both invited to where the couple inviting didn't know they were separated, and that DP in question was already living with someone else (said mother).

So this mother has a stepson only a few months older than her own first son.

Couple is perfectly happy, has another child, all hunky dory.

Couples get through so much more than a £65 sign up to an online dating site.

GypsyMoth · 04/01/2010 16:35

yeah,SOME couples...not all.

Malificence · 04/01/2010 16:38

Not me Bonsoir, if mine had signed up to such a site, I'd be digging his grave in the back garden. He could go next to the dog.

Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:39

If you blow things out of all proportion you are unlikely to overcome them!

Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:40

You can't love him very much if such a small misdemeanour would have you sending him to his grave.

Lulumama · 04/01/2010 16:44

it is not really a small misdemeanour, though, is it?

i am sure that in the OPs marriage, as in most, there is an expectation of fidelity and honesty and being thee for better and for worse

not signing up for extra marital fun, with money that is not affordable.

he might not have done something, but he was pretty far down the line of trying to

i thikn it is serious , in terms of transgressions that can be committed in a non open marriage

at the end of teh day, he has lied and potentially cheated

the OP wants to move forward and make things work , hopefully so does her DH, but underplaying his actions gives him persmission to do it again and worse

AnyFucker · 04/01/2010 16:44

am just loving anna's advice to grit your teeth and get on with shagging him

Malificence · 04/01/2010 16:45

No, the second he pressed that confim button, he would be the one throwing away 27 years together, not me.

I don't do forgiveness or 2nd chances.
The intent is just as bad as an act of infidelity in my eyes.

Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:46

It's a tiny weeny misdemeanour on my horizon. Really, making mountains out of molehills is not helpful - unless, I suppose, you think your H should be some kind of robot/cookie cutter who never displays the tiniest bit of negative feeling ever

GypsyMoth · 04/01/2010 16:47

I think you might be bothered Anna if he gave you some sort of disease? non?

Bonsoir · 04/01/2010 16:48

You can catch diseases by making online payments . Why didn't I know this?

GypsyMoth · 04/01/2010 16:50

by carrying it through he could,yes....which was what he intended when he sat there at his computer filling out a long and detailed profile,then paying £65 of THEIR money!!

and this is only the first time he's been 'caught'....what else has he done?