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My husband went to a strip bar while on a business trip and paid for a lap dance and ended up giving the stripper oral sex. She wanted to have intercourse with him for money, he said no, left, threw up in the parking lot, confessed, and has been a physical and emotional wreck since.

My biggest concern is not my husband cheating again. I know this has never happened before, going to the strip bar was an unusual thing for him, he has no ability to keep secrets and does have a good moral character in general, and he has made himself seriously ill over this for two months now. It was so out of character. He has initiated IC, MC, is seeing a psychiatrist because he started having anxiety attacks after the infidelity, has always taken full responsibility for his actions.

However, I am having a lot of difficulty getting past the fact that this was with a commercial sex worker, probably diseased, and just . . . gross. He has been tested and is being retested for caution, he never put me at risk, but this is just so repulsive to me. We are professionals, have two sweet kids. I don't know how to explain this but things like strippers and commercial sex workers are not part of my world (or weren't)and I am can't get over my shock.

If this has happened to you or someone you know, do you ever get over the revulsion and disgust? I feel like my husband's mouth is dirty now and maybe I will feel that way forever. We used to have such sweet kisses and a rare bond -- our marriage was far from perfect but we have always been crazy about each other. I feel like that might never come back . . .

[This message edited by cds22 at 12:06 PM, April 25th (Thursday)]

My SAWH acted out with strippers first and then prostitutes. It is a good thing that your WH got help immediately. When your WH has figured out his whys and worked very hard on regaining his integrity, you will have respect for him again. It takes a long time. That is why it is a 2-5 year process.

I feel the same way about sex workers. I never associated with strippers or went to a strip club. It is just not something that men in my family did. It is morally repugnant to me. I will never be ok with what my SAWH did but I can move toward forgiveness as he is working very hard on himself and his problems.

So he had no problem having oral sex with this stripper,but having vaginal sex was a no-no?

Yeah. Im sorry but I doubt this is true. He is probably telling you he "only" had oral with her because he thinks it will seem "better" than full on sex.

Cheaters lie and minimize.

Please get tested for STD's.

((((cds22))))

[This message edited by confused615 at 10:21 AM, April 25th (Thursday)]

I will be tested but I believe him that it was oral sex -- and I don't view it as "just" oral sex, I view it as a full infidelity. And so does he.

We have been together for 20 years/13 married, he has never lied to me, he didn't lie to me this time either but told me, expecting me to leave. Our MC does not see red flags and tells us that sometimes he sees people for infidelity that just make one-time terrible mistakes.

I understand why you are concerned though -- I can already see there are many heartbreaking stories on here of people being lied to. Of course, I can't say for sure that I won't be among them. But, I believe this was an awful, destructive mid-life mistake that I hope won't define him or our marriage.

Im sorry,I think you misunderstood me. Yes,oral sex is full blown infidelity,absolutely. Im saying nearly every wayward will minimize at first..they tell you a small bit of what happened,to gauge your reaction..and will TT you..meaning a little more will come out..until you find out that EA was a PA..or that oral was also vaginal,etc.

And,gently. This was not a mistake. He chose to go to a strip club. he chose to pay for a lap dance. He chose to take her g-string off and perform oral sex. This was a choice,not a mistake.

Has he told you why he was at the club? Where the oral sex took place? And why he was willing to put that part of her body into his mouth,yet wouldn't have intercourse with her?

Other than IC and MC what he is he doing?

Is he transparent? Does he answer all of your questions without anger or defensiveness?

Do you have full access to all of his accounts,including his cell? Passwords too?

What else is he doing?

[This message edited by confused615 at 10:38 AM, April 25th (Thursday)]

Well, I am open to advice here. :) I am new at this and never imagined my life taking this turn.

Yes, it was a choice I agree - - but I think the choice was a terrible mistake and out of character. I cannot square this with the man I have admired my whole adult life for his kindness, who chose his career based on taking care of others, who gets up every single morning with our son who rises at 5am so I can sleep in, who has supported me through two recent family losses and has been my partner for half of my adult life.

I realize I sound like a fool here and that is apparently something else I need to live with now.

He has been fully transparent about every detail of this sordid event, he has not been angry at me or defensive (though he has been very sad and basically curled in a ball which is getting hard for me). He experienced for the first time in the two decades I have known him a severe depression and panic attacks so he is seeing a psychiatrist for medication. He also saw two professionals to be evaluated in case it was bipolar, sex addiction, some other etc and both of those people said no he was in a major depression and that he had poor coping skills for his high stress lifestyle/job. He is now taking medication for the depression, starting to exercise a little, and I think working on the coping skills in IC (though I don't ask about IC).

This is the second time in our marriage he has been to a strip club-- the other was a bachelor party. He told me he started watching porn a few times per week about six months ago.

I have asked hundreds of times why. And he has told me again and again it was not our marriage, he can't stand for me to blame myself. He said that he wishes he could say it was depression but it would be a lie. He says the awful truth is that it was selfishness and wanting sexual titillation and thinking somehow he could get away with it and just not tell me. In my view, this is all correct but I would add to it that my husband works incredibly hard, 60-70 hours per week, and is a hands on dad every other waking minute of the day and I think he just has no outlets.

As for the last question, no I haven't looked at his cell phone or asked to look at it. I use his iphone sometimes for internet access or tooling around in the car. We have always shared email passwords for dealing with kid stuff and travel plans and I have never seen anything off there.

So sorry you are here...

My WH of 27 years hire someone off of Craigslist for oral sex in our car.

It has 7 weeks as of today for d day. I struggle every day with....has he told me everything???. He also said she offered vaginal sex at her place but he said he said no.

The mental movies that go threw my head are the same as you. Who and what did she "do" before being with my WH.

He still can't tell me why he would do this to us. He is in IC and trying very hard to repair us.

I take it one day at a time. That's all I can do at this point. I have read almost everything on this site. It has been very helpful knowing that I'm not alone or crazy.

Really? Well, I guess I am naive. I had no idea that a man could touch anyone at a strip club. Yes, new about lap dances, but thought the girls could only touch the men. No idea about sex or oral. YUK!

Don't know if WH has been to any....guess I'll be asking that question.

Hugs, CDS! I don't know about getting over the revulsion. Have you been able to kiss him? Are you in IC? Do you even want to get over it?

Oh, I realized I didn't answer all of your questions. I suppose it is therapeutic to get this all out.

He said at his business trip, the coordinator was going on and on about someone else's work and he started to feel really bad and stressed. He was driving home in the rental car and he passed a strip bar sign with lights and pulled in. He told me he was not intending to have any physical contact just to go to a strip bar.

He said when I got inside he had a bad feeling about the place. The strippers were doing lots of crotch-grabbing and my husband had a few drinks-though he is very clear he was not drunk. He went to a booth with the woman for the lap dance The woman put her private area basically in his face during the course of that and then I think it escalated to oral sex. I am not sure if he took off a g-string -- I didn't think to ask. He said it lasted about a minute or so and it was not what he had thought it would be. The stripper was not attractive, it didn't feel very good or exciting the way he thought it was going to, and he started to get really upset and panicked and he left.

Oh, I didn't realize you could touch anyone either. I don't think this was an above-board strip bar if such a thing exists.

No, we have not kissed since.

[This message edited by cds22 at 11:21 AM, April 25th (Thursday)]

Im really sorry that you're here,and having to deal with this. But,Im so glad you found us. This site is full of the kindest,most caring people you will ever "meet."

Im reading an awful lot about your WH,but very little about you. How are you handling this? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you eating and getting enough sleep? Finding out you've been betrayed by your spouse is traumatizing. It's alot to deal with,and sometimes we forget to take care of ourselves.

Also, you should get tested. Oral sex can carry STD's. If your WH kissed you when he got back from that trip,or if you had sex,you need to be tested. Him being tested is good..but you need to take care of yourself also. HPV is very common these days,and there is no test to determine if a man has it. But there are tests for women.

ETA: Oops! Missed that you hadn't kissed. ugh. Im sorry. That must be hard. Instead of deleting my comment about STD/HPV,Im going to leave it....someone here may read it and realize they need to be tested.

((((cds22))))

[This message edited by confused615 at 11:20 AM, April 25th (Thursday)]

cds,

I'm sorry that you have not been able to kiss.

When is your dday? And are you in independent counseling. I highly recommend it especially when you can't kiss.

My biggest concern is not my husband cheating again. I know this has never happened before, going to the strip bar was an unusual thing for him, he has no ability to keep secrets and does have a good moral character in general, and he has made himself seriously ill over this for two months now. It was so out of character. He has initiated IC, MC, is seeing a psychiatrist because he started having anxiety attacks after the infidelity, has always taken full responsibility for his actions.

I'm so sorry.

I could have written this two months after my first D-Day. Note that I said my FIRST D-Day.

It's good that he's in counseling but make sure he addresses the issues of WHY he let himself do this, and doesn't just beat himself up unproductively.

((HUGS))

Me? I am having a hard time. Things started to go wrong one year ago when my sister died unexpectedly at age 32. My mother was quite ill already and that pushed her over the edge and she died four months later after a brutal series of strokes with my whole family flying back and forth and my husband trying to help coordinate her medical care. Two weeks after her death, I then had a very high pressure work commitment I had to complete that involved the whole family traveling with me for two months - - the work part of that went really well, but it was very draining and I didn't get to mourn my mother. My husband took off a lot of work to come with me and take care of the kids so we wouldn't have to be apart. He was my rock during all of this which makes this all the more upsetting now. Right before my husband cheated we were trying to get pregnant--a high-risk pregnancy that we were both stressed out about. It is very important to me to have another child. He and I found out I was pregnant after he got home from the business trip/stripper. I miscarried that baby and had the D&C last week.

On the positive side, I am fairly resilient by nature and I do have a lot of resources. I started IC again with the counselor I saw when my sister died last spring, I started seeing a bodywork person for a weekly massage, and I try to take walks. I have confided in exactly one IRL friend--my best friend who is older, lives out of state, is unmarried, and has known my husband for over ten years too. She has been wonderful which is good because I was decided for the get-go I wanted this whole thing limited to one trusted confidante.

I want to stay with my husband if we can have the same or better quality marriage. But I am not very eager to live the rest of my life feeling like I have a tarnished, second-best version of what I used to have.

Oh my God, I am so so sorry for your losses. I had a miscarriage & D&C in January 2009, and I can't imagine trying to deal with that grief and finding out about an infidelity at the same time. I'm so sorry cds22. It sounds like you are a whole lot smarter about taking care of yourself than I was, so that's great. ((HUGS))

Im so sorry..you have lost so much,in such a short period of time.

Honey,if he is remorseful and willing to do the hard work to repair the damage he has done to you,himself,and the marriage,R is possible. Many have said their marriage is better..not in any way because of the infidelity...but because both partners have worked together(the WS carrying most of that burden) to have a healthier marriage than before.

But Im afraid it will never be the same. You will adjust to a new normal,but it just can't be the same.

Big hugs to you.

Very very very gently -- I had my first (note "first") D-Day fairly recently and I see a lot of myself in you, even though I'm sure our stories and backgrounds have fundamental differences. I had one D-Day in Feb., joined here, several people said, "I think you've just discovered the tip of the iceberg," I said "oh no no no I know him, this is out of character" -- and two months later, bam, D-Day 2, where the other-woman-count jumped from 1 to 4.

Also, I am SO SORRY for the terrible time you are having. I know how much that complicates things. :( Just as background for all that I'm about to say... I found out about my husband's infidelities during the first four months of this year. Just before my first D-Day, my 29-year-old cousin who truly was like my brother (we lived together for the early part of our lives, and his mother provided daily daycare for me until I was in middle school) died very very suddenly of Guillain-Barre, I flew home for 2 days for the funeral & came back to have lost my job of 2 years, my sister was raped and testified against the rapist in court, and an uncle committed suicide. Through all these things, my husband was my rock, too, and I don't know how I would've handled all that stress without his support. I understand -- so much trauma, so fast, and then to find out your rock betrayed you... it's unreal. Anyway. Here's my take.

Well, I am open to advice here. :) I am new at this and never imagined my life taking this turn.

First and foremost - I am so sorry you're here :(

Yes, it was a choice I agree - - but I think the choice was a terrible mistake and out of character. I cannot square this with the man I have admired my whole adult life for his kindness, who chose his career based on taking care of others, who gets up every single morning with our son who rises at 5am so I can sleep in, who has supported me through two recent family losses and has been my partner for half of my adult life.

I could have written that same thing about my WH. Well, except we have a very needy dog (medical problems), not any human children. Nonetheless - I still am having trouble squaring what I know with the man I know. I feel you on this. Even when he told me it was just one single solitary month-long fling, I had a lot of trouble fitting that with who I know him to be. I think every betrayed partner here could say the same thing, unfortunately.

I realize I sound like a fool here and that is apparently something else I need to live with now.

You don't sound like a fool. You sound like a strong woman who loved and trusted and has recently found out that some of what she loved and trusted was and is a lie.

He has been fully transparent about every detail of this sordid event, he has not been angry at me or defensive (though he has been very sad and basically curled in a ball which is getting hard for me). He experienced for the first time in the two decades I have known him a severe depression and panic attacks so he is seeing a psychiatrist for medication. He also saw two professionals to be evaluated in case it was bipolar, sex addiction, some other etc and both of those people said no he was in a major depression and that he had poor coping skills for his high stress lifestyle/job. He is now taking medication for the depression, starting to exercise a little, and I think working on the coping skills in IC (though I don't ask about IC).

This is all well and good, and it's heartening to see initiative, but at some point in the immediate future this needs to turn from "woe is me, major depression, curled into the fetal position" to "how do I make amends to my mortally wounded marriage, support my hurting wife, and help her trust me again?" Yes, it's good he's seeing a psychiatrist and an IC. Until he figures his crap out, I would say hold off on MC and continue to both see your own ICs. In curling up in a ball and crying, he is making HIS pain the center of attention. Well, he's the one who fucked up, quite frankly. So this is about him supporting you in your pain right now, not you supporting him in his pain. You focusing on his pain vs. your own is really excusing him from facing some responsibility. He's preventing you from getting angry or upset, because you're in a caretaker role. Make sense?

This is the second time in our marriage he has been to a strip club-- the other was a bachelor party. He told me he started watching porn a few times per week about six months ago.

I have asked hundreds of times why. And he has told me again and again it was not our marriage, he can't stand for me to blame myself. He said that he wishes he could say it was depression but it would be a lie. He says the awful truth is that it was selfishness and wanting sexual titillation and thinking somehow he could get away with it and just not tell me. In my view, this is all correct but I would add to it that my husband works incredibly hard, 60-70 hours per week, and is a hands on dad every other waking minute of the day and I think he just has no outlets.

Okay -- what outlets do you have? It sounds like you are a working mom, so by my calculation, you work 24 hours a day x 7 days a week... and you did not betray your husband.

Don't accept his excuses. Plenty of people work 60+ hours a week and are also parents and don't cheat on their spouses. He was unfaithful because of something wrong deep inside him, not because of conditions in your marriage or his stressful job.

As for the last question, no I haven't looked at his cell phone or asked to look at it. I use his iphone sometimes for internet access or tooling around in the car. We have always shared email passwords for dealing with kid stuff and travel plans and I have never seen anything off there.

Is his phone password protected?

I'll finish with this.

Most men don't even perform oral sex on their girlfriends. I have never heard of a man giving a woman oral sex and then refusing to have vaginal intercourse. There's no pleasure for him in providing oral sex to her. I mean, wouldn't you think if he was going to step outside the bounds of his marriage, he'd at least do something that felt good for him? If he was going to mess around with a stripper of all people, don't you think he'd have a hard time putting that part of the female anatomy into his mouth? That would certainly be grosser and less pleasant than vaginal intercourse for many men.

((HUGS))

I know this is hard, and it's so hard to reconcile the man you know with the ugly thing he did. Take your time. Focus on YOU. Don't feel bad for him. He made his bed, as the saying goes.

[This message edited by mysticpenguin at 12:49 PM, April 25th (Thursday)]

Thanks everyone for the support and feedback.

Well, I agree it is weird that he gave her oral sex and he thinks it weird--he says he even screwed up cheating. Without getting too personal, I think giving oral sex is something he has found enjoyable in the past in more normal relationships. And most of all I think it was literally right there -- opportunity. Having vaginal intercourse or rec'ing oral sex would have involved moving rooms, taking off clothes, and I am not convinced he was ready to go that far with it. He is a healthcare provider and well aware of how dangerous what he did was and how much more dangerous vaginal sex, even protected, would have been on the risk scale.

To be fair, he didn't say he did it because of work stress. It is my own view that he extreme stress/poor coping skills and a lot of midlife stuff were factors. What he has told me again and again is selfish/sexual thrill/not thinking/not thinking about family/wanted to experience something new sexually--his words were that what he wanted to experience was new skin, new hair, new sweat.

And yes, it is clearly the case that now I, old skin, old hair, and old sweat, am stuck in a caregiving role. We have talked about my very mixed feelings about this and my resentment. But I don't know what to do. If he does not get better we can't even begin to repair things and since he has very few friends (the work issue) and doesn't want to tell his parents he has no other supports other than his counselor. It is not a good situation at all and I have thought about separating and letting him get himself together on his own. But it doesn't feel right to me to leave when he is sick and it also would be very traumatizing to my young children.

Oh, his phone is not password protected. Neither his computer. I suppose I could go look there but I feel very uncomfortable with that and I can't live that way long-term, casing his phone and email.

[This message edited by cds22 at 12:58 PM, April 25th (Thursday)]

So..it is ok to perform oral sex with a stripper..out on the floor...but for him to recieve oral,they would have had to switch rooms? Honey...that doesn't make sense. He is saying he had no problem putting his mouth on her vagina..in front of the entire club..but switching to a more private room so he could get something out of it..that was taking things too far? Because switching rooms and removing clothes is too far? Yet giving her oral in front of the other dancers,bouncers, bartenders,and the other customers in the club wasn't?

Im so sorry. I think you've only heard a bit of the story. I understand your need...your primal,raw need to believe him..to think he didn't go "that far." But his story doesn't make sense.

ETA: Also,you said he said the stripper wasn't attractive..yet he chose her to give him a lap dance. When a man gets a lap dance,they request it from the dancer..the dancer isn't chosen for them..so he picked her. His story of her being unattractive sounds like bullshit..because he picked her out. he said the dancers were grabbing crotches...so when he requested that dance..he knew it would go beyond a lap dance.

[This message edited by confused615 at 1:16 PM, April 25th (Thursday)]

No he didn't say anything about switching rooms. I said that. I am assuming they would??? I mean, they don't just do it out there in a public room, do they? This is so horrifying to me, it really is, I can't believe this is what I am now writing about. Anyway, the question previously was why give her oral and I admit it was weird but frankly I think it was there, literally right there in his face. I think it was a lap dance that went way (way) too far. I don't think he was prepared to take it to vaginal sex for a variety of reasons -- health, sort of coming to his senses and realizing he was not enjoying himself, hopefully thinking about our family and the risk to us. But, obviously I cannot know, can never know, and that is the trap of all of this.

I guess I don't know about him requesting her. I didn't realize that was how it worked. He said it was different from any place he had been to, he now thinks it was probably a house of prostitution. As I understand it she came up to him and was grabbing his crotch. But I will ask about the choosing her aspect.

I can ask him again if there is more but this happened about seven weeks ago, I have asked that many times, we have been through it with the MC. He swears nothing and he has never lied to me before.

[This message edited by cds22 at 1:20 PM, April 25th (Thursday)]

CDS22, in order for him to have been able to give her oral, they would have had to have been in a private room/area to begin with and you have to pay extra for that. There is no way he did that out in the open for others to see. The club wouldn't have risked that.

Have him take a polygraph to get to the full truth.