SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I thought everything important had come out on d-day and the couple of days following it. I didn’t get super intimate details, but did get a timeline, information on when and where they’d been meeting, confirmation on the PA and the depth of the emotional attachment, etc. And he admitted at the time that he had met her in April, when she was working in a bar he stopped at on the way home from visiting a family member in the hospital.

Well, yesterday he admitted to me that the “bar” was actually a strip club. The only time in his life (and this I actually do believe) that he’d ever gone into a strip club on his own. They’ve never been his thing - every few years some guy friend might invite him out, and I was never particularly bothered by that, but mostly because he wasn’t especially into it. But this one time, he was upset about someone he cared about almost dying, and needed to stop somewhere, and it was there.

He befriended her, and apparently developed a savior complex around her - even before things had really crossed major lines, he convinced her to get a “real” job instead, and started helping her get her life in order. (Sort of).

This revelation has hit me harder than I would have expected it to, given that I already knew she led a pretty bohemian “alternative” lifestyle. And that I don’t like to think of myself as someone who judges people for their choices, as long as they aren’t immoral (which applies to the stripper part - obviously not to the “actively pursuing a married man” part).

But really??? Not only was he prepared to risk everything we have (and came very close to choosing to walk away from it), but he was willing to do that FOR. A. STRIPPER. It shouldn’t make it worse, but somehow it does. He was deeply, emotionally involved with someone who is my opposite in every way, and if that’s what draws him and excites him, I can never compete (and don’t want to). He says that as the fog is lifting it’s clearer and clearer to him that it wasn’t what he really wants, but I will always have that in my head.

And yes, I have already scheduled the STD test I was procrastinating on.

Clearly the KISA (knight in shining armor) syndrome.

As we say here on SI they usually affair down.

My WH's AP was a porn chat room worker, so pretty much the same thing. He has a sex addiction and has been working with a SA specialist.

I am commenting because I understand your pain and confusion over his choice

Mine also likes to " help " with needy , poor women from third world , poverty infested places, but he took this particular one way too far...gave her a job ( and apparently she still worked over the chumps who pay money for the sexual exploitation of these women

The entire thing just makes me want to wretch

I don't know where you are in terms of reconciliation or other choices , but I hope at the very least that you find help for yourself in the form of a good counselor , one who knows about treating trauma

I wish you luck