Nearly four weeks ago, my wife found out that I had been going to strip clubs and getting lap dances while on business trips, and then lying to her about it (I even tried to lie about it when she confronted me). (Have searched the forums and doesn't seem like this comes up a lot, which is surprising.) We have had a difficult year with a few other big fights and a lot of stress about getting pregnant. We had another big fight about a year and a half ago after she had a miscarriage and then looked at my Internet Web search history and found I was looking at sites for brothels (long story, but no I had no intention of going).

Her immediate reaction was to say that the marriage is over. We have been living apart since then. She was in the house for a couple of weeks, and I was living in hotels, and then she moved to a sublet in San Francisco, about 25 miles from our house, and I am back in the house. We are in marriage counseling once a week, and I am back in individual therapy. We are starting to see each other again, and have spent a number of evenings together.

She is very angry and hurt on two key levels. First, she believes I am more interested in fantasy women in strip clubs rather than in her. Second, she does not know how she can trust me again.

She initially said she would make her mind up about staying in the marriage within a month after she first confronted me. Now she is saying that she may take another sublet for another month.

In case it's not clear, I very much want to stay in my marriage and have it grow past this crisis into something healthy, loving, and safe for both of us.

I have spent the three and a half weeks since this happened -- once the initial shock wore off -- reading a lot about what it takes to have a healthy and happy marriage. I have read a lot on the MarriageBuilders site and while I haven't ordered the books (would love it if they had them as downloadable PDFs), have read all of the material, some of it two and three times.

I know that I need to stop doing certain Love Busters (like being dishonest and not being open and honest) and start addressing her emotional needs. Have other people in this situation found themselves frustrated and impatient and at times resigned about getting past the anger and hurt they have caused and on to the process of building a better relationship? How do you build a better relationship with someone when they're uncertain whether they want to be in the relationship at all? Is this just a matter of being patient and waiting while trying to make deposits in her Love Bank with the outcome unclear? I would like to broach with her going to the Marriage Builders weekend in San Francisco this weekend? Would it be too aggressive to suggest / propose that to her?

I know that some of what I am doing here is processing by thinking aloud. But any advice / perspective based on the previous similar experience of others would be helpful and much appreciated.

Welcome to marriagebuilders. I'm interested in why you would spend time looking for brothels with no intention of going. It seems an odd thing to do while your wife was recovering from a miscarriage.

Also, how long have you been married?

We have been married for 2 years, 3 months. I had been married previously. At the end of my first marriage, about four to five years ago, I had started going to strip clubs and brothels. I stopped not long after my first wife and I split up. (I think I have even gone in this marriage as a form of acting out.) I was not looking at brothel sites while she was recovering from a miscarriage, but that is when she found out about it. I was looking at the brothel sites as there was one P I had spent some time with and I was curious as to what had become of her, whether she was still working (really).

U r in the Bay Area? There are many places to go get those books. Borders, Barnes/Noble, etc.....

Go get Surviving an Affair and His needs/Her needs NOW.

They are both by Dr Harley. Times a wastin'.

You do have a long ways to go to earn her wife's trust back.

On Monday, call Steve's office and setup a phone counseling appt.

Start showing her WHAT you are doing to prevent this from ever happening again. IF she believes you, then your M has a chance for recovery. But the 1st recovery MUST be for you and by you. Steve will help you work through this.

If you don't want to talk to Steve, find a good MC in your area who is familar with MB principals.

take care,
L.

Does your current wife know that you have been with a prostitute while married to her? Does she know of your previous visits to prostitutes in your first marriage?

Mrs. W

Why havent you ordered the books??? if you can afford lapdances, you can afford a few relatively inexpensive books.
doesnt sound like you're really serious. if you were, wouldnt you order them with "express next-day-air" shipping?

you should mention WHICH books you are considering , though.

To be clear, have only gone to strip clubs while in this marriage, not to Ps.

Will order the books right now. The other books I have read have been PDFs I have been able to download. Will find a Border's first to see if I can get them there.

Our marriage counselor is really good and has talked about the Love Bank. (Don't know if she has read any of the books.)

Thanks for the suggestion / prodding thus far. Any more, any insight from anyone who has been in a similar situation (wayward or betrayed) appreciated.

I am a FWS...I will be glad to answer anything that I can for you...Please answer my question to you first...Does your current wife know that you've visited prostitutes in your first marriage?

Mrs. W

My XWH went to P's when I was pregnant and after I had a miscarriage.
I guess it was his way of not feeling he was cheating, since there was no romantic involvement.
He thought I would never find out...

This thing escalated: he started an A with my best friend - wanted to keep that purely sexual, too.
In fact he even went to P's not long after he had been with her to keep his emotional detachment from her.
Then there were dating sites...
Porn..
And while I thought we were in recovery, he started going to P's again because he felt I only had sex with him "to please him".

Needless to say that he's now my X because he couldn't stop the lying, cheating and going behind my back.
It became an addiction - kicks he could buy.
A way to run away from confronting emotions.
He would need some serious counseling to find out WHY he would do this, and continue doing it, while he really didn't want to lose me and felt horrible because I told him "no more" after his last deceit.
But he just said "he wouldn't do it anymore" (again)..
He thought he didn't need counseling.

Be very careful.
What might seem a pleasant game to you, is incredibly hurtful to your partner.

MrsWondering -- she does know that I went to Ps at the end of my first marriage. I told her not long after we first started dating (FWIW -- she asked me when we went to a SC together).

Brownhair, I am sorry for all of the pain that you suffered during your marriage. I am extremely sorry for all of the pain I've caused my wife. I know this is no pleasant game, it is not a game of any kind.

I did go out and get a copy of Surviving an Affair. Sat in the bookstore for a while and read the first 50 pages.

I am committed to not doing this behavior again. I do not believe that it is pathological. I am trying to be patient because I know everyone goes through their own process, at the same time that I would like everything to be fixed right now.

Thanks for answering my question wherefrom, I appreciate it...I want to make sure that you understand how very important that it is that you be 100% honest and transparent with your wife from here on out...If you are witholding any details it will harm your marriage immeasurably...Anything that comes out later will be viewed as another betrayal and will set you back or perhaps damage your marriage irreparably...

I am curious about why you choose to purchase the book SAA...Does your wife feel that visiting these clubs was equivalent to having an affair? Do you feel that your visits there were an affair? Or wherefrom, did you have more of a relationship with any of the women in these clubs than you have yet to reveal here...This could mean an EA or a PA...I want to understand fully the extent of your "relationship" with the women in these clubs...How often were you going, were there many different clubs, did you have a regular girl that danced for you? The more information that you provide, the better able we are to offer you support/advice...

Mrs. W

There were no EAs or PAs. I bought SAA because of the recommendations of folks here. My wife, however, does seem to consider it to be a transgression like an affair. Thanks again, MrsW.

wherefrom,

I'm the BS in your situation....my H had a history similar to yours....that eventually escalated to prostitutes. The activity even occurred during my pregnancies....so the sitch is similar. My marriage has been in recovery for 4 years now.

You asked about what you need to do to make up for this and what will help your wife know you're serious about change. I'll tell you what helped me.

*My husband changed jobs....while he still has a little travel....it's nothing compared to the time we spent apart in the past.

*He recommitted to rebuilding his character and his spirit. He goes to church, does community service.

*He stopped drinking away from home....alchohol played a big part in these scenarios.

*He opened his life to me and became completely accountable for all time and money.

*He began communicating to me everyday....in town or out.

*He stopped going to bars and clubs without me.

If this sounds too hard....well....maybe you aren't really committed to changing.

Best of luck to you.....and if you have any questions for me that might help you understand your wife's feelings, I'll do my best to answer.

Have you ever thought about getting counseling for having a sex addiction? Checking whether the prostitute was still working sounds creepy to me - especially when you have been married only a short time.

Good call believer....I forgot about that....my H committed to a year of individual counseling and MCing....and he went.

I will bring up the possibility of the sex addiction with my counselor when I see him later this week, and ask if I need anything beyond that.

One of my wife's complaints about me is that I haven't been open and transparent about my past. So in the wake of this, I wrote out a 23-page document that amounted to a complete sexual history, a lot of which I have been ashamed of (including watching porn and masturbating). After that, our MC said that what was in the document was actually pretty normal.

star*fish, I would love to know more about how you felt in the wake of what happened. What has your husband learned about himself and why he did what he did? Can also search on your posts if that's easier.

Sure, you can search on my posts.....but they're so dang old chere....you might have trouble finding them LOL!!

I didn't find MB until around 6 months after discovery when I was ready to leave my husband. As far as how I felt finding out....well, you know when you said your wife felt a little better that they weren't like a "real" affair....I felt some of that too. I was devastated, crazy and scared. At the same time....I had other women say "OMG....at least my husband was in love with his affair partner....and that my H was just a sleaze bag". It was a mixed blessing.....I was glad he wasn't in love with anyone....but it was hard getting the "movies" of "brothel" out of my head. Here I was....big belly and babies....and I wasn't feeling very sexy or pretty....and the timing felt like a double betrayal....ya know? When I first came to MB....people mostly told me to divorce him....said he was a serial cheater.

I think the transparency about sexual history is a good idea....my H was pretty honest about his past....but being away from home in exotic places, and a work environment that in many ways encouraged this kind of acting out....made it impossible for us to recover our marriage while that continued. My H is in the oilfield.....and it's just rampant with that kind of stuff.

One of the most important things my husand learned about himself dealt with "entitlement" issues. For some reason, he felt as though because he was the breadwinner, da man, the big wig....that the rules didn't really apply to him. He felt like he "could have it all" and he also felt like I'd never leave him. From his male perspective, if it didn't hurt anyone, or I didn't know....it wasn't THAT wrong...it was harmless. He needed to examine how it didn't just harm US as a couple....but him as a person. Where....it degrades your spirit chere....it makes you LESS of a man, not more of a man. Does that make sense?

My H is a big hunter too....I once told him "baby, you don't have to buy something, kill something or screw something to prove your a man. The measure of real man is in the eyes of the people who love him....your wife, your children, your father, your mother....who ARE you to those people. Those are the real people you need to impress. He needed to be "right" with his God....and feed his spirit rather than live the plearsure oriented life of privilege and entitlement that was destroying his marriage and ultimately his soul.

My H went to an MB weekend with me.....it helped us to get a common vocabulary and understand how to keep our marriage strong. We started spending 15 hours a week with eachother....and that was awful at first. I was so mad and pretty mean to him. He was so ashamed and I was just a reminder of his failure. But we stuck with it....and it took about a year....but we rebuilt a better marriage.

Anyway....hope that helps for starters.

star*fish, I think I learned a lot about myself in that one post, and for that I am deeply appreciative. I am sending her the link for the MB weekend in San Francisco this weekend. (Also sending her the link for this thread in the interest of being completely transparent.) For those of you who have been, anything you could tell both of us about what we'll get out of it if we go?

Star*fish, how did you get past the pain and anger and start to trust again?

I am not as angry as I was initially (tho it comes back full force at times), but am just so heartsick and sad that we had this wonderful thing and it feels like it's been ripped apart.

I sometimes think that I can believe him that he won't engage in behaviors that are destructive to our marriage (sometimes), but I don't know that I can believe that he will be able to have the empathy, love, and courage to be fully honest and open, put others' needs ahead of his own (ie any children we might have), and just not be capable of being that hurtful to someone he loves.

He wants things to resolve more quickly but I feel so much pain that there is almost a physical aversion to trying to be close to him at times. Like touching the stove after being burned.

FWIW, I made it clear early in the marriage that I have no problem with porn, or even going to strip clubs. It was the physical contact of a sexual nature (lap dances) that I wasn't comfortable with. He seemed to understand and agree and said he wouldn't do it. He had his first lap dance one year later, two years into our marriage.

It is really hard not to feel that there was something missing in his love and attraction for me for him to look up old prostitute buddies on the web and get secret lap dances so early in our marriage. I couldn't imagine being with another man, but he had no problem with it.

Feel depressed and hopeless about losing that notion that I was the only gal for him...

thanks for any thoughts that anyone has on this.

Sorry - should have introduced myself as the wife of Wherefrom...