[mspacman]

I have been struggling with the fact my husband of almost 16 years hase cheated on me...with hookers! He's hired escorts and 'massage therapists' while on business trips and hid his porn under the lining in his trunk. I've know now for about 4 years and we've been to marriage counseling, deciding to try to work things out. I'm trying to have faith in him that this won't continue to happen but also having trouble learning to trust again. Things with our relationship are better - we communicate more have more/better sex and I think we're on the same page but I'm still having trouble seeing him the way I used to, before I found out about his infidelity. How do I get over it and move on?

[CHANDLERS WISH]

I have been struggling with the fact my husband of almost 16 years hase cheated on me...with hookers! He's hired escorts and 'massage therapists' while on business trips and hid his porn under the lining in his trunk. I've know now for about 4 years and we've been to marriage counseling, deciding to try to work things out. I'm trying to have faith in him that this won't continue to happen but also having trouble learning to trust again. Things with our relationship are better - we communicate more have more/better sex and I think we're on the same page but I'm still having trouble seeing him the way I used to, before I found out about his infidelity. How do I get over it and move on?

Hi mspacman.

I think it's deeper than this... He's a cheater.

I read your other posts about dating sites, porn, on the Internet, here you mention hookers, massuers and more porn.

I think that because you've been together for 16 years your trying the "better the devil i know" as maybe you feel it's too hard to leave.

I am glad that you have tried councelling, and also tried to communicate more, have more sex with him... It would be hard to see that man coming down on top of you, knowing that he had been with others.

It's the dating site, porn that bothers me.

He needs councelling... For addiction. Not his marriage... He has an addiction for all where women are concerned, and takes it as he wishes, via an internet or in reality.

Is this really what you want?

Get him onto councelling for his addiction or threaten to walk out.

You deserve better.

CW

[Fire(m)]

Mspacman, I have several thoughts:
1) A "Massage Therapist" is not a hooker!!!! My wife is a Massage Therapist and she is an AMTA, NCTMB Nationally Board Certified Massage Therapist. In addition to that she has multiple degrees, owns and operates 2 businesses, has patented a tool to be used in Massage Therapy, etc. Her Massage Therapy practice is primarily geared towards working with professional athletes and helping them tweak their bodies for maximum performance. It irritates me when people dissuage Massage Therapists when they have no idea what Massage Therapists do or they have some mis-information that they continue to spread about Massage Therapists.
My point to you is that if your husband has been seeing a Massage Therapist while on travel, that may have NOTHING to do with him cheating on you. Now, I'm not foolish enough to believe that ALL massage therapists are legit, or that there isn't one somewhere that is a hooker, BUT by and large, the vast majority are honest, hardworking people who are performing a Healthful service for their clients.

2) He has a porno magazine that he has to hide from you. Hmmm. Why does he have to hide it from you? Are you afraid that if he looks at pornography (something that probably the greater majority of men do from time to time) that he's going to mess around on you? I look at porn all the time (not really all the time, but frequently) and it has absolutely no negative affect on my marriage. I've been very happily married for 22 years and I'm crazy about my wife. He's probably looking at porn when away on business to help him "take care of business by hand (masturbate)" while he's not around YOU. This is the OPPOSITE of messing around on you.

3) If he is in fact messing around on you (and I believe you, if you say he actually is), let me make 2 assumptions:
a. He messed around on you prior to your learning about this 4 years ago but is not currently messing around on you. OR
b. He messed around on you 4 years ago and CONTINUES to mess around on you.

If (a.) above is the case and you haven't been able to get past it in the past 4 years, my belief is that you're not moving quick enough. You essentially have 2 choices. 1 is to let his infidelity go, and 2 is to let him go. It's up to you, but to have a happy life going forward, you can't do both (as you've found out).

If (b.) above is the case and he's still messing around on you, I think your choices boil down to 1. You have to leave. Having sex with him is posing a certain risk to your health. If he hasn't stopped messing around on you 4 years after you first learned of this, he's never going to stop. Why would he? There is no consequence to it, and you're still having sex with him.

On the other hand, it is possible from the limited information that you've given (in this post) that you are making the assumption that because your husband goes to a massage therapist and because he looks at porn that he is messing around on you. If THIS is the case, then you really need to get some counseling to help you move past what I believe may be paranoia. There are millions of men who go to massage therpists and who look at porn, and who masturbate regularly that do NOT mess around on their wives and who have extremely happy marriages. I am one of them.

In any event, this is a good place for you to come to discuss these things. I hope my words (while very direct) aren't too strong and that you will continue to discuss this with myself and others in the hope that we can help you get some relief from what must be an overwhelming problem.
Cheers.

[mspacman]

Fire (m) - I do appreciate your comments. As they were very direct, they also made sense. To answer the question if he, in fact, did cheat..the answer is yes. He admitted it to me. I suppose I should have mentioned that in my original post. I agree that I need additional counseling, as does he. In fact, I plan to get referrals at my Primary Care Dr. today. He was seeing a counselor for an addiction to sex after he admitted his infidelity. Our original marriage counselor, after speaking with both of us, referred him to someone who specializes in this field. He stopped going after a few appts as it was religiously based. I think we both need to continue counseling, alone and together, if we are to move on. I do love him and don't want my marriage to end but also don't want to go through the of always wondering "if" anymore.