Husband Visits a Massage Parlor
About 6 months ago I discovered my husband of 6 yeas was a regular customer at an Asian massage parlor going specifically for the "happy endings".
When I did some research I found out he had been going there for over 3 years! When I confronted him he said he thought what he was doing was ok cause he thought I wasn’t interested in sex because I don’t initiate it. Since he has had his prostate removed, I understand there is no spontaneous sex, so I am careful I not to put pressure on him by initiating as often as I would like it, so i let him take the lead. Even though I feel sex deprived. I am always ready and willing for sex when he wants to do it. He tells me he gets headaches when taking the medication so I don’t push him into it.
When this issue was exposed, we went to counseling and he promised he would delete the phone number and would not go back to the massage spa as he said he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. His thoughts were, if he doesn’t use it, he will loose it. I explained it hurts me greatly that he would rather be with someone else, when he knows I am always willing to have sex.
Two days ago, I just discovered he went back to the same spa again. We are into midst of preparing to list the house this week so I haven’t confronted him as I really don’t know how to do it without getting into a huge blowup. We have purchased a new house and we were planning to sell both his house and my investment property. I was planning on paying his debt down, ($400k) with the sale of my house.
However, now I am totally reconsidering this and feel I shouldn’t sell my property and let him continue to carry his debt, and not sell my place until he prove he can be faithful to me. I knew he assumed more debt after we married as he decided to invest into the stock market. He told me that his investments would pay off the debt, and it has paid it down over the last two years. However, he now wants me to contribute $(400k) to eliminate all his debt, so that he won’t have the debt going into retirement. He won’t even consider using his investments now to pay the debt as he said he needs the investments to live on.
How do I approach him? We are committed to move. However, I feel now I don’t want to give him the money to eliminate his debt when he can’t be honest and faithful to me.
Response:
This is a very difficult situation. You have every right to be upset and question whether you want to pay off your husband’s debts. At the same time, combining his visits to the massage parlor and your financial assistance makes the issue of his betrayal more difficult to resolve.
If you can, bring up the issue of his behavior and how it makes you feel without raising the financial leverage you have over him. Explain to your husband how you feel in ways that highlight your distress rather than your anger. Tell your husband that you’re feeling hurt, disappointed, and upset and that you want to talk about how your feeling (see talk about problems).
If you can focus on your feelings, rather than what he did, you’ll be more likely to get him to see the situation from your point of view, which is the best way to get him to take responsibility for his actions and motivate him to change his behavior.
If you raise the issue of his debts when talking about the problem, he’ll most likely respond from a position of fear. When people are fearful, they usually tell other people what they want to hear, rather than putting in the effort to resolve the problem. Then when the pressure is off, they revert back to their old ways.
If you raise the issue with your husband in a way that highlights your distress and he doesn’t respond in a way that shows concern and remorse, then the issue probably won’t get resolved no matter how you bring it up.
Again, focus on how he betrayed your trust. Once you solve (or fail to solve) that issue, you can then focus on whether to pay off his debts (or not).
You might also want to read the section on rebuilding trust.
cheating husband | trust issues
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