A
female
age
41-50,
*reenStone
writes:Hi everyone,I've seen some similar questions to this, but I'd like to get your advice on mine. I've been married three months to a wonderful guy but for most of our relationship, we have been apart from each other. He lives in the US and I, somewhere in Southeast Asia.Last November, he told me that his officemates were going to give him a bachelor party, I said go ahead, but no strip clubs. I wrote his friend via e-mail and asked him to make sure that they won't and he said yes. I called another officemate and asked him not to bring my then-fiance to a strip club or near a stripper, and he said they are clear on it.Bachelor night comes, my then-fiance kept texting me about where they were - dinner then casino in Wheeling. After a few hours he told me that they were going home 'cause he feels car sick. He went online and I saw him and he was just pale and about ready to throw up so i asked him to rest.A week after, out of guilt, he told me they went to one.. and after much budging, he admitted to have gotten a lapdance.It was a terrible moment for me and our relationship. I got obsessed with that club and researched the net - they have a website that says the strippers are always 100% nude. Needless to say, I tried forgetting about it, moved on and married him last December.My issue is, I get dreams about it. Frequent now. And it disables me from being normal through most of the day. I cry instantaneously. We talked about it and he understands how much he has hurt me and said he was willing to wait until I feel better. He is not the type who gets drunk every weekend and goes to see strippers on a normal basis. He is 30 years old and that was his first time to enter one.I guess my question is - how do I heal myself? I think I am going crazy and have lately been getting obsessed with wanting to learn how to pole dance. I feel insecure about my figure (which he thinks is sexy). Please help me.
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female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (26 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionAngzw - thank you for sharing, I appreciate it. I am sorry for what happened to you but am glad that you were able to emerge well from it. :)
My husband was with a girl for almost a year who made him do things he has not experienced before - drinking, smoking, even drugs etc. He felt he was a loser for not having done it earlier so he finally gave in. However, after experiencing those things, his take-away was it was "a waste of years wondering about what he missed then realizing they're all crap." He has this figured out already after going way off the deep end and has chosen the life he really wants.
I agree on honesty. We also address our issues through conversations, avoiding getting on each other's nerves and name-calling. Whenever we feel something is not right, we lay it out on the table.
We are both working on our future together. The flashbacks hurt but does not make me love or trust him less. We both chose to experience life together and will of course, stay tuned in to each other's feelings.
Take care!
A
female
reader, Angzw  +, writes (26 March 2010):
I have been through this type of thing before where I was convinced that my partner was not like other men. He often expressed disgust at promiscuity, womanizing, strip clubs etc (sound familiar?). Whenever something relatively minor happened involving another woman eg. A flirty text from a female etc., I would take our relationship to crisis level. I felt I had to take us both to cracking point because I wanted to teach him that there is a price to pay for crossing my boundaries (sound familiar??). I wouldn't say I was extremely controlling, but I made my expectations clear and they were very high. "Maybe to other women, but not to me," I would say. So ofcourse I had the perfect husband and we were both virgins when we met. Our marriage was made in heaven. Then he started rebellling for some reason; cheating etc. Now that we are not together anymore, we are still good friends and he says it wasn't me but rather he wanted to experience things he felt he missed out on. He said our lives were perfect but he wondered about the part of life he hadnt experienced. You can draw your own conclusions from this. But while I never took the blame for his behavior, I kind of feel he should have lived more before we got married. I just hope you really analyze yourself honestly and see how you can contribute to a better understanding of each other. Honestly is better than perfection. He made a mistake. He was honest. Find a way.. All the best.
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (26 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionMiamine - I appreciate the response. Thanks for understanding.
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A
female
reader, Miamine  +, writes (26 March 2010):
 I'm sorry, perhaps I'm a little thoughtless or bad tempered at the moment. You can't control your dreams or flashbacks, nor can you force yourself to like something that you think is wrong. You've done all the right things, you've discussed it with him, you've discussed this with strangers, you still love your husband and your determined to get on and make your marriage a happy one.
Again, I apologise, of course this is all new and the hurt is fresh. You understand why it happened, and your not blaming him, your just saying it makes you sick and disgusted.
Good luck dear wife, don't worry, he loves you and you love him, soon all this will be in the past, and at the moment it's making you stronger than ever. Just try to stay in the present, when the bad memories come, remember he's with you and remember a nice memory of something about him that makes you happy or something he did that made you smile.
Again, sorry for picking and nickpicking and not seeing clearly that your letting off steam and trying to find the best way of dealing with this.. Blessings.. :)
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (26 March 2010): Sorry that you are having this problem. It would not have hurt him to have considered your feelings, his 5 minutes of thoughtlessness has caused you a lot of pain. You have your personal boundaries which you expressed and he chose to break them.
Perhaps he should have married someone who has the same beliefs as him so that he would not hurt them.
Its nothing to do with insecurity its just your personal boundary which he knowingly crossed. He has caused the problem not you.
You need to think about whether you can forgive him properly and if you both actually share the same boundaries. Any long term relationship will not survive if you dont respect each others feelings.
I think that you have become depressed, so see your doctor and discuss this with them, tell them about you flashbacks and they may suggest you explore the issue with a councellor. They will help you come to terms with what has happened and get over your pain
Take care and I wish you well
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (26 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questioncalico58 - Thanks so much! I will definitely try thinking of it that way. You're right, the marriage is a fresh start. And yes, I have already started with listing all the good things about him and us so that I can look at it whenever I feel the bad episode starting. :)
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (26 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the question"I think we both want to consider each other's feelings in the future, on all things. We're in agreement on that - on how we want to live"
Lucky me. :)
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (26 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI still believe that not all men are the same. And not all women are the same.
I still have a lot to learn being a new wife but I am not going to start with just setting aside how I feel about things just because he is a man and I am a woman. I don't see how it is so wrong for me to get hurt by what happened and tell him about it. I am not punishing him with it, I am merely on my coping stage. I am setting his expectations on what would hurt me in the future so he has a chance to think and get things straight. Showing me he respects my feelings is not being controlled at all.
If I force myself to BE OKAY even if I am not and start thinking that he is only telling me what I want to hear to do damage control - then that's not really trusting him is it?
I understand fully what was on his mind that night. He is 30 years old and has never gone there and his own bachelor party is reason enough to finally be inside one.
And yes it is very obvious I cannot change what happened. I do not hate my husband for it at all and I never said I did. I am merely saying I GOT HURT AND I AM COPING WITH IT.
People have different clocks at healing. I know that things will be better. I needed to hear on how other people who have gone through what I am going through cope with it and not how most women are more open to it because I am not that kind.
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A
female
reader, Miamine +, writes (26 March 2010):
Angzw, your words are totally right.. I've never liked jealousy, and I've never been possessive. I grew up with boys had lots of men friends and was a tomboy, so men always told me the truth about things. Most guys still think I'm a man.. :)
Try to control a guy and he'll either hide away and never tell you anything, or he'll obey and obey until one day he has enough and he'll run away with the first kind woman that he sees. He'll tell her "my wife dosen't understand me... blah, blah, blah..."
Men get teased if they obey their women and never speak up about what they would like instead.. guys call it "pussy whipped" a very nasty term. Men are men and women are women, compromise, work together, give each other respect, understanding and sometimes some space and then things should work out for the best.
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A
female
reader, Angzw +, writes (26 March 2010):
Greenstone; I feel so so sorry for you. You are newly married so you have NO idea that you will never ever be able to control your man fully like you are trying to do here. The more rules you give them, the more they push back and search for their freedom secretly. That is how most men are. I used to be pretty psycho like that too; dont do this, dont do that. My experience has shown that when you are like that, your partner quickly learns to not tell you certain things. For instance, you have assured that he will never ever confess anything ever again. You say he is not this type of man, yet he willing went out with his friends howling into the night, walked unaided into the strip club, what? thinking they would just have drinks? Perhaps he did enjoy his freedom for a moment and he's swearing on his mother's life that he didn't because he knows how you get. The point I'm trying to make is, ofcourse I am not saying you should give him a pat on the back for having a lap dance, my point is, let it go because you can't change that it happened. I am telling you that your marriage is going to be very one sided if you expect him to live by your rules. Its great that you are talking but at this stage he is probably only telling you what you want to hear to do damage control. Nobody wants their guy to have a lap dance on stag night or watch porn; but they do it anyway. If you want this much control then marriage is bot really for you.
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A
female
reader, Miamine +, writes (26 March 2010):
"I think some women have been screwed around on so much that their expectations and acceptance levels drop. The moment I think this will happen to me, is the moment I start losing self-respect."
And maybe some women think that love should be unconditional, and understand the difference between possessive emotions and true love which can forgive and understand.
Please put yourself in your husbands shoes, he didn't enjoy himself very much, he's told you the truth, but still he has to suffer until you decide to forgive him for being mislead by his friends and not knowing how to extract himself. He was pale and looked ready to throw up, don't you have any sympathy at all for this guy you claim to love.
Anyway, talk talk is good, he loves you and he's sorry, he hated every moment of it, isn't that good enough for you?
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (25 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI honestly love my husband very much. There are just moments, flashbacks that catch me off-guard (including bad dreams). The things that were said on here - he is a great guy, he was pressured, etc are true.
I am lucky enough to have a man who admits to his mistakes and that's what I will focus more on. I also trust my husband not to disregard how I feel about these things again.
I think some women have been screwed around on so much that their expectations and acceptance levels drop. The moment I think this will happen to me, is the moment I start losing self-respect.
God bless everyone! (I'm on the phone with the husband)
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (25 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionMiamine - just because I do not agree with someone's comments does not mean that I am dwelling on my unhappiness. Just so you know, I am talking to my husband right now and sharing all these thoughts with him.
I just think that it is not correct to force someone's level of acceptance on this on me. If they are okay with it, then that's them. I am not okay with what happened, taht's why I asked for advice to try and move on.
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A
female
reader, Miamine +, writes (25 March 2010):
You can be happy and in love and learn to let the past go, or you can dwelling on this one incident and make yourself and your partner unhappy.... stay trapped in the past and you'll stop smiling and you'll have problems with him...
Life is too short to be angry and sad, we've given you good advice but you prefer to get angry with us and stay in your unhappiness.
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (25 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionBy the way, I know that he did not cheat on me. It's the physical act itself. I do not want to "share" him physically in any way, especially that intimate with anyone else, just like he would not want any other man touching me in that manner.
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (25 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionAngzw - yes I do see it as a personal attack not only touching on my "insecurity" but my being a woman and my relationship with him.
Looking at it as impersonal is like saying that paying a prostitute to have sex with is also impersonal. I am very vocal with him telling me the truth a week after but that does not negate the fact on how wrong it was FOR ME as I told him NOT TO.
I don't care if everyone's fiances go to strip clubs for their stags. Everyone has their own "set of rules" in their own relationships.
I know it was peer-pressure and he admitted to that, but making it seem like it should be okay because "everyone does it" does not ring right to me.
Thaks for replying.
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A
female
reader, Angzw +, writes (25 March 2010):
I think you are making a big mistake obsessing about this. What you are doing is making sure he is never honest with you ever again because of the way you reacted to his honest confession. It was stag night for crying out loud and its was better it went on at a club rather than a private residence where real prostitutes would be hired and I don't need to tell you what would happen. A stripper is like a rite of passage for many American men; its almost cultural. If he wanted the stripper he wouldn't be with you. And by the way, many strippers have boyfriends, children etc. For many of them this is a job to make money to feed their children. You need to get a hold of yourself and move on or you will ruin a good marriage. You seem to have taken it as if it was a personal attack on your attractiveness. But your guy by your own admission isnt a regular, he was with a bunch of rowdy daring guys, they were drunk and there were other people there. Forget the stripper. Perhaps to help yourself feel more confident, just try a few strip classes and learn some moves to give you confidence in yourself. I enjoyed my classes so much that I do little routines for fun for my boyfriend and its a lot of fun and a huge confidence boost to see the weak-kneed reaction. Forget about your imperfect body, men are primarily attracted to confidence so learn to love yourself and tell yourself positive things.
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A
female
reader, GreenStone +, writes (25 March 2010):
GreenStone is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI logged in to this just now but was commenting earlier. Joining this group, I think, is the best decision I've ever made about my issue. I have asked some of my friends and some of them just outright tell me to "get over it" and some tell me to get back at him by going to a strip club myself and getting a lap dance.
I know that in time I will circle back to how things were before. I guess my being "territorial" i.e. I don't want anyone being THISCLOSE to him in that manner, gyrating on him and feeling his body, is my biggest issue besides the insecurity. For a few weeks, I felt that he was contaminated. I had him throw the sweater and jeans he had on that night.
I really appreciate all the answers :)
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (25 March 2010): Let me tell you a story.
I've been to strip clubs about 3 or 4 times in my life with friends. Seeing pretty naked girls is fun like eating chocolates is fun, but it really does nothing else for me once I walk out the door.
Friends have bought me lap dances 2 times. The girls were both pretty but I felt no connection. I just knew that I couldn't imagine being emotionally involved with a woman who was likely to choose that job. I didn't look down on them but I just didn't feel anything for them.
I liked feeling their bodies against me but I haven't fantasized about either one of those girls since then. I'm sure they're out there, maybe still dancing or maybe not, maybe they've got a husband had two kids since then, I don't know. I'd smile & wave if I saw one of them today and she somehow remembered me (yeah right) but it's really nothing. I don't think I would even recognize either of their faces (or bodies) now if I did see one of them again.
It probably would have been a more fun experience if I could imagine those girls wanting me and me wanting them in un-forced circumstances. I think that is partly why some of my friends like strip clubs more than I do. They just like different kinds of girls than I usually do. I don't think those girls are bad second-rate people but they don't stir my attractions. They're fun to look at and even fun to flirt with sometimes but their effect on me ends when I go out the door.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (25 March 2010): SeriouslyStephanie and anonymous, you're both right. I've been insecure with my past relationships with guys who didn't deserve me at my best at all.
Right now, I am concentrating on being more fit (I'm 5'6" at 179 lbs and I know that's not fat at all, just a little extra curve here and there).. and yes I am looking for a pole dance class as part of it too.
We've talked about what happened in great detail that's why I feel bad everytime I get upset over it. He loves me very much and I love him just the same. I guess in time, I'll be able to shrug the negative thoughts off my mind.
Thanks to all of you. Please keep the words coming. I am feeling a whole lot better right now
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (25 March 2010): thanks eyeswideopen, i think that would be my therapy too
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A
female
reader, eyeswideopen  +, writes (25 March 2010):
 I say learn how to pole dance. It's great exercise and looks like it might be a lot of fun. I'd try it myself if I wasn't so old I might break a hip. Plus it might help to take your mind off this unpleasant memory you keep torturing yourself about.
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female
reader, SeriouslyStephanie +, writes (25 March 2010):
 Don't keep fretting about it hun, you're just torturing yourself unneccessarily. Strip clubs mean nothing, even if the girls there are totally naked. I think this has less to do with the fact he went to the strip club, and more about how insecure about yourself. Do you trust him? If so, you should know that even at the strip club he would not have even contamplated cheating on you. At most bachelor parties, they big it up and get all rowdy about the fact there going to a trip club, but the reality of it is when they get there, they are all embarrassed and don't know where to look. Most of the time it is just rowdy lads, and think how the woman who was gettin married feels - it is her future husband there too. Just chill about it, there is no point winding yourself up about it. I understand how you feel as my boyfriend is going on his mate's stag do next weekend to krakow and he is going to be in strip clubs all weekend but at the end of the day he is coming home to me, not staying there with those degrading strippers :) if any of this doesn't make sense I apoligise I struggle to get words out the right way when writing them :) good luck with healing over this, just remember - HE CAME BACK TO YOU
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