“My husband’s past with brothels”
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I think plenty of folks are glossing over the part where, no matter the legality of an action, a person can find it morally disgusting. Open marriages are legal: Not interested. Drugs are legal in Amsterdam: Not interested. I’m not gonna be OK with a lot of things that are legal, but repulsive to me. And yeah, knowing someone has a past of one or the other would be relevant information—I’d want to know if drugs or fucking other women is going to be an issue.
And YES, I think a person is allowed to want to know quite a bit about the man she’s entrusting with her body, her finances, and her baby’s life. I’m so tired of hearing that nobody’s “entitled” to an information about a man’s past. If you don’t trust someone enough to be honest with them, you shouldn’t be married to that person.
Holy hypocrisy batman. If this were a guy asking for a woman’s number of past sexual partners people would be calling him a controlling cave man. This happened years before she met him and none of his behavior in the present led her to be suspicious. The level of outrage here is ridiculous and completely hypocritical.
Not exactly, only if you personally don’t see any difference between routinely visiting prostitutes and having multiple sex partners. Many of us do.
I personally look differently at a guy who had multiple sex partners (normal) vs a guy who routinely paid for sex (not normal, as it seems only 1 in 10 ever have). Right or wrong, I’d think a brothel enthusiast either cannot, or has no interest in, relating to real women and forming normal human bonds with them; may not see women as people/equals but as something they can buy. Now, that might be true also of a guy who just had a bazillion hookups on Tinder and no relationship history, and I’d be wary of both. I prefer a guy with progressive relationship experience who hasn’t just routinely used women for sex.
Holy hypocrisy? Point me to where I said a man can’t ask a woman anything about her past, either. I’ve never said such a thing.
We know the guy visited a brothel in his youth and is embarrassed by that part of his past. That doesn’t make him a ‘brothel enthusiast’. Nor does that make him a person who has no interest in relating to women as people or being in a real relationship. In fact, he is in a real relationship, he is married to the LW and she never expressed that he does not respect her or treat her as a real person.
NS I have neither the time nor the inclination to go back through the archives but yeah, the overwhelming reaction to men getting hung up on numbers is negative. I think the responses to this situation are over the top and largely irrelevant to the actual situation at hand and yes, hugely hypocritical. What happened between consenting adults happened. She can either deal with it or not. There’s a kid involved so I think it’s worth a bit more introspection than oh my god! Hookers! Human trafficking! Disease! Rapist! Everyone has a past, fool yourself if you like but there are an awful lot of men you know who have engaged the services of a sex worker whether they admit it or not.
“In fact, he is in a real relationship, he is married to the LW and she never expressed that he does not respect her or treat her as a real person.”
See, I think the jury is kind of still out on that one, given they were pushed into marriage and it’s all still so new. He also still doesn’t seem to have been willing to tell her *anything* about his life in Australia, which is weird.
I agree with JulieCatharine’s point though that since there’s a marriage and kid involved, this is worth working on, which is why my advice from page 1 has been to talk about it, and if she can’t get anywhere talking about it, get help.
Yes, a child’s involved—so ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away isn’t a viable solution, in my opinion. The LW says she looks at her husband differently now—why do you think that’s magically going to stop without talking about it to him a therapist or SOMEONE, exactly?
Is she “wrong” to care that her husband was fucking hookers? I dunno. We’re allowed to find certain behaviors disgusting. There are plenty of people who wouldn’t even date a smoker, for Pete’s sake…
Because yeah, to my point and NS’s point, she DOES feel really disturbed by it, which is fair enough, and talking it through and understanding his feelings about it may put her mind at ease, whereas his continued refusal to discuss anything related to his past does tend to doom their marriage (though granted she should not have snooped).
“I have recently just found out that while my husband lived in Australia he would frequently visit brothels.”
Frequently.
They barely know each other, Ron. That’s the point. Per usual, you just make assumptions about the LW.
Everyone has a past. A partner is not entitled to know everything (and everyone) you did before them. If something is important to you, it’s incumbent on you to ask. Everyone has different red flags and boundaries. Visiting prostitutes a no go for you?
Then ask before marriage. Don’t want to be with someone who has had a lot of partners? You’re allowed. You’re allowed whatever you want as your preferences for a partner (within the confines of law) And by the same token, you don’t want to divulge any of your past? You’re allowed that too. By all means, tell anyone you like to fuck off. You are allowed your preferences and you are allowed your boundaries. Not everyone’s preferences will match, not everyone’s boundaries will match. That’s okay.It sounds like these two don’t really know each other and they are at the getting to know you stage now. And she breeched his boundaries by snooping… And found out something outside her preference. But they are already married and have a child. There is nothing he can do now about his actions while at school. He can’t undo the past. She either has to accept his past, make it clear she does not want it repeated whatsoever, apologize for breeching his trust and try to move on together or she decides it’s a deal breaker and she leaves
