SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello everyone

My husband used an escort in 2019 whilst away on training. DD was 2020

We are reconciliation. Everything has been going well.

He has been approached by a company to go and work for them, it’s a great opportunity- more money, less hours. It is a niche field so not many job opportunities come up.

However, it involves going away for 3 weeks in the beginning for training. I really want him to have this career opportunity but the staying away is concerning me.

We have talked about the job and how good it will be. I clam up when it comes to talking about the staying away.

Any tips or advice would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance

Why not go with him?

I should have added in the post that I have 3 children at school. It’s around 3.5 hours drive each way.

This is recent for you and I understand your unease.

On the one hand you want to trust that he will abstain from any escort services, trust that he will do the right thing but...there may be a lingering suspicion on your part. All valid.

Would you be able to go be with him over one weekend? Have someone take care of your children during that time?

Or do a road trip with your children to go see dad.

It may not be what you want but I'm sure in the end, it will all work out.

If there is no possibility of that, ask yourself what is making you clam up? Face what is bothering you and talk it out gently but firmly.

You can't play marriage police forever, but is it possible for him to give you sufficient access and reassurance?

Could he provide location tracking, recording himself sleeping in his hotel room, giving check in calls at a high interval, access to all bank accounts for assessment of cash withdrawals or other person-to-person transactions?

Just some thoughts in terms of being able to check in that he is doing what he says.

Thank you for the ideas. That’s really useful.

I have no idea why I clam up, I think it’s just the thought of it happening again.

I think we need to sit down tonight and run through things, will put on my big girl pants and just push through.

It’s a big decision, ultimately he is giving me the final say which does make it all worse.

I have tried to avoid feeling like I am marriage policing. We do track locations on iPhone- haven’t looked at this in a long time but it’s there if I feel I need to.

Your WH may be different than mine, but here is my story about a similar situation for you to consider ( my WH hired an escort the same day as he'd left our happy marriage bed that morning for a flight across the country with his workmates.)

We commenced weekly intensive marriage counseling immediately after D-Day 1, back in October 2002. I was going through the worst trauma due to my WH's regular monthly travel schedule that I'd never enjoyed but had always trusted he was super busy working their long hours. (His team often worked 18 hour days, and I'd gone with him sometimes, so I knew that was the case.) D-Day 1 taught me that even a brutally long work day hadn't stopped him from calling up an escort after 2 am the first night he was away, and after the entire rest of that hotel was sound asleep. (I opened the credit card bill for her services the next month - and my world crashed.)

The MC could see I was not going to get out of trauma unless something big changed, so he implored my WH to tell his employer that I would be going to these destinations with his team, "in order to save the M." Boss man didn't like it, but he needed my WH too much to say no. So I travelled with my WH to multiple other countries and all over the USA one week out of every month, 10 months of each year, for well over a year or two.

Eventually, I felt like a fool as I had so little productive do while on these trips, and he'd tell me that if he was ever going to be so stupid as to cheat again, he could do it right in our home town! I knew that was true, but the triggers for me were his constant travelling, the packing of his suitcases every month was an actual abandonment reenactment.

So finally, he got a reprieve for several years and didn't have to leave town, and it did help us some. Fast-forward to 2014, on my birthday in our wee little rural town, he went and got himself arrested for solicitng an escort at a our only local hotel. An escort who happened to be an undercover policewoman.

You have no control over this man's choices, your only control is to ask yourself if you want to live under the threat of another incident. A hard lesson I had to learn.

A real breakthrough in improving my (non-infidelity impacted) marriage was once when I thought my wife had given up on me. I realized that there might be things like the kids, pension, mortgage, history and all that making leaving me hard, but that none of those were really good reasons to remain. At some point my behaviors might make her chose to handle those issues rather than MY issues.
This is mutual: The ONLY reason I am married to her, and the ONLY reason she is married to me is that we chose to. It’s a decision. It’s not even mutual, but it’s two independent decisions based on both being in agreement.

We have discussed this...
We realize that our strong marriage is actually delicate. If we don’t show each other respect, mutual affection, mutual freedoms, mutual support... one of us might start wondering what there is to hang on to.
This isn’t shallow. I don’t start each day wondering if my commitment is still there. But I do regularly – like several times each week – wonder if I am showing her that my decision still stands. I do that by showing respect, sharing chores, taking care of business, holding her hand and so on.

I mention this because I think we – couples that have gone thought betrayal – should be ultra-aware of this. You can’t be the marriage police, and if he wants to cheat or whatever... there isn’t really much you can do to prevent it – but you CAN refuse to accept it.

What I would suggest is the following:
Let him know of your concerns. That if he’s spending this much time elsewhere or away you are afraid he might go back to wandering outside the marriage. Tell him that you realize that you can either let it drive you crazy, or you can accept that he might do it... But that the only clear thing is that you won’t ACCEPT it.
Tell him that if he cheats it will come out. It might be that you sense his demeanor, note the missing cash or card-charges, pick up on the phone-calls or even when he starts avoiding sex to hide the STD tickling his balls. Whatever.
It might not come out the week or even the month it happens, but it will come out. And when it comes out it will make you fully realize that no matter how much you might have wanted the marriage to work... it won’t.
It won’t work due to the disrespect he’s showing with a repeat affair, the risk he is placing you in.

Then allow him to tell you – and show – what assurances he can offer. If it’s "only" his word, then fine. But if he’s honest he will offer other assurances ranging from access to his phone and media, check-ins, location services and such.

--
To use an escort (I prefer using the correct term of sex worker) you need to pay. In fact – escorts are usually "higher" quality (in the sense that they aren’t as badly off as the abused, drug-using street workers), but it’s actually like calling a fried egg an omeleté – basically the same thing. One way to monitor him AND it’s also a great way to improve the marriage is by sharing accounts and setting budgets and financial goals. You see cash-withdrawals for $$$ and you can safely assume it’s not for a quick meal...

Thank you everyone for the replies.

I approached the subject last night using Biggers advice. I said that it’s not my decision as to whether he accepts a job. I said if he wants to go for it he should. I explained that his actions cannot be controlled by me, I’m not willing to keep checking up on him.

We are open with finances so I would know if there had been payments and withdrawals.

We talked and talked for ages. He said he is not sure whether to take the job. He said ultimately his actions have put us in this position, it has affected me and he has accepted that this job could affect things between us and doesn’t want to put me in a difficult position. Things have been going well so he’s doesn't want to do anything that could upset that.

He has a decision to make. We just need to keep talking

Thank you all

If he wants to cheat, he will.

My H traveled all over the world for 20+ years.

His affair was in our city. Not some foreign country.

He could have cheated every time he traveled. I would have no way of knowing. I always knew he had opportunity— just didn’t think he would before his last affair.

I know this doesn’t resolve things but we are happily reconciled. I just recognize opportunity is right outside our front door.

Thanks 1st Wife

Yes this is what I said to him last night that it can happen anywhere and anytime.

I think when I let go of trying to control the situation I felt happier and much less stressed.

For me, I don’t delude myself. I don’t think my H has cheated in the past 11 years but I would not be devastated if he did. Angry - yes. Hurt - yes. Saddened - yes.

But not devastated like I was 11 years ago.

But for us these were temporary business trips.

Would he have to live 3+ hours away or is it just temporary for training?