Some men (and their wives know who they are) just have to get their “medicine.” But I don’t think the OP’s husband is that kind of guy. I think she should view his willingness to tell her about it as a positive. If something short of intercourse made him feel guilty enough to confess, he’s probably not going to take the leap and have actual sex with someone else.
Sorry to hear you’re going through this. Men really suck sometimes don’t they?
I can’t imagine going and doing anything if my partner objected that strongly. There is no one I would choose over him. I’ll be thinking of you and hoping that your spouse decides to grow up and respect his relationship with you. :
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And you are…?
Board veteren Kytheria steps up and tells the stranger where he can go with his tough talk.
Anybody who has a personal grievance can take it to the Pit. No more of this crap.
In the time it took to post, y’all made my points for me
Ditto. A guy needs to decide who he’s married to - his wife or his friends. (Women too, for that matter.) And a guy needs to understand what’s important. And cheating is cheating no matter who knows about it. The cheater, does, at least.
As for me, I don’t get the appeal. Sex and money don’t go together for me - when they do it seems pathetic.
To leave a crying wife at home while you get your grind on is inconceivable to me. Your husband is behaving like a douchebag, but you’re behaving a bit stupidly as well. You both sound like two children. If you conceive a baby with a man child who considers it “no big deal” to go strip clubbing that’s his personality and has been his personality since you met him, fucked him, and made a baby with him. It’s the personality you liked and you chose. So don’t get the big doe eyes and start snuffling that the bastard is betraying you by behaving like a jackass, and won’t submit to your emotional pleas to do the right thing.
Women have this odd idea that the sexy, stubborn, raffish man they chose as their SO is going to change once he is under the magical sway of their vagina. It doesn’t work that way. He’s the same person now as the man you were so attracted to in the beginning. It’s your expectations that have changed and he is not willing to accommodate them. It’s a sad situation but it’s one you are responsible for in making your choices.
Newsflash for some of you guys: many women who have no objection to their man going to a strip club and looking will consider actually touching - with or without intervening clothes, such as a lap dance - to be cheating to one degree or another. You may or or may not agree with that, but it’s a fairly common female point of view.
I just happened to watch the Chris Rock special on HBO tonight and he brought up the interesting subject that when women say they are going out with the girls to watch a movie (Sex And The City for example) most men are thrilled:
- Because they don’t have to go see the film and 2. They are happy their wives/girlfriends had a good time. When you come home and say we had a great time, cried at the film, had a few glasses of wine at the bar and bitched about men, most guys are still happy you went out with your friends.
However, women rarely enjoy seeing guys going out have a good time with other guys. If a guy comes home, even if it is from a baseball or football game, and is all happy and buzzed from the night, he usually gets attitude.
OK…enough from Chris Rock.
- Regarding hubby…even if he goes to the strip club, it is not like any of the women there really want to ever see him again unless he is a trust fund baby and has tons of money to wine and dine and set them up in an apartment…from the sounds of it, that is not hubby.
- Men really are pigs. We can be aroused by animated films, let alone a real life body.
- If you caught him jacking off in the shower, would you also be furious?
- Would you rather he secretly surfed porn on the Internet?
- Assuming he has five to ten good buddies, of which seven get married and have bachelor parties over the next ten years, are you that insecure that this is the end of your relationship?
- Do you have any idea how many women would dream of a guy who occasionally goes out with his buddies to a strip club once or twice a year, but otherwise came back to his wife every night?
- Did I mention men are pigs and can be aroused if they see a ripe cantaloupe?
- I am Gay, and my partner of 27 years and I have had our share of odd evenings with other people.
- Your hubby sounds like a “normal” guy to me - warts and all.
- He doesn’t have a mistress, he isn’t screwing his secretary, he isn’t gambling the kids college tuition away, he isn’t snorting crack, he isn’t unemployed and drinking a six pack of beer before lunch…but every once in awhile, he goes to a strip club. Ya know, your life doesn’t suck, and your husband is at least honest enough to tell you what is going on. I think you should consider yourself a very lucky lady. And did I mention, men are pigs?
I wasn’t going to post this (I went back and forth for a couple minutes), but you did say you weren’t just looking for agreeable input. I know that in my post I will be projecting my past onto this situation, but I see quite a few correlating and worrisome signs in your series of posts; and just because I can only speak with certainty to my own experiences, it doesn’t necessarily mean that what I have to say isn’t applicable. If nothing else, maybe it will give you or someone else some insight about what can potentially happen in relationships. With that said…
I think your relationship has problems far deeper than a strip club, and if this is the way both of you are going to handle it you should consider separating (or at least not rule it out completely). You are testing him and he is failing miserably, which is making you miserable in the process. It also seems like you aren’t being truthful to yourself or him about the testing process. My impression is that he is (successfully) manipulating your emotions to control you and the relationship, and that is the true source of your insecurity. I say this as someone who, in my stupider and less than scrupulous days, purposely pulled the strings of women to respond in exactly the way you are doing now. You are blinding yourself to what is really going on and trying to blame the other woman (strip club, what have you) and absolving him of his own responsibility as a human being. I know you are going to want to think otherwise as you are already playing the apologist for him in regards to strip clubs, but that is the truth. Even if there was no such thing as strip clubs, there would be the same problems in this relationship. He is making you dependent and insecure, and you are letting him. It’s toxic for both of you, but you’re the one that will end up paying a deeper price. What is all this bullshit about “I want to trust you so badly”. You shouldn’t have to want to trust somebody, the person should give you reason to trust them and you do or you don’t. As soon as you find yourself wanting something to happen with another person, regardless of what unfolds before your very eyes, you will get yourself into trouble. You said you will work through this with him, and I sincerely hope you can; just try to be honest with yourself about everything that is going on while you do.
Is that really a newsflash? Maybe I missed some of the posts in the thread, but I think most people know that is a common view; and they also know whether or not their partner would have a problem with it.
I don’t see anything useful, let alone true (aside from the Chris Rock special, which may have very well been on), in this post at all. The perspective that all men are pigs leads to an enabling societal attitude, which contributes to mindsets similar to what occur in the OP. It also has the lovely effect of patronizing men in the process.
To those of you saying they are surprised at the amount of physical contact that took place, I have been to popular and established strip clubs where nipples in the mouth are common (and delicious!). I know that strip club laws are dependent on locale, but I just wanted to throw in that it is not exactly unheard of even in places beyond some back alley STD pit.
As a man, I’ll neither confirm nor deny my feelings towards cantaloupe specifically, but sure, I’ll cop to being aroused by some luscious melons. 
Sorry…I couldn’t resist a little levity. And I felt the need to categorically affirm my ambiguous stance on cantaloupe.
Sorry you’re going through this but above is the part I’d be concerned about.
Like Martini Enfield, I cannot imagine the circumstances that led your husband to divulge details about his behavior the first time around. Nor do I understand why you were “insecure as hell” about him going there in the first place. Bottom line is do you trust him? If you do, then you don’t NEED to set ground rules (e.g. writhing to arouse him is okay, but writhing to the point of orgasm is not, (which is a rather silly distinction anyway, no?)). You kiss him goodbye and go on about your life with the expectation that he will return the next morning, hung over and happy to crawl into bed with YOU.
Strip clubs are seedy but rather innocuous because everyone is upfront about their agendas. Nobody is there to fall in love. The men are there to ogle at half naked women who otherwise wouldn’t give them the time of day. The dancers are there for the money, and only the money, and wouldn’t feel one ounce of guilt at stopping a hair’s breadth away from a happy ending were his credit were to run out. Not exactly the stuff that great relationships are made of. And not the least bit threatening to a healthy marriage.
In my entire life, I’ve never heard of one man leaving his fiancee for a stripper. However, I have heard of plenty of wives getting hysterical over bachelor parties, strip clubs and even Hooters. And I am puzzled by their reaction. You either trust your husband or you don’t. He’s either committed to his family or he’s not. There’s no middle ground, no gray area. If he is committed to you, and he wants to bond with his buddies in this ridiculously juvenile way, then resist blowing it up into some huge ordeal. Because it’s not.
If you are seriously worried about his fidelity, there’s a far, far greater likelihood that he’ll run off with your best friend than with some woman who sticks her nipple in strangers’ mouths for a buck. If you trust him with your best friend, you should trust him in a strip club.
I’m sorry, did you miss the part in the OP where the guy, as an about-to-be-married bachelor, makes out with a stripper while sucking her tits and dry-humping her until he came in his pants?
I have no moral problems with prostitution as I think society benefits from allowing this last resort for losers. I think women should cut a break to men who just want to window-shop in strip clubs now and then. But I don’t believe a woman has to sit there passively and accept that her man goes and pays for sex when he knows she doesn’t want him to. That’s just rude and cruel.
Except that he apparently still thinks the stripper thought he was soooo special that she did it out of desire/love/whatever instead of for the money. That rings a big danger bell for me.
And to address an earlier post, Chris Rock knows some real bitches, apparently. I don’t care if my husband goes out with friends as long as we’re still having a loving, close relationship and he’s not going out every night, drunk-driving to get home, or doing whatever other anti-social behavior. He’s been to an “exotic dance club” for a bachelor party when we were dating, and I didn’t set any rules because I trust him, and we both think that actually doing anything with a stripper that wouldn’t be cool with any random other woman is not a good thing.
Whoa, you’re right! As long as he’s not cheating consistently or an addict, he’s a great catch! I’ve heard people say things like this before, and it amazes me the low standards that some people have for men’s behavior in relationships.
I’m sorry, DoperChic, that your husband is being a tool. That is way beyond the boundaries that would be acceptable for me, and I would be furious if my husband continued to put himself in a situation where he’d shown he couldn’t control himself.
Have you guys considered counseling?
If a man is married, the only ways he should be having an orgasm is with his wife or self-inflicted. Letting some other woman get you off is cheating, plain and simple. And for DoperChic’s husband to put himself in that same situation again is despicable.
I’m not worried about the women at the strip club, they’re just interested in the money. They know that, I know that. Even most men know that, but the problem is that not all men know that.
As near as I can tell, men can become aroused merely by breathing and having a heartbeat. At a certain point women figure out that men are just HORNY all the time, and if they’re not it’s time to take them to the doctor or, more likely the hospital because something is seriously wrong.
No. I don’t have a problem with masturbation.
I am well aware of my husband’s porn surfing habits, just as I was well aware of his collection of girlie magazines before we had the world wide web to surf. I am aware that he has rented porn videos, or bought them from pay per view. He has zero reason to surf in secret. He tends to do so when I’m otherwise occupied because what excites him doesn’t excite me, but there is no attempt to hide anything. Looking is permitted in our marriage, touching is not.
Nope - but then, unlike the OP, I trust my husband not to violate our mutual rules. I know that if he goes to a strip club it will be looking, not touching. If anything, he usually gets the male equivalent of this question as I spend a great deal of time engage idn activities where I am the only woman with one or more men around. However, I’d like to emphasize once again that we trust each other and what is going on in the OP is clearly a TRUST issue as much as an issue about feelings or anything else. The OP is clearly afraid of some level of cheating and, from what I gather, feels a nipple in the mouth or a lap dance to the point of orgasm IS a form of cheating. It doesn’t matter if you or I have that same standard as it’s not our marriage - they really do need to work this out between themselves.
No, can’t say I ever thought about it. Clearly, some would be happy with that. Others would divorce over that. What’s your point here?
See my earlier remark about heartbeat and breathing.
I’m so happy for you. Now, why the hell would you hold a heterosexual marriage to a standard that works for your marriage? (I realize that it is exceeding unlikely you have been legally married for that time, but I’ll assume your relationship is that committed). For that matter, I know hetero couple with open or polyamorous relationships that are happy and work well, but I know that it wouldn’t work for me. MOST women would regard the “odd evening with other people” as cheating and quite a few would divorce over it. If we have to accept that men are horndogs perhaps men need to accept that women tend to have a different viewpoint. Perhaps it is easier for homosexual couples to find common ground, but when you have a man/woman pairing compromise is frequently required.
She sounds pretty normal, too - warts and all.
I don’t think the issue is so much strip clubs as touching other women at strip clubs. In fact, that seems very clear to me. She doesn’t object to him looking but can’t trust him not to touch.
And I really have to wonder about that “club” - most strip clubs I’ve heard of (and I’ve known a few strippers as well as customers) have a pretty strict “no touching” rule. Offers of intercourse for money is soliciting prostitution, and outside of certain establishments in Nevada prostitution is illegal in this country. Makes me wonder about the overall wholesomeness of this strip club, ya know?
PunditLisa pretty much nailed it in post #74. Score it a 9.75 out of 10.