The beginning of something else

I found out Friday night that my husband, with whom I've been in a loving, committed, once-in-a-lifetime relationship for almost 20 years, has been seeing prostitutes for at least the past 4 1/2 years, since our son was one and a half.I found something odd in his email about a month ago...an email from a sender called Affluent Concierge. I've known for years that my husband is an avid consumer of pornography, via both magazines and websites. When I first found this out maybe 10 years ago or so, I was disturbed and disgusted. I don't have brothers, so I don't have a lot of experience with guy stuff. It felt like something personal - like he was trying to get something more than I could offer, and that it was objectifying and demeaning for women. But we talked about it a lot, and I decided that an interest in pornography is entirely within the normal range of male sexuality, and that it wasn't about me as much as about fantasy and sexual stimulation. I decided that, while I wasn't thrilled, I would accept it. I've definitely looked at magazines, and after discovering my husband's interest, some movies. And they can be a turn-on. But I have never really understood, other than intellectually, the need to continue to buy new magazines and web access and see new movies. Most of it seems so fake to me - but I accepted it as normal male sexuality. And I understand being interested sexually in other people. Even Jimmy Carter had lust in his heart, right? So do I. But in my mind there was a definite line. Particularly as my husband has always been very open about the fact that he thought infidelity was stupid and irresponsible. He never set limits for me. He didn't have to - I'm a naturally monogamous person. He's only the 3rd man I've had sex with in my 43 years. The first two were also long-term relationships, one in high school and one in college. But whenever the subject came up he was always disapproving and said he couldn't understand it. And he's told me many times over the years that he'd never do that to me.My husband is a wonderful, funny, super-intelligent, creative man. I can't imagine anyone else more compatible with me in the world. He gets me. And I've shared myself with him without hesitation, without any shread of emotional protection for almost as long as I can remember. He's truly magnificent in ways that are most important to me. He's the love of my life. And with him I felt the freedom to be that only the strongest sense of trust and safety can create.So when I found this thing in his email, (he'd left his browser open and up on the screen of our shared computer.) I didn't read it. I don't even open mail addressed to him. I think it's important for people to have privacy, and I knew that he'd share anything with me that was important to share. But but I wanted to see what this site was, so I typed in the web address, and in the history as I was typing in the address, one of the things that came up was the appointment request form. I was stunned. I didn't know what to make of it. So I asked him that day if he was seeing call-girls. He looked shocked, and said "No!" I explained that I'd looked up this site that I saw in his email and that one of the things that had come up in the history was the appointment request form. He said that he just visited that site for pictures, nothing else. I think at the time he said, in reference to the call-girls, "I wouldn't do that."We're not great with money. We make a very good amount, and we always talk about the fact that our money seems to get spent, no matter how much more we make. Both of us are pretty generous by nature, my husband probably more so than me. He likes to pick up the check at group gatherings - that kind of thing. And he has never told me not to do something because of money. I've taken classes, gotten headshots (I'm an actor), had my own business for 5 years which never was profitable, he assumed co-responsibilty for my hefty grad school loans when we got married (by law), and never mentioned it. I came from a mentality of scarcity, and he taught me not to live that way. It's not about being irresponsible with money (which we are in practice) but about figuring out how to make life work so that you're happy. But it's a day to day process and we're still perfrecting it. So I was working on our finances, looking for where we could curb some spending, cut back on unnecessary things, funnel more into savings, when I saw charges on the bank statement that I wanted to investigate. I was pretty sure they were from Affluent Concierge, and I didn't realize that he was paying to see this site.

So I went back to his email account and looked at the Affluent Concierge emails again. This time I found emails that looked as though they were responding to requests from him for appointments. One of them said, "I hope you enjoyed your time with Angie,” and then went on to request that he not make appointments when he ad a cold so that the models wouldn’t get sick and/or pass colds on to other clients. Below that message was what appeared to be a message from Husband. In the From field was his email address. My heart was beating so fast. It seemed undeniable that something was going on.

So I told him what I found and asked him again if he was seeing call girls. “I didn’t to it, I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I don’t know how that got in there. It’s probably spam. I just look at the pictures. “If you did,” I asked, “would you tell me. I would want you to tell me.” “Yes I would. But I didn’t do anything. That’s gross...that’s just...yuk. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps.” He looked into my eyes, his beautiful clear green eyes full of love that I’d see almost everytime I looked into them for almost 2 decadess and said, “I would never do that to you. I would never do that to you I love you.”

Husband and I are both in the internet industry. I’m pretty familiar with how email and spam work. But he looked right at me and told me he hadn’t done anything. For almost 20 years he had been truthful and honest in almost a profound way. I felt I knew him as certainly as I knew the sun would rise the next day. And so I believed him.

But it continued to bother me, because what he was saying just didn’t fit logically with what I was seeing with my eyes. I knew there had to be some explanation so I looked again to see if I could find something that would explain his version of things. I realized that if what he was saying was true, there wouldn’t be anything in his Sent mail. So I looked. As I read the emails I found, reality started to warp. “Looking for a date.” “Looking to make an appointment today.” “Could you tell me who is available this weekend including Monday. I’m interested in Brienne. Thanks.” “I am in Los Angeles and I'd like to find out about making an appointment to see Christina. Please let me know what you need from me to make this happen.” Again, my heart was racing, and I was beginning to shake and sweat. I looked back at the responses in his In box. The most recent one said, “Hi, you are confirmed for ashley at 330pm,” and gave a hotel, address and phone number.

I asked him again about what I’d found. “You don’t believe me, do you? I make these appointments but I don’t go. It gets me all excited to have this appointment. The fantasy of it. But I make the appointment and then I wack off, and I don’t go.” The fact that I’d read about a 24 hour cancellation policy on Affluent Concierge danced across my thoughts, but it was so inconceivable to me that my husband would lie to me like this, so I ignored that detail. “Okay?” he asked expectantly. I couldn’t speak. I was wringing my hands nervously. Finally, “I don’t know what to say.” I couldn’t say Okay anymore. Something definitely felt wrong. I felt like my mind was playing some kind of trick on me. “Well I didn’t to anything wrong. I make these appointments. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

So I went back on the computer and continued to investigate. I looked at the phone bills, which confirmed that he had made calls from Culver City about the time his appointment was supposed to be there, including a 17 minute call with me when he must have been on his way to the appointment. Then I followed a link to a site called The Erotic Review. There I found his reviews about having sex with about 10 different women, starting in 2003. I unplugged the laptop, ran upstairs to the bedroom where he was sleeping and woke him. I showed him what I’d found and pleaded with him to explain. He continued to say over and over again that he hadn't done anything wrong. He said the reviews were just fantasy, not real. My head was reeling – confused, scared, reality feeling completely fluid. “But it’s a review site!” I said. “Why would you write fantasy reviews on a review site? That doesn’t make sense. Please you’ve got to tell me the truth. How can you deny that something is going on when you have mail in your sent box and reviews in your name about having sex with all these other women?” There was a long pause. I have no idea what was going through his mind. Finally he took a deep breath. “Okay I’ve done it a couple of times. Mostly I make the appointments and don’t go. I’ve just gone a couple of times.” I asked how many times, and about the expense, how much he thought he’d spent. Maybe 4 or 5 times, he said. He totaled it up in his mind “About $2000, no $1500.” Thinking of the phone records I’d seen I asked, do you go and then turn around? No. I wack off and then I don’t go. I looked at him, full of emotion that I could barely contain, and for the first time in our relationship said, “I don’t believe you.”