Reddit Relationships.
This story is called, "Wife worked as an escort while in college",
my wife, 34 female and I, 34 male have been married for almost five years.
We have good jobs, a nice house.
And we have two young kids.
We have known each other since middle school and we dated on and off through high school.
We had been apart for several months when she went off to college in a different part of the country, while I went to a state school.
Not far from home.
We saw each other occasionally during those years when she was home for the summers and Christmas, and we hooked up a couple of
times, but we kept it casual and didn't have much contact otherwise while she was away.
I saw other people during that time after college, she moved back to this area and we both lived in the same city.
So we eventually started seeing each other again.
It became serious and we ended up getting engaged and got married.
a few years later, she is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, is my best friend and the love of my life.
The weekend before last, we had our COVID bubble couple, my wife's best friend and her husband over for dinner and had a few drinks, too many.
The conversation moved to the subject of student debt and saving for college for our kids.
The husband said he is still paying on his student loans since his parents didn't help pay for much.
And, my wife blurted out something like, yeah, mine didn't either.
And she immediately went dark red.
Now, I knew that she doesn't have any student loans and I had assumed her parents had paid for most of it.
She also had a job waiting tables or so I thought.
But there was no way she would have been able to pay for all of her school doing that.
I also noticed her friend looking very uncomfortable and they were exchanging, looks.
But I let it be.
And the conversation moved on to other subjects and they eventually left, after they had left.
I asked my wife what that was all about.
And she immediately started crying, sobbing.
She told me she was so sorry.
She hadn't told me before, but, that while she went to college, she worked as an escort to pay herself through school.
She had wanted to tell me when we got back together, she said, but she was too ashamed and thought I would have dumped her if she did.
So she had left it all behind.
She said I was completely caught off guard by this.
I asked how she even got into that.
And she said she was introduced to an agency by another student.
She had befriended at the school and it went from there, in the beginning.
It had only been once or twice a month.
But since she needed the money, she had done it some more, but seemed vague and
avoiding about telling me how much, I pressed her on how much she had been doing it.
And she eventually said, she'd done it a couple of times a week, the last three years of school.
So that's hundreds of times starting when she was still a teenager.
I was so shocked.
She cried and cried and asked if I could forgive her.
She said she had been fully tested before we got back together and had tested regularly while working.
I said it wasn't cheating since we were not together at the time.
So there isn't anything to forgive.
I tried to console her, but she kept on crying uncontrollably.
I asked if there was anything else she wanted to tell me and she cried some more.
And eventually said, yes, she had also done porn.
I was like, what?
And she told me, her agency had referred her to some porn company in Florida and they flew her down there for a week.
She did four scenes and flew back home.
She had only done it this one time.
She said she kept crying and crying and I was completely shell shocked at this point, but I tried my best to calm her down and said it is okay.
I still love her.
And so on.
Eventually she stopped crying and we went to sleep without another word.
Well, I didn't sleep much.
We didn't talk about it the next day.
And the next day after that, she asked me if I was okay and if I wanted to talk, but I said, no, I don't really feel like talking about it.
She asked me again, if I still loved her.
And I said, I did.
And I do.
I can't picture my life without her.
But I am having a very hard time with this, to be honest, it's been more than a week and I can't stop thinking about it.
I feel like I don't know her at all.
I keep thinking about those four scenes and that they're probably still out there for anyone to see.
I keep thinking about her going to hotels and meeting random guys.
I want to know more, but I don't think I can handle knowing more, but I can't get it out of my head.
It's all I think about.
We haven't had sex, since this conversation.
I want to move on.
I want to get past this, but how, she didn't cheat on me, but it almost feels like she did.
I can't help it.
What can I do?
Anyone else experienced something like this?
How did you deal with it?
TLDR:
My wife of five years told me she had worked as an escort while going to college.
She also done some porn.
I can't get past it.
Edit.
Thank you all for your thoughts.
I really appreciate most of the comments.
I need a break from this right now.
It's just too much.
And I'm at work actually.
Don't force yourself to make a decision right now.
Don't set a quick timetable for you to get over it.
Don't tell yourself you have to feel a certain way.
Don't tell yourself that you have to get past it.
Give yourself more time to process this, a week would not be near enough time for me.
I think you should explore the part about how you feel like you don't know her anymore.
If I was in your position
I think that's exactly how I would feel.
It wouldn't be about the sex specifically.
It would be the surprise that my spouse had a whole life for several years, that I didn't know about.
Like honestly, if they had secretly been an Alaskan fishermen for several years and completely hidden it from me, I think I
would feel the same shock instead of asking for more details about the job itself.
I would ask for more details.
About her choices and feelings and other aspects of her life during the same period.
Did she hate it?
Was it a hard choice to make?
Did she have friends in that profession?
What were they like outside of work?
Was she happy?
What did she do for fun, etc. Maybe you can find a way to feel like you know her again.
Yeah, you know
How heavily women are judged for entering that industry often by the very same men.
That pay for it.
You don't know the shame and pain associated with it.
Try talking to someone who became a sex worker out of desperation.
It changes your entire life and the way you view yourself.
I think there's a significant difference between sex workers being victimized by the industry
and their clients and being victimized by the judgment and discrimination from others though.
Like I kind of agree.
Most sex workers are probably victimized.
At some point, the important question to ask is by whom and what needs to be done to stop those people being victimized and way, way too often
people say ban sex work, even though, 1. That doesn't stop the victimization from other people.
And 2, it doesn't solve the economic and social reasons why the person became involved in sex work in the first place.
I am old.
I have been things I am not proud of in my early twenties.
I saw friends who are loving husbands, wives, do things that surprise me at that time.
But watch them mature into who they are today.
At some point in my life, I was able to separate people into their college, early 20 self and their mature self.
Some people are mature at 20.
Some are not.
This sub will say she lied by omission is a horrible evil person.
Do you think she is?
I doubt she is.
I'm sure my wife and I would both be shocked at each other's head count and escapades.
At that age, we never revealed. Did we both lie by omission?
Probably, I get that this is more shocking, hard to stop visualizing.
Unbelievable.
Maybe you can't get over this as it is a lot.
I would just know the person you married and have loved and who has been a good spouse is real.
I would take some time.
Be super honest with her.
I am always amazed how time does make things history, then ancient history.
This may be different, but I expect that at some point.
You will process it and move past it.
Then every day it becomes less and less of the emotional all-consuming thing.
It is.
now, this is not a, you should do this or that.
Just some thoughts to help you process and maybe see that it could over time be gone as baggage.
It may not either, but I suspect you see her as your soulmate and she may very well still be.
Regardless of what OP decides to do. I really wish people would stop bringing up this for better or worse quote, for one thing,
you don't need to say that when you get married and many people choose not to, another thing.
Sometimes, divorce is just the best option and it makes no sense to ignore that just because of some arbitrary, traditional pact.
If OP eventually comes to the conclusion that this is a deal breaker for him, then it really makes no sense to factor in something he might have said.
At the altar