How would you feel...

[Trekkie]

Maybe they are both douche bags. I don't believe the guy is a decent person at all because lets face it normal people try and address their issues and go to counselling etc before they run off to prostitutes and then blame the other person. But lets just say considering we don't know all the facts that John attempted many times to get her or both of them help and she refused. Lets say she sat on her bum watching cable all day and dislikes John enough that she has no sexual interest in him whatsoever and makes him feel like crap when she even bothers. And lets just say she is with him simply because of the financial lifestyle he provides for her.

I want to make clear that I don't condone John's actions, he is a liar, a cheat and a whole lot more. But he is now in therapy and she isn't. That speaks volumes.

I think if he is obviously that unhappy that he needs to go to prostitutes and she doesn't want any intimacy with him any more, hopefully a good counsellor will show him what he did wrong and help him man up and see that. With self reflection maybe he will figure out while he loves Jane, it might be better to move on to a healthy relationship that meets everyone's needs including his own, without having to lie and cheat to go about it.

Hi Arkieb1

My husband and I are trying to be supportive, listening friends who don't pass judgment or even say very much. We haven't said this to John but your last paragraph is pretty much what we're hoping John will move towards. Even though we don't like Jane very much if she makes him happy, we'd support him because we know that's what he wants. However, it doesn't seem like that's what she wants.

Either way, we don't really care, you know? We just want our friend to be happy, or at least, less miserable.

 

[LaraOnline]

Hi LaraOnline

Not really talking for him, just repeating what he has said. He has been spending a lot of time in our house since this happened, mostly just sitting on our couch watching sport with my husband. Occasionally they have a DMC but I just listen, I don't say anything much.

The house they live in is his outright - he bought it with his earnings from his sports career before they even met. They had a prenup at her insistence (she used to joke about this, saying it proves she didn't marry him for his money) because John has significant earnings from his previous career as a professional sportsman.

I don't quite know what you mean by her giving up opportunities to better herself to wash jocks - I can only assume you mean generally? I disapprove of men doing this too (and this is probably the major reason why I would never be a stay at home mother) but it's definitely not the case here. They both have great careers and earn quite a bit. They have a full time maid so it's not as if she's some poor little put upon housewife who has cooked and cleaned for him for decades and now he's kicking her out of her house to move in some bimbo.

But thank you for your perspective - I'm sure that if she had been a housewife or even just, I don't know, a nicer person, in general, I would've been a bit more sympathetic towards her in general.

I am struck by the fact that only women have responded to this thread and it makes me wonder how the men feel? Perhaps their silence is in itself telling?

I agree that from your posts Jane does indeed seem a bit of a shit.
Should it be she that is forced out into rental accommodation? Even horrible people should have some rights in marriage.
Perhaps it's a matter of who is earning more, or who had the greater opportunities in the future. Or perhaps a question of who has the greater support network.
But in this case I guess it's a matter for the prenup to decide. It 'll probly come as no surprise judging from the tone of my posts that I don't *in general* agree with prenup either. Hah! I'm such a closet catholic!

 

[distracts]

I would be incredibly wounded if my husband ever cheated on me.

But I would be murderously angry if he visited a sex worker, simply because so many are exploited*, and I would lose all respect for anybody, man or woman, who would rank their sexual satisfaction over the possibility of contributing to somebody's misery.

*Yes, I know that some sex workers choose their occupations freely and enjoy what they do. Human trafficking statistics strongly suggest that they are the rare exceptions, and not the rule.

Yep, it's not just a betrayal of the relationship, but a betrayal of basic human decency.

I had a friend who admitted to visiting mute prostitutes while on a trip to Asia. Guess who is no longer my friend? Yeah, THAT GUY. Otherwise nice, smart, well-educated, witty, etc, but something about that is just so sleazy and morally wrong that I can't stand to talk to him now.

 

[distracts]

I'm sorry, but I don't think it's normal to have sex just three times in a 12 month period. Maybe it's acceptable if both partners have low libidos, but if you have a low libido and your partner doesn't is it really fair to expect your partner to suffer along with you?

Yes. It is fair. Unless both people in the relationship have specifically committed to an open relationship, it's fair. All marriages go through rough patches - sometimes VERY rough patches. You either find a solution amenable to both parties, put up with it, or get out.

 

[House Cat]

Ok, look, I am going to be perfectly blunt here. Your friend is a total dirtbag. ANY guy who seeks the "services" of a prostitute has a certain level of deviousness and scumbaggery to him whether he is single or not. He is PAYING for sex. The very act of doing this is disgusting and illegal in most states. But THEN, to use his wife as an excuse for his lack of morality? And to traipse around their social circle, revealing all of the intimate details of their relationship like some kind of victim, when he did something so vile and immoral is seriously one of the most manipulative and personality disordered things I've seen in a very long time. IMHO, the therapist is just a guise to make him seem like a "good guy."


What makes me sad is that people are actually buying into it.

I'm not saying his wife is an angel. But this guy needs to be held responsible for his actions, independent of his wife's actions. This is the real world here. We are adults. We can't go blaming our immoral actions on other people. This isn't kindergarten.

Edited for typos.

 

[blackprophet]

Unfortunately, at this point there is nothing to do but divorce. he lost his moral high ground, and she doesn't care enough to go to a doctor or marriage counselor. She's happy being a personOfWalmart and making him miserable. Put out or get out.

Male checking in.

JulieN hit the nail on the head.

He could've Spent 10 years talking to her, and that still wouldn't justify cheating. But on the flip side, by her not addressing the problem, before or afterwards, she is in the wrong.

I'M NOT SAYING SHE IS TO BLAME FOR THE CHEATING OR THE LYING (just wanted to get that in before the pitchforks came out )

What I am saying is if you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem (the problem being the lack of intimacy in the marriage, and partners being unfulfilled). By lying and cheating he never gave her a chance to be a part of the solution. But now if she wants a solution,then she's got to be a part of it. Its not acceptable to tell him to "fix it", there's no way to do that on his own. Don't want to put in the effort, then dust off the prenup and get to work.

I have no sympathy for him. I would never hire a hooker. If it was that bad then he should've left. Cheating is cheating. But I personally feel lying to your wife on a repated ongoing basis is a even graver, worse transgression. And that there is no way she would've accepted that it wasn't cheating, and not have been hurt by it. Two wrongs don't make a right. And unless she tied him down and paid the hooker to rape him, its was his choice and he has to live with the consequences.

Seems like a relationship based on passive agressiveness on both sides.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

I think it is impossible to assign blame or decide who is more culpable in marriage problems. John cheated with prostitutes, which is, in my book, unforgivable. Jane, however, also broke her marriage vows. Not sexual fidelity, but to "love and cherish" her husband. Refusing to get help, knowing that her problems (depression or whatever) were severely affecting her husband, is not loving or cherishing.

Having said that, neither is a justification for the other. If you are unhappy with your wife, you try to get help or, in the last case, you end the marriage instead of being faithless. If your husband cheated, you get counseling if you want to try to work it out or you end the marriage, you don't try to get the best of both worlds.

 

[momhappy]

I think it is impossible to assign blame or decide who is more culpable in marriage problems. John cheated with prostitutes, which is, in my book, unforgivable. Jane, however, also broke her marriage vows. Not sexual fidelity, but to "love and cherish" her husband. Refusing to get help, knowing that her problems (depression or whatever) were severely affecting her husband, is not loving or cherishing.

Having said that, neither is a justification for the other. If you are unhappy with your wife, you try to get help or, in the last case, you end the marriage instead of being faithless. If your husband cheated, you get counseling if you want to try to work it out or you end the marriage, you don't try to get the best of both worlds.

Um, yeah, but while she was supposed to be loving and cherishing him, he was "cherishing" a random stranger in the sack while away on business......

 

[momhappy]

Ok, look, I am going to be perfectly blunt here. Your friend is a total dirtbag. ANY guy who seeks the "services" of a prostitute has a certain level of deviousness and scumbaggery to him whether he is single or not. He is PAYING for sex. The very act of doing this is disgusting and illegal in most states. But THEN, to use his wife as an excuse for his lack of morality? And to traipse around their social circle, revealing all of the intimate details of their relationship like some kind of victim, when he did something so vile and immoral is seriously one of the most manipulative and personality disordered things I've seen in a very long time. IMHO, the therapist is just a guise to make him seem like a "good guy."


What makes me sad is that people are actually buying into it.

I'm not saying his wife is an angel. But this guy needs to be held responsible for his actions, independent of his wife's actions. This is the real world here. We are adults. We can't go blaming our immoral actions on other people. This isn't kindergarten.

Edited for typos.

Finally! Thank you House Cat for echoing what I've been saying all along I chose the term douche bag, but dirtbag is fitting too