# Crisis... Just, a crisis



## Mal74 (Dec 24, 2009)

This morning I discovered that my H has been spending time and money on a professional dominatrix. I don't know how often for sure (he says not often and I'm inclined to believe him) or how many, or really anything.

I kicked him out of the house immediately. I need some time and space. But I don't want to lose my marriage over this. I took our daughter to my Mom's house and spent a few hours with a girlfriend. 

I have what I thought was a great marriage. In his defense, when I found the evidence of this thing - a credit card receipt in a pair of slacks I took to the cleaners - he admitted to it immediately and was obviously contrite. We have played around sexually with this kind of thing in our marriage, and I know that he has these desires, but I just never in my life thought he would go outside of our bedroom to realize them. Right now my head is swimming. I feel sick, scared, angry, horrible. I don't know if he's told me everything or not. I doubt it, but I don't want to dive directly into simple distrust and anger.

My girlfriend had to go home and I opened a bottle of wine and turned on the TV. I don't think I will sleep much tonight, but my mom said she'd keep our daughter. I don't know what to do.

I'm just in agony. I had to write it down somewhere where it could be seen, I guess.


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## stillINshock (Apr 9, 2009)

You will never forget. The fact that it happened will never change.
However, what is important is where things go from here. 
He betrayed your trust. He broke the rules of marriage. 
What will he do now? 
If he wants to keep you in HIS life, he needs to help you and rebuild your trust. 
You will not know what you want to do right away - and that's normal. Don't force yourself to decide anything immediately. Kicking him out was a great sign of reality for him. Just trust yourself.


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## Mal74 (Dec 24, 2009)

Thanks for your kind words. You're right, he will need to do a lot of work. I can see that I will too... and the work I will need to do is around restoring my willingness and ability to trust him and to believe that he is faithful and loyal to our marriage.

In my heart of hearts I believe that he is. He is an incredibly loving, patient, kind, and generous man. He is responsible, accomplished, and helpful. Of course we have arguments and challenges and idiosyncrasies but I have been amazingly, incredibly blessed to have a fantastic marriage. My crisis right now is this pernicious question of, "is all of that an illusion?"

I don't think that it was all an illusion. But I have to know if this kind of behavior has been frequent, and I have to know that it will never happen again. I think that he has told me the truth so far, but I also know this about him: he's not going to answer questions that are not asked.

When I was quite young I lived with a man who I thought I would marry - he was my first love and I was convinced it would be perfect. He cheated on me, and for a long time I wrestled with what to do about it. Eventually I left, which was the most terrible, heartbreaking, awful thing, but after I did it I knew that I COULD survive and even thrive. So even though it was a terrible time, I really grew from it. And I promised myself I would never, ever let that kind of thing happen again.

I don't know if this is different or not. The circumstances are hugely different and the stakes are a lot higher. Today I am just trying to keep breathing in and out.


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