Newlywed23, your story is mine, but you found out much earlier, and consider yourself better off for that, strange as it seems. Like you, we spent 4 years dating and I was waiting, not going to be used by some casual boyfriend like had been the case before in my life, but he was such a dedicated, kind and lovely boyfriend who had truly convinced me he was a virgin! Since he was a man who had been working overseas for years and spent years in the military before that, and since he was a "workaholic," very overweight and said he never had luck dating, I BELIEVED him!! 🙄
What never even occurred to me, worldly-wise as I believed I was, was that by saying he had no luck dating he was, in a back-handed way, saying that he always had to BUY whatever sex he had experienced! But even then, had he told me anything of this history before we married, it would have been one thing. To lie about it, convince me to marry, and then continue this behavior shortly after I committed my entire adult life and finances to our mutual marriage? As others have posted, it's beyond the ordinary level of betrayal.
And please know, these guys never want a Divorce. They want their "good woman" and their whores.
Tune out his remorseful tears and pleas. I didn't, and 12 years later, he did it again - and was arrested for soliciting in our new home town, where everyone we knew read this sordid news in the paper. His mug shot was on the television that night. And it was my birthday, which he'd celebrated sweetly with me that morning. Can you put yourself in that situation and realize what you are dealing with? This kind of man wasted many years of my life that I cannot reclaim.
Someone like this man has a deep-seated split in his personality and it won't be fixed by anything you can do. I had already quit my career and mortgaged MY home for us to buy a place for him to enjoy before I found out. I was 51, just going through menopause. You are actually blessed to have discoverd the truth about his history so early on, much as it really hurts right now. Mine finally admitted he had given his virginity to a prostitute and continued on from then, through all our years of dating. His family thought it was no big deal, but he comes from a country where prostitution was long ago made legal and women can have customers come to their homes. His father actually told me "Not a big shock over here, we see 20 ads every week in the back of our local paper advertising women for hire." (They live in a rural area in the southern hemisphere.) But I noticed his father had counted...made me think the apple hadn't fallen far from the old tree.
And I had to learn that sometimes, the culture of the family is more influential than any words or feelings you two can exchange. Don't make the mistake I did of trying to talk it out or wait it out.
You did nothing to deserve this, and I am so sorry.
[This message edited by Superesse at 6:42 AM, Friday, May 5th]