Question: I met my other half a year ago through our local residents’ group. We hit it off immediately, as we’re both in our late 40s, have the same sense of humour, shared interests and, I thought, shared values. I fell madly in love and we were talking about moving in together until we stumbled into a conversation about prostitution. I was shocked when my partner confessed that he had visited prostitutes several times in his 20s when he was unhappily married. He assures me it was a hollow experience and he would never repeat it, but I feel he’s not the man I thought I knew. My trust is shattered and it’s ruining our sex life and our relationship.
Answer: I totally understand your shock: your new man appeared to be a model of respectability, but there’s nothing salubrious about having paid for sex in the past. It’s easy to see why he suddenly feels like a stranger to you.
But let me put something to you: is it not true that your partner is demonstrating unusual bravery and openness by confessing this secret? It would have been easy for him to have said nothing, but he wanted to be truthful about himself and the past.
It seems likely that his visits to prostitutes have troubled his conscience for some time and that he wanted you to see him in all his complexity - warts and all.
Most relationships start with two people presenting themselves in an idealised manner and then, if things progress well, there’s a point of greater honesty where the individuals involved feel secure enough to reveal their flaws.
No one I know has got to middle-age without having some kind of misdemeanour in their past.
There are, for example, long-married men who have never confessed to their wives that they have a penchant for S&M - just look at Max Mosley, whose proclivities were a secret from his spouse until a tabloid paper exposed him.
Similarly, I know of several men who have kept past gay relationships a secret from their other halves.
Clearly it would be more satisfactory if your boyfriend had nothing in his past to perturb you.
But it is a sign of deep faith in the relationship that he has shared his past with you - as well as a sign he has no intention of reviving old habits.
You may think I am pleading your partner’s cause too much. But it would be foolish not to allow that people, for the most part, grow in wisdom, and should not be unduly punished for the follies of their youth.
Bear in mind that recent reports estimate that around one in ten British men have, at some point, paid for sex. Research on sex workers’ customers reveals a wide variety of men use prostitutes for a number of reasons.
There are exploitative types who lack scruples, but others are lonely, unable to form proper relationships, or are in sexless marriages and desperate for physical contact.
Some men believe it’s better to be unfaithful with a prostitute than to have a love affair, with all the threats that brings to the core union.
When I edited an erotic magazine, I encountered a number of respected, middle-class male professionals who had, at some stage in their lives, visited a prostitute.
One, in his late 60s, lost his virginity in a foreign brothel after his cousin escorted him there for the purpose. Another visited an upmarket hooker when he was 30, as he was “curious about what it would be like”. A third saw an escort twice when his marriage was going through a difficult period. None of them found the experience of paid sex particularly edifying, nor wanted to repeat the experience.
Interestingly, all of them were in their 20s or 30s when they visited a prostitute. This is hardly surprising when you think that young men tend to be more enslaved by their desires.
I don’t mean to portray your partner’s past behaviour as above board, but it was clearly an aberration rather than the behaviour of a serial user.
And if you put it into the context of his age and unhappiness when he paid for sex, you can begin, perhaps, to understand it.
Unless you manage this, you will continue to feel inhibited in the bedroom. You need to recognise that your love has chosen you as the epitome of all he desires and you must stop bringing ghosts into the bedroom.
By all mean discuss your confusion and antipathy with him, so you can heal together, but don’t berate him for his honesty. At best, he will clam up and cease to bare his soul; at worst, he will resent you and withdraw entirely.
Ask yourself how you would like to be judged on your most ill-advised episode from 20 years ago, rather than your present behaviour. - Daily Mail