QotD: “Was I right to pay for a prostitute for my husband?”

My husband and I have been together for six years. I married him when he was 18 and I was 24. I discovered, after we got married, that he had had sexual intercourse only with me; he’d had sexual encounters with other women, but hadn’t felt ready for intercourse. At first this wasn’t a problem, but now his younger brothers are sexually active and have had multiple sexual partners, he has started to feel jealous.

I felt that this jealousy was only going to grow, and I didn’t want him to develop feelings of resentment towards me and cheat on me. I also didn’t want him to think he had missed out, and get into his 30s or 40s and leave me so he could experience what it feels like to sleep with other people, as his stepdad did to his mum.

So I booked a holiday to Amsterdam with the intention of paying for a prostitute for him. I felt this would be a safe option as it is a job and no feelings could develop. Plus he would know he had slept with someone other than me.

I didn’t know exactly how we would feel afterwards, but I was willing to take the risk to save the future of our marriage. But now it has happened and he wasn’t happy or fulfilled. He said he felt nothing at all and it was very different and strange. He was deflated afterwards and now he won’t talk to me about it because he says it hurts him. I am scared it has upset him, and worried I shouldn’t have done this.

There were a few things which struck me about your letter. First: how few times it said “we”; even when you talk about marriage, a union, you say I: “I married him”. You seem to have a very immature attitude to love. People who have had multiple sexual partners can still be unfaithful: you can’t vaccinate your husband against infidelity by making him have sex with someone else.

I would like you to read your letter back to yourself with the roles reversed, as if you were reading about a man booking a prostitute for his wife, seemingly without her knowledge or consent: it seems altogether more controlling, doesn’t it?

This was one of the first things couples psychotherapist Damian McCann asked: “Was this something you shared? Organised, booked, talked about together?”

Because if you had, this would take on a different flavour. But if you went ahead and booked a prostitute for your husband without asking him (and if so, at what point did you tell him? As you were shoving him through the door?) then I see this as a violation. Presumably him saying no was an option?

McCann wondered, “What’s going on with you two as a couple? Perhaps there is a shared sense of insecurity, although you seem to be trying to secure the relationship by means of control.”

I also wondered if the prostitute was for you or for him? Are you frustrated with your husband’s lack of experience? If he waited for the right person to have sex with (you) and for marriage, that hints at someone with a particular attitude to sex which may not be one you share, but it should be respected. If you were hoping to “add to” his repertoire or experience, you will have failed. “Sex with a prostitute,” McCann said, “seems very contrived.” It has none of the elements of a real relationship – or an affair, for that matter.

So to answer your question, have you done the right thing? Well, clearly, not. While I’m sure some will snigger and be facile and say things like “lucky husband”, I don’t see it like this. Your husband is hurt and upset; if you don’t talk about this now and resolve it, his hurt will change to anger, and anger is a fantastically fertile bed for infidelity to grow in. Sex isn’t the same as intimacy. It’s not unusual for couples who get together young and have only one sexual partner to wonder what sex might be like with someone else, but the only way to help prevent this is communication.

“You need,” McCann said, “to start thinking about how to be together. At the moment the relationship seems very driven by one of you.”

In other words, you need to learn how to be a couple, not your husband’s booker.

Annalisa Barbieri