I was recently in a relationship with a provider for roughly 18 months.  To outline the landscape a bit...this is how I met her and I was married when I met her and still am.  Somewhere along the way, if not from the inception, the trust between she and I was completely compromised and is seemingly what has torn us apart.

Shortly after she and I began dating it accelerated into a fairly serious situation.  We both started exclaiming our love for each other and tried as hard as we could to spend as much time together as possible.  Although I had been married for several years I had been out of love with my wife for about a year prior to meeting this lady.  I wasn't looking for a relationship but she helped me rediscover me and we became very good friends and very passionate lovers.  I felt very comfortable with her and shared many things with her.  I was very honest with her about a womanizing past (civvie related as I have had very few little hobby experience) and fidelity issues that I had during former relationships, my marriage not excluded.  We live at a distance from each other (another issue) but still managed to spend about half of our time together.  She would travel to and work in my city and I would travel to her home as well.

During our relationship she has witnessed me lie to my wife on countless occasions.  There was also an incident where I took something of hers that was personal in nature....suffice it to say that curiosity got the best of me and although I planned on putting it back once I looked at it for a very specific reason I was unable to do so and she eventually caught me with this item. Soooo...I have been far from flawless.  I have been absolutely loyal to her in regards to other women however.  I have not played with any other women, aside from my wife on a rare occasion all times which she knew about, civvie or otherwise.

After she and I dated for about 4 months I moved out of my home.  When we weren't together we spend a ridiculous amount of time on the phone.  I did reunite with some old friends that I hadn't seen for some time and began to get out more often.  All of this was however completely harmless.  I lived out of my home for roughly a year and recently returned due to financial issues which should soon be resolved.  Just for the record I live in a place where the cost of living is extremely high.  A lot of our problems seem to have intensified since my move back home.  This does not come as a shock to me in the least.

On her end she treated me very well.  She was kind and generous with her time.  I did begin to struggle with her job once the feelings intensified and she indicated to me that she wanted to make her way out of the business (started saying this about 14 months ago) and was very consistent in that message.  She was not completely flawless either however.  She has on several occasions spent time with clients or former clients off of the clock.  Although she maintains that nothing intimate happened during this time and I believe her (okay, call me naive) it still blurred the lines between her work and her personal life for me.  She struggled in making any legitimate headway to get herself out of the business and although I wanted to assist her in this I was having my own professional struggles which were requiring all of my resources.  Today, she is no closer to removing herself from this business than she was the day I met her.  I realize that her making a career change will be a long process and not an event and I plan to be patient with the former as long as there is legitimate progress.  Also, I plan to and have no problem with assisting her in this once my feet are back on the ground financially and otherwise.

The trust issues with us started early and they happened often.  I have been accused of being several members of this board and others.  I have been accused of sleeping with countless providers and civvies, at least 30 during our relationship.  I have been accused of being a pimp in a city that I don't even live in and being a pimp for ladies that I have never met in my own city.  Most recently I was accused of having a gangbang in the same hotel she was staying in the night after I left her.  This was prompted by her apparently hearing my voice through the HVAC system from 6 FLOORS AWAY!!!  We have not spoken since she ripped me about this and still refuses to correspond in any manner.  Many, but not all of the accusations are as outlandish as this last example.  They have been consistent throughout our relationship as far as I can remember and I don't know how to limit them.  I do realize, again, that I have not been perfect and the stage was set not set up for success with my marriage, separation and subsequent move back in.  However, I am hoping that on some level I can establish some trust with her.  

I would be willing to accept a simple argument of "I don't think we should be together until you are back out of your home or divorced" or something that is real such as that.  I do however have a tough time dealing with a split that was prompted by something that was so far from the truth and by the way I tried to give her several concrete items of proof that would have shown I was nowhere within 20 miles of the hotel, all of which she refused to even acknowledge.  So the questions really is...Does this sound like the type of person who simply cannot trust or am I expecting too much given the circumstances?

and I guess on some level, one could say that you both deserve one another. But deep down, I don't think that's really the issue. This is what can happen when two people decide to coexist under circumstances that are less than tidy and/or compartmentalized, and whose relationship began as a stipulated agreement.

Your question "Does this sound like the type of person who simply cannot trust or am I expecting too much given the circumstances" is probably applicable to both of you. I have no idea who she is, or what she thinks, feels or does. For that to happen, she would have to sit in front of me and explain the situation FROM HER PERSPECTIVE.

One thing to be learned from this posting is that despite all efforts and convolutions to compartmentalize jobs, marriages, extramarital relations, and off-the-clock situations - just to mention a few - is the difficulty in having emotionally and sexually invested relationships with more than one person at a time. After all, you are still married...and she...is still a provider who dispenses with her time as she sees fit, even with off-the-clock relationships. All these roundelays, emotional expenditures, accusations, turmoil..and where did you end up...back where you started, with the addition of some extra nicks and chinks in your emotional armor, it seems.

You wanna know what I really think: Get honest with yourself. If you don't like living at home, screw the money, move out, live like a man that confronts his feelings and addresses them honestly, truthfully and authentically. As far as I'm concerned, this posting has less to do with "the provider" and more to do with the fact that you are in a double-bind, a crucible in terms of your own life and your own personal development. These thoughts circulating around the provider seem to me - and mind you, we've never met, so I could be dead wrong - like intellectualizations and rationalizations that serve in defending you from confronting the depths of your own existential dilemma and possibly despair at this point. I would even go as far as death anxiety in the face of realizing that life is finite; this always carries a sense of urgency and panic, which sometimes comes when one feels existentially trapped.

Please, try to find some deeper meaning in your own existence, your own soul, your own life, away from this preoccupation. Forget about all this provider business, it's a distraction from what you really need to address, which is YOU - your life and what truly is meaningful in it.

Escape from freedom - Erich Fromm wrote it, you may wish to read it,
the Love Goddess

LG, thanks for your advice, very insightful

Just for clarification...

I don't care about the money regarding a divorce. I resigned myeslf some time ago that it was going to be expensive but worth it.  However, I am not a 9 to 5'er or a W2 guy and if I ruin my credit I also lose my business and end up becoming a 9 to 5'er (something I've worked very hard at avoiding).  So moving back home was a simple matter of economics as I had to cut back somewhere.  As far as death anxiety...I'm still south of 40 and the only time I had death anxiety is when somebody stuck a revolver in my face several years ago.

I really wasn't looking at this as a "provider business" but as trying to get on the same page with somebody I have fallen in love with.  So let me rephrase the question in a very different way.....
    Can extremely challenging circumstances within a relationship make somebody act completely irrational in their lack of trust and therefore relentless in their unreasonable accusations -and/or- is this generally something that is already in somebody's personality?

Also, how would somebody be able to "sit in front of you"

Thanks again!!!



-- Modified on 11/3/2008 6:55:59 PM

When you stole from her....

Fair assessment.  That was something I wish I could have a do over on.

Yes, of course "extremely challenging circumstances" can make ANYONE act irrational in ANY way possible. "Relentless in their unreasonable accusations?" It's not possible to answer that question without knowing, subjectively speaking, if said accusations were "unreasonable," or if in fact they were full of reason. To determine that, we would have to hear the other person's story. And, since that person is not here to deliver that version, it becomes impossible to judge whether or not something is "unreasonable."

"Is this generally something that is already in somebody's personality?" Well, it depends who that "somebody" is. Do you see how difficult it is to make sense of something that excludes the other party? This is why any kind of question sought to be arbitered/judged/heard generally requires two parties to be present.

I still maintain that your reasons for avoiding the more existential questions are rooted in defense mechanisms such as rationalizations. Not to stick my nose in other people's business, but since I am asked to provide advice, I will, by noting the following: If you are so "in love" with another person, maybe this means reexamining what it's like living with a person to whom you do NOT pledge such affections? It seems it would be very difficult, at least emotionally, to sustain some kind of union that is somewhat predicated on emotional attachment. Glad to hear you're "south of 40," although that should motivate you even more to reexamine your situation from an in-depth perspective, since you've got a lot of years ahead of you. As to the provider - please try to defocus on the situation if you can. It seems that neither you nor this woman are able to enter into an agreement of what your relationship means to the other, and that kind of understanding is the cornerstone of any relationship beyond just the casual.


The last question can be answered very simply - by attending psychotherapy at my practice which is located in Los Angeles, California.

Hope that helps,
the Love Goddess

You stole from her. She spends the night with clients off the clock and nothing happened. Are you talking about sex?  Even if they didn't have sex, which is a remote possibility at best, spending the night with someone is very intimate. She does not trust you. Do you really think you could have a healthy relationship? You two do not know each other at all. How can you love her?

LG is right on about what this is really all about in my opinion. Please read her posts several times with an open mind and good luck!   You need to consider therapy and if you live in LA why not LG? By the way I have been to therapy several times and I doubt if I am finished yet

-- Modified on 11/3/2008 7:11:32 PM



-- Modified on 11/3/2008 9:05:01 PM

I didn't say that she spent the night with anyone...simply spent time with them.

Yes, I took something from her to view it and had every intention of returning it.  A regretable move on my end.

Thanks for wishing me luck.

And how can I contact you?  I have wanted to take a trip to LA for some time now.

living with that person also means living with my children which makes it worth it sometimes.  I love them with all of my heart but it is a challenge living with a woman that I do not.

Dear chaburger,
Please go to the Los Angeles discussion board and click on the banner to the left of the postings. This will take you to the pertinent information you seek. Or go to the website below.

Thank you,
the Love Goddess

My wife stopped trusting me 20 years ago when she found a condom wrapper on the floor of my car from a BJ I had gotten from a streetwalker the night before.

Once that trust is gone you never get it back no matter how long the relationship goes on or how much other good you do. Accept this.

sex tape or diary?

it isn't classified, and it isn't like you are telling the CONTENT of what you were taking, so I don't know why you'd be so secretive.

my money is on diary or some other kind of paperwork, which, either way would show that you didn't trust her either, so why should she trust you?

I don't know how anyone could complain about relationship drama they had with a prostitute/mistress, what did you think was going to happen, an emotionally fulfilling stable long term relationship? lols