For a long time, I thought of "happy ending" massages as something that happened elsewhere. Something men joked about — distastefully, but a concept that felt culturally, geographically, and emotionally distant.
I didn't imagine them operating in suburban shopping strips, tucked between nail salons and laundromats. I didn't think of them as places your partner could visit on a lunch break and still be home in time to ask, "What's for dinner?"
I was wrong.
In Australia, "happy ending" massage parlours often sit in plain sight. They advertise legally as remedial or relaxation massage businesses and operate under local council approvals. Some charge upfront, some use coded menus, others are more explicit. Many rely on an unspoken understanding, a wink-wink that those who frequent them know all too well.
That's where the "sex tourism" myth ends. "Happy ending" massages aren't just something that happens overseas or after sleazy buck's nights in a dodgy suburb.
For many women, it's much closer to home. It's discovering their partner has been accessing sexual services behind their back, in the most ordinary of settings, repeatedly, then returning home like nothing has happened.
When they do confront their partner, more often than not, they're met with minimisation.
"It's just a massage." "It's not emotional." "It's transactional."
Watch: Personal development coach Felicity Morgan shares her 60-second test to catch cheaters. Post continues below.
For Sarah*, discovering her partner's behaviour felt like betrayal. The couple had been together four years when she found out. At the time, their relationship was "completely normal." They were living together and planning a future. They were happy, and sexually healthy.
"This wasn't a casual relationship," she told Mamamia. "This was a committed chapter of my life."
From her perspective, their relationship was stable and monogamy was expected. "It was assumed, expected, and understood."
There was no reason for Sarah to distrust her partner. She wasn't searching through his phone or checking bank statements. She discovered his betrayal by accident.
She found a receipt for a massage parlour that was well known for offering illicit services in his pocket.
As soon as Sarah saw the receipt, she was suspicious.
"I was doing the washing," she said. "I wasn't looking for anything. It just fell out.
"I felt shocked. Sick. Completely destabilised. It was like the floor dropped out from under me."
The painful denial.
Sarah confronted him soon after, and while he didn't deny it happened, he completely minimised the seriousness of what he had done, and how it impacted her.
"He framed it as 'just a massage," she said.
"Like the emotional impact was irrelevant. It wasn't a one-off. That hurt more than the act itself. It showed a pattern."
He also refused to call it cheating.
"That denial was almost as painful as what he'd done," she said. "It felt like he was refusing to acknowledge my reality," she recalled.
He justified it in ways that centred on his experience: stress, curiosity, convenience. None of it addressed the impact on her.
"It destroyed trust in a way I didn't expect," she said. "Not just because of what he did, but because of how he handled it. It was the secrecy. The minimising. The lack of accountability. The realisation that my boundaries didn't actually matter."
One of the most common defences women hear when they discover this sort of behaviour is that it was "purely transactional". But experts say this framing only serves to protect the person who crossed the boundary, not the one who was hurt by it.
Reframing deliberately.
"Much in the same way that a male partner could minimise downloading a dating app, or being overly familiar with a work colleague, engaging in a 'happy ending' massage may also be minimised," said Psychologist Phoebe Rogers.
According to Rogers, this kind of reframing isn't accidental. "Minimising, denying, or shifting the narrative is a defensive mechanism," she said, noting that it allows someone to avoid sitting with accountability and the discomfort of having hurt another person.
At best, she says, this behaviour is self-protective; at worst, it reflects "a lack of care."
For many women, the betrayal runs deep because it violates what Rogers describes as an unspoken agreement within the relationship. "These women are engaging in a relationship with an unspoken contract, of monogamy, of respect, of care and regard," she said.
Rogers also sees many women turn that minimisation inward.
"It is very common for me, working with women, to see them minimising their own feelings," she says, explaining that this is often a trauma response. Many women, she says, learn early in life to question their emotions or avoid taking up space in order to preserve connection.
"Voicing our true pain often feels risky. We risk rejection, not being believed, or shattering the relationship."
Listen: A married man secretly spending $46,000 on personalised OnlyFans content. Is it cheating? Just fantasy? Or something in between? Post continues below.
That conditioning can be difficult to undo. "Women have often been led to believe that they're too sensitive, emotional, or overreacting," Rogers said. And yet, she adds, emotional distress in these moments is not irrational. "Heightened emotions and distress are often about feeling emotionally unsafe, unseen, unheard."
Discovering a partner has paid for sexual services can also trigger feelings of humiliation, replacement, and profound self-doubt. It raises questions about consent, honesty, and what else may have been hidden. And because the industry operates in such a legal grey zone, women are often left questioning whether they're even "allowed" to be upset.
Sarah knows that feeling well. "I questioned whether I was overreacting," she said. "I replayed moments I once felt secure in. I doubted my intuition." Over time, she says, she realised she was simply worth more than what was happening to her.
"It's not just physical acts," she said. "It's secrecy, dishonesty, and choosing to step outside agreed boundaries without consent."
For anyone who's just discovered their partner has been doing the same thing, and is wondering if they're making too big a deal out of it, Sarah has one message.
"You're not overreacting. Your feelings are valid. If something breaks your sense of trust or safety, it matters, no matter how anyone else tries to label it."
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
Feature Image: Getty.
We Want To Hear From You
Everyone Has An Ex
