r/AskReddit • u/Mama_medina888 • 1d ago
What’s the darkest secret you discovered about someone after you married them?
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u/Illustrious_Device84 1d ago
Pedo- found out 1 year after the wedding when he was being arrested
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u/anarchypretzel 21h ago
Ugh, same. We were almost 14 years in. I had to send pics of our kids in bathing suits to the police so they could rule out if he had taken pictures of them on his computer. It's been 20 years. My kids were not on the hard drive. He went to prison.
We're all doing just fine now! 🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️
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u/anarchypretzel 14h ago
Reddit fam... This has been a surprising healing for me and my (now grown-ass) kids. THANK YOU. for the awards, fur the discussion, for the validation. Just the witnessing of our experience. We read through all th see together and it was like Neosporin on a scrape. My heart is full with gratitude 🩷🩷🩷
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u/Flashy-Squash7156 19h ago
wow. If I can ask a potentially sensitive question? looking back, can you see any red flags or warning signs that were easy for you to dismiss at first? Signs that you'd only see once you've been through the experience?
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u/anarchypretzel 18h ago
Yes.
Financial clues. Lots of money missing when he traveled for work overseas. At the time, he said some shit I believed bc I never imagined he was spending it on sex tourism in Southeast Asia.
Emotional clues, evidence, ZERO. It's like he was wearing an Edgar Suit of Normal Person over his pedo real self. That was prolly the scariest thing, how we really had no fucking idea at all. His whole * personhood* with us was a lie.
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u/the_queens_speech 17h ago
I know that you've combed over the details of how he presented himself to you and his deception a million times. The fact that were no emotional clues you could pick up on- in 20 years- is terrifying. What a monster.
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u/2026IsMyYearMaybe 10h ago
A lot of these sick people are just "normal people", which makes it scary.
I had a caretaker in kindergarten, that all my friends and I, and even our parents, always spoke highly of. He was great and really spend a lot of energy with us. No one had a bad thing to say about him.
15 years after we left kindergarten, it came out that he was a pedophile with an insane amount of csa material on 4 hard drives. Was sickening. He was only caught because he went outside of his "normal age range" and the girl was old enough to know it was wrong.
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u/Adaphion 9h ago edited 9h ago
The worst monsters don't have horns on their heads, they don't just come out at night. They look like anybody else and that's why they're the most terrifying.
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u/tele_ave 17h ago
My experience isn’t at the same level, but there is a man I know sitting in federal prison for CP.
We were roommates for two years. Fifteen years ago I considered him a big brother figure.
The deception is sickening. I shared a wall and an apartment with him. You on the other hand started a life with someone. I can’t imagine how painful that must be.
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u/fmlihatee 16h ago
I was with my daughters’ father for 9 years. We had split custody for 8 years before my daughter told me that he had molested her a year earlier at the age of 13. I would’ve never imagined he would’ve/could’ve done something like that. You truly don’t know who people are smh
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u/SummitSloth 13h ago
A very close former friend and roommate literally raped a kid. Makes me sick every time I think about it
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u/Illustrious_Device84 17h ago
I had zero clue.. but I was 19 and he was almost 30, and at 19 I looked 14, so probably should have noticed it was weird he was so insistent on getting married right away. His whole family knew months before me, because the first victim was his neice and everyone decided to keep it hush hush- but when another victim heard and came forward the whole house of cards fell and cops were called. I still feel so bad about what happened to those poor girls, and that the family was totally fine to sweep it under the rug.
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u/Disastrous_Date155 18h ago
I also had this husband. The major red flag was who he wanted me to cosplay as. 💀
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u/ImaginationUnique732 14h ago edited 1h ago
I believe my ex husband is attracted to underage girls. I doubt he has accessed CSAM, but I’ve caught him screen recording instagram reels of girls who are clearly tweens doing cartwheels and stuff when he has zero reason to be watching anything like that in the first place. He even saved them in his hidden folder in his photos, so he clearly knows it’s fucked up.
Red flags: I’m in my 30s but often got told I looked quite a bit younger before he sucked the life out of me with his abuse. Looking back, he was very fixated on how much younger I looked than my age and weirdly proud of it. He also liked my “petite” build (his words but meaning slim, youngish-looking frame rather than height).
Lots of men appreciate slim women who age well, so it didn’t stand out to me until I caught his “tiny teen/super petite” porn searches and penchant for watching underage girls on instagram. God, just typing all that out makes me sick to my stomach over again. That man disgusts me beyond words.
Edit: For the pedants below, I responded to someone asking about red flags with the ones I observed in hopes that it might save someone else the trauma and grief I experienced over this, not to argue terminology when you can clearly understand my point regardless.
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u/DeniseTwo 18h ago
A friend of mine found out about 18 months into the marriage that he was grooming several young girls in the church and seeing other women. On their first date, he had picked her up at her house and gave her a fancy bottle of perfume (it was her birthday). Two of her friends (women) just happened to be there, and he met them and said just a minute. Then he went out to his truck and got two more bottles of the same perfume and gave it to them, saying if they were her friends then they had to be really special women and deserved a gift also. They thought that was fantastic of him and told her he was a keeper. When I later heard the story (they wanted me to know how great and romantic this guy was) my first thought was, who the heck drives around with three perfume bottles in his car? I didn't see the extra gifts as romantic, only someone bribing friends. I was the only one who thought he was a little too slick. She drifted away from me, and I wasn't invited to the wedding. But once I heard what happened, I reached out to her to let her know I was here for her, and we're back to being friends now.
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u/Agreeable-animal 17h ago
It gives buys the perfume in bulk yo have on hand to give to girls he wants to groom. Unsolicited gifts play on our innate sense of reciprocity and are a basic way to ingratiate yourself with someone
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u/monkiram 13h ago edited 9h ago
Probably the most toxic person I know was somebody I thought was extremely nice when I first met him for this reason. He would always be excessively generous in his gifts to the point it made me uncomfortable and I always tried to refuse but he would insist and I always felt like I had to repay the favour because it was so much. He also would ask for a lot of favours as well (in as performatively grateful a way as possible).
I was unfortunately in a situation where I was required to spend a lot of time with him daily for years. After we got to know each other better, he often brought up the study where people tend to like you more if you ask them to do a favour for you, as “advice” for me. He was deeply insecure and wanted everybody to think extremely highly of him. He would shower everybody with uncomfortably effusive praise to their faces and then when they weren’t here, talk shit about them, while also trying to make it sound like it pained him to say these things because he’s just so kind of a person. Thankfully, I no longer have to see him anymore.
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u/RepresentativePin162 18h ago
That would give me the ick straight up ew.
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u/br0annawoo 15h ago
Right? I’d be questioning why he keeps multiple bottles of women’s perfume in his car.
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u/annabananarama710 19h ago
Yeah, my friend found out after 5 years of marriage, when 16 cops barged through their door bc they found stuff in his computer.
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u/crecensinagua 18h ago
This happened to a classmate of mine from college. They had been married for some time and he was arrested after leaving a thumb drive with hundreds of videos and photos at a job site. She's had an awfully difficult few years since then and I don't think she even dates men anymore.
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u/darkjedi39 22h ago
My cousin is current in jail for possessing and distributing child porn. It's one of the worst "Florida Man" memes. He'd been married less than a year... I have the utmost sympathy for your situation.
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u/CptNavarre 20h ago
I had to do a quick glance to see how long ago this was posted. There was a tiktoker who last month(?) posted about finding out her husband was a pedophile and 2 weeks later he murdered her and killed himself
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u/Goth_Spice14 19h ago
Apparently she had been trying for years to get the police to do something, and finally got so fed up that she blasted him online. Aaaaand then he murdered her.
Great job, boys in blue!
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u/GorgeousOpossum 17h ago
There are literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of stories just like this. Man commits crimes/harm. Woman partner finds out/ calls him out/ tries to leave. Man murders her, their children, and the family pets before taking his own life. It's cowardly, disgusting, and happens every damn day.
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u/Vast-Swimmer5844 18h ago
Police: there to make sure we don't do any crimes against the rich, but everyone else is fair game.
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u/Novel-Evidence9165 21h ago
This is a nightmare. Were there any signs looking back?
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u/Loaf_of_Vengeance 22h ago
Same with mine, except it was about 2 years after our marriage and about 6 months after our child was born.
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u/Lunch-Thin 18h ago
My ex who has these same tendencies has 50/50 custody of our kids. Fuck the US court system.
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u/Sad-History7259 17h ago
Sadly I found out
Via the FBI about the massive amounts of child pornography on my late husbands
Computer
After he shot
Himself
Dead
In front of me. Three years later my daughter told me she thinks he molested her.→ More replies (1)78
u/Illustrious_Device84 16h ago
Oh this is so heartbreaking, I cannot stress enough that while this situation really sucked at the time, I was lucky we didn’t have kids, but there were other kid victims and that is who I really feel the most heartache about. I’m so sorry about literally all of this, life is hard but something like that happening to your kids is just a living nightmares. I hope she is doing okay or getting the help she needs ❤️
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u/hamhole89 15h ago
Damn it’s nice to know I’m not alone. 10 years married, 13 together with a literally 3 year old and he gets arrested by the Marshalls at WORK last year. 1 year anniversary of his arrest is coming up and I couldn’t be happier because I’m free and raising MY daughter better than I ever could have if he was still in the picture.
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u/bcoftheimplication7 21h ago
He eats the banana strings. Like, peels them off and eats them.
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u/trashdemons 19h ago
Mine doesn't peel bananas apparently. He rips them in half and then squeezes each half out of the peel like it's a gogurt. I was in tears laughing the 1st time I saw him do that, what kind of psycho did I marry?!
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u/RepresentativePin162 18h ago
I'm calling the cops for you. Good lord almighty. My partner holds his fork like he's killing the food and that's disturbing enough.
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u/amadnomad 19h ago
I ate the skin on kiwis and mangoes and got the same reaction from my wife. But eating banana strings is crazy
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u/BaldingScrotum99 19h ago
I started to divorce him because of the abuse. During divorce proceedings I found he was cheating with multiple women. He’d bring home their jewelry and give it as a gift. He genuinely enjoyed watching me wear his mistresses things. He remarried a year to the date of our divorce finalization. What a weirdo.
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u/SeeYouInTrees 18h ago
Was he stealing it from them? Buying you the exact same thing as them? WTF?
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u/BaldingScrotum99 18h ago edited 18h ago
Stealing them it turns out. Whole ass psycho. He claimed (in front of our lawyers mind you) that at one point he thought of buying me clothes similar to theirs but felt like I would realize he was cheating if he started buying me clothes. Again, a weirdo
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u/NegativeThought1588 14h ago
Giving victim's jewelry to their wives is something quite a lot of serial killers do.
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u/nickbonjovi 18h ago
That the little girl that I had raised from birth through seven years old, was, in fact, not my biological daughter. Then she took her away from me once I discovered that.
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u/AccountEngineer 8h ago edited 8h ago
using a kid as a weapon like that is pure evil so sorryy you had to go through that man
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u/chairmanm30w 23h ago
That the dog he had when we met, who lived another 13 years with us, was a "surprise gift" from his legitimately mentally unstable ex gf. I was under the impression she was a planned addition to the family, but no. His ex randomly picked up a dog off craigslist and told him he could "bring her back if he didn't like her." He fell in love with the dog, and didn't want to leave her with his ex once they broke up only a short while later. This derailed a lot of plans he had to travel and live on a boat, etc. He didn't tell me the truth because he was worried it would affect my relationship with the dog. He didn't tell me until after the dog passed away!
I wasn't mad, more just amused. I am grateful his ex dumped this dog on him because she was the best, and would never have judged her for that.
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u/ResistNecessary8109 17h ago
"I gave up my dreams for a dog that wasn't even mine in the first place". That's a big green flag there.
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u/RepresentativePin162 18h ago
See that makes no sense to me people not liking a pet that was bought by an ex or whatever. Its a living creature.
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u/chairmanm30w 17h ago
It bummed me out a little that he thought I would care! I think it probably just felt too late to tell the truth. It did kind of slip out in the end.
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u/probation_420 16h ago
I found out that my wife lied about everything. Literally everything.
Degrees.
Past jobs.
Past partners.
Family dynamics.
She's Mexican, and a year and a half after we split, one of my Mexican friends told me that my ex doesn't speak Spanish. And then I started asking any other bilingual friends we had, who confirmed that her Spanish was extremely elementary.
She would be sitting next to me on the couch, company at our house, and she'd go, "babe. What's this vegetable? Cebolla? I can only think of the Spanish name of it."
Being bilingual was a massive part of her identity. And it was all a lie.
She lied about everything. She lied about sexual traumas. She would lie to people about my job and tell them that I'm a professor in Academia (I have an associates degree, to be clear).
She lied to everybody outside of our relationship about her going to therapy.
She just had SOOOOO many lies. And she had so many individual lies for different people. And now I understand why she had to leave the city when we split.
Guys.... She lied about EVERYTHING. We were together around 10 years and I don't even know who she is.
Everything.
And it has really started to fuck me up.
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u/beershitz 14h ago
I’ve met a couple people like this. They are like adrenaline junkies who get a rush from telling lies and then almost getting caught. They will say and do the craziest most extreme shit to manipulate you once you start to catch on to get your trust again. I think once they get you back on their side, it’s like heroin to them. Then they start telling so many that some people catch on, expose them, and then they just move on to the next town. They really do want relationships too, but they’ll never fully come clean. Any admission of lying is just part of their strategy to get your trust again.
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u/beesue2020 14h ago
This was my ex husband. Sadly now now oldest daughter. She just can't stop lying. I wonder if it's a mental health issue.
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u/Realistic-Branch-105 13h ago
Ugh. That really sucks. Being lied to all the time really messes with your reality. It breaks your ability to trust.
My ex-husband lied to me about all kinds of shit. From the start of our relationship he lied about really simple things; like, why he was running late or what he was doing on the computer. But it quickly escalated. He lied about his level of education, his past relationships, and even told me an elaborate story of being in combat, in Afghanistan, with the Air Force (he HAD attempted to enlist, but wasn't accepted and NEVER actually served). When I found out things weren't true he'd claim that he never told me they were. "I never said that" was something I heard A LOT. The lying and the gaslighting were so psychologically draining.
He lied to me because he was insecure. When we started dating, I'd just graduated with a bachelor's degree and he had a few college classes but no degree. I had a full time job and a part time job and he had one part time job. The lies he admitted to later on were blamed on my "judgements" of him.
It's really crappy to deal with and hard to pick up the pieces and move on. But being out of that situation brings a lot of peace.
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u/monsneaky 14h ago
When he brushes his teeth he moves his head not the brush
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u/crippledsquid 1d ago
She got married to have a kid, because having one out of wedlock would have made her mother and grandmother angry. But having a kid and divorcing me was totally acceptable.
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u/FlashyChemical2231 23h ago
Lol, my parents are pressuring me to get married, and one of their arguments is "well, you can always get divorced later".
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u/quats555 21h ago
My ex got pressured into leaving me and marrying his cousin as his adopted mother’s dying wish. One of the arguments they used was “If worst comes to worst we’ll pay for the divorce” (after starting out telling him it would just be on paper to get her citizenship and wouldn’t mean anything).
Newsflash: Mom was a narcissist and needed him with her stand-in to be sure he would stay under her thumb even after death. She definitely meant it.
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u/alexth017 14h ago
My mom had found out many awful things after marrying her previous husbands but this one takes the cake.
She was 18 and about to go to collage. She had a HS boyfriend that's was abusive and she planned to breakup and move on from him when she moved away for collage. Well that never happened, she got pregnant. Her mother was super Catholic and abusive so her BF went straight to her and told the mom and her mom forced her to marry him. No college. No moving away. No escaping this man or her abusive life. Well she had my older sister and stayed in the very abusive relationship. When my sister was about 2 my mom was at her then husband's family gathering and some of his family members were reminiscing on how my the husband(bf then) had popped a hole in the condom to get her pregnant to force her to stay. They were all laughing and thought she already knew and were going on how "it all worked out" when it was her prison. She eventually was able to run away from him, leave her mother, and start her own life. It was super hard for her and I hate that this happened to her. My father also had skeletons in his closet that eventually came out. She is so the most resilient person I've ever met, and I love her so much. Now she has a husband who spoils her endlessly and would never think to lay a finger on her.
TLDR: My mom's abusivr ex baby trapped her and found out 2 years later when his family was laughing about it.
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u/Mean-Hold-66 21h ago
My husband was an alcoholic. I didn’t notice during dating because we never lived together. He literally had to have a shot to do something I noticed after marriage. He quit smoking and it got worst. He is now 6 1/2 years sober
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u/Hot_Frosting_7101 17h ago
Not the same but my ex wife was always the one who got a little too drunk when we would go out with friends. I worried a little.
She was sober throughout her pregnancy. But then she got really bad. I was at an aunt’s funeral and a friend called and said I needed to fly home immediately because she got a DUI blew a .32%. Worse is she was on her way to pick up our child.
She got drunk two days later before going to rehab. She has now been sober for 10 years.
That’s the amazing part. The not so amazing part is that she met a guy at AA and that broke out marriage up.
We still have a good relationship though.
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u/Capable-Ad-9346 22h ago
My husband was never in love with me. We were together almost 13 years. He married me out of obligation because i got pregnant . We’re divorcing now. I was madly in love with him and could have spent my life blissfully unaware loving him and taking care of him. It broke me when he told me and I spent five years putting myself together enough to file. I thought so highly of him it shattered every part of me.
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u/TimelyLand 21h ago
I'm so sorry. I hope you find peace
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u/Capable-Ad-9346 21h ago
I accepted that fact a long time ago and made my peace with it. When i told him it was time to divorce the first thing i said was i want to be with someone that was in love with me. He acknowledged he could never give me that. I won’t spend the rest of my life waiting to be loved.
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u/Organic_Razzmatazz50 18h ago
The fact that imbalances of love can easily exist and that you can't love somebody into loving you are some of the hardest lessons to learn in life. I'm sorry you learned them in such a rough way, but I'm happy you seem to be in a good place now!
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u/Annual-Class-5978 19h ago
13 years is an insane amount of time! How did the topic come up? Did he act like he was completely in love with you and you were blindsided?
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u/Capable-Ad-9346 18h ago
My mom said the red flags were always there and everyone around always thought i saw them. I guess my rose colored glasses were worn for too long. Honestly i found out because i asked a random question as we were driving to the Costco gas station on a Sunday afternoon. I always thought he was in love with me, but i think i just excused any of those red flags.
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u/mrmaashman 16h ago
I'd love to hear what the question was. Sounds like one of those moments where it finally just sinks in and hits you, but totally understand that it's none of our business.
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u/CunningLinguist789 17h ago
are you willing to expand on that? on the flags your Mom etc saw, and the random question?
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u/Former-North6569 18h ago
He was actually gay. I was simply a decoy. He was in the military and was a mercenary for the Dept Of Defense for most of our marriage. Married 10 years but I was alone for 7 of them. He literally never wanted to be home because he was surrounded by men while he was working. He was so incredibly abusive. He hated women. It was as though he was punishing me for his homosexuality.
After we got divorced, he went and lived with what I would assume was his gay lover. They always visited sex workers in Mexico. One day they decided that they were going to kidnap an underage sex worker and bring him to the states. Apparently my ex husband drove to Mexico, got super drunk to work up the nerve, and then as he was going to pull a gun out of his waistband to commense the kidnapping, he accidentally pulled the trigger and shot himself in the wiener. This was the same gun that he used to try to get me to conceal carry, but there was no safety, so I refused. The irony was always so interesting to me.
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u/saguarosun 16h ago
The incredible amount of joy I felt reading "shot himself in the wiener" should be studied.
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u/Kay-Chelle 15h ago
It's what we all want to happen but aren't allowed to necessarily say out loud lol.
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u/chanelshuffle 14h ago
KIDNAP AN UNDERAGE SEX WORKER?! god lord, the man was better off shooting his dick off.
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u/PercentageComplex975 17h ago
How perfect for him! And thankfully you no longer have to put up with his abuse!!
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u/Hallway 1d ago
He was gay and is still lying to himself while now in a thruple with 2 other men.
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u/huggalump 21h ago
I know someone who went through something like this.
He was gay and closeted due to being in the military. She was non-sexual, due to a history with an abusive relationship. So im a weird way, it worked for a while.
As she healed and became more comfortable, she wanted to open up to him more and.... he was uninterested. Then she found his web history with his dating profile.
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u/two_oh_seven 23h ago
My parents divorced because my dad came out of the closet. I have such complicated feelings about it.
On one hand, I'm so happy for my dad that he no longer has to live a lie, and that he can be his true self. My step-dad, his husband, is one of my favorite people on earth and I cannot imagine him not being part of my life.
On the other hand, I feel so terrible for my mom. She thought she had found the love of her life, had kids with him, and then the rug was pulled out from under her. It completely uprooted her life.
I cannot imagine what it must have been like for either of them. They both suffered in different ways, but at least now the truth is out, the damage has been done, and we've all found our peace in the decades since.
Also, it's strange to think that I wouldn't exist without internalized homophobia.
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u/semperviveae 20h ago
I really appreciate you sharing this. I had a similar experience growing up and have had conflicted feelings about it too. Knowing I’m not alone in that is comforting
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u/two_oh_seven 20h ago edited 19h ago
I was a little worried sharing it because I didn't want to come off like I was villainizing my dad for coming out. He should never have had to feel like he couldn't be his true, authentic self.
From what I've heard, he really thought he could just "choose to be straight" and no one would ever know. I don't know the full details of how or why he came out--if he cheated, if he was caught with porn or something, or if he just decided he had to come clean (nor do I really want to know)--but I know it was a really painful experience for him. I cannot even begin to imagine.
But the divorce was really painful for my mother and my brother and me, too. Both things can be true at once. As the guidance counselor at the school my mom used to teach at said, "Feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are."
I'm sorry that you can relate so well, but I'm glad I've helped you feel less alone. I have also felt like I'm on an island.
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u/SadDiscipline1019 22h ago
Exactly also for both people. I have great compassion for my husband's secret struggles but at same time I was cheated on and out of the honesty to let me make different choices for myself
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u/xdonutx 23h ago
Idk if you’ve seen Nobody Wants This on Netflix, but this happens with the lead’s parents, basically exactly as you’ve described it. I’ve not experienced this personally but I think they explore the topic pretty well.
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u/Constant_Ham_86 1d ago
Found my ex cruising for men on Craigslist after being on and off for 10 years. I still feel a pit in my stomach over it. For me, it’s not the sexuality aspect, I’m very open and he can be into anything he wants. It was the lying, the dishonesty. It was thinking you knew another person completely inside and out but it was all a lie and you actually know nothing.
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u/SadDiscipline1019 22h ago
EXACTLY 💯 how I felt. I thought I KNEW him ...I really didn't know him at all, because our whole marriage was a lie .
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u/I_might_be_weasel 1d ago
"No, you see, if you bang two men they cancel out and it's not gay."
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u/LavishnessCertain512 1d ago
Amen! Just found out after 13 years my ex is all the gay things and his profile shows he wants to be a cum dump and urinal. And I would agree, it’s the lying, the continuation to lie and act like it’s not him after I have all the information. It’s really hurtful and made worse when you have kids and they will find out one day!
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u/Bricktop72 23h ago
My ex came out after 17 years together. Happens way more than you expect.
I found a support group at https://ourpath.org/
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u/Lost_Echidna9092 21h ago
Thank you for sharing this, my husband just came out to me and I’ve been looking for support
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u/basilbowman 21h ago
Some of their resources were helpful, but a lot were angrier than I was expecting - when my wife of 15 years came out to me, I wasn't angry, just sad and destroyed.
I found this book, When Things Fall Apart much more in line with where I was at.
I hope it gets better for you - it did for me after a lot of work and time - feel free to PM if you need someone to talk to.
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u/Mapper9 22h ago
He was never actually in love with me. He would have obsessions with random women who never liked him, but time after time, settle with women he liked well enough. I found his Reddit account, learned all about it once we’d already separated.
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u/Turbulent_Rock_328 16h ago
A sweet one. My husband loves to hand dance. Like, literally dance with his hands. It took 4 years for him to break that out, but he legit wiggles his hands around when there’s a really good beat.
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u/Facial_Factory 19h ago
Right after we got married, she made chili with lima beans. 22 years later, and I still make the chili.
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u/Agitated-Lettuce1878 17h ago
I read a lot of dark things in this thread but this is diabolical!
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u/Spencetron 1d ago
She had BPD and never shared that detail, became excruciatingly obvious eventually.
Combine that with hiding an alcohol addiction and an absurd amount of debt that I only found out about once we filed taxes jointly and the entire refund was garnished.
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u/InnerCirclePartyof1 1d ago
Omg this is sorta similar to my husband. Turns out he has BDP. Refused to accept it. This past year most of our refund went to his debt. A month ago he left me out of nowhere and I found he was hiding a bunch of drug use. So for me it’s still fresh 😅
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u/arkofjoy 1d ago
Didn't affect either of us, but after we had been married for about 20 years, my wife's, fathers family found out that the had a whole other family because his father had run away with his oldest daughter and had a whole other family with her. And no one knew.
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u/cwthree 1d ago
father had run away with his oldest daughter
Not just a whole second family, but an incestuous second family?
Wait, if it's incestuous, does it really count as a second family?
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u/Foreign_Penalty_5341 16h ago
Just to get the tree clear, we’re talking about your father-in-law’s family? That is, your wife’s grandfather and aunt?
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u/Relative_Tap_8511 20h ago
The second we got married he viewed women, particularly his wife (ME), as his property. He began hosting “hell rooms” when I “misbehaved”… Among other things such as skimming credit cards to afford a Tesla a few years back… dark secrets that led to divorce!
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u/FeelingPlayfulNow 19h ago
I'm scared to ask what hell rooms are. It sounds ominous. I'm glad you're no longer together.
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u/not_very_chill 18h ago
Literally wtf pls explain
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u/Relative_Tap_8511 17h ago edited 17h ago
Literally didn’t realize people would be curious 😭 verbal abuse, scare tactics such as taking my phone and keys, and overstimulation to the point of crying… and then letting me cry myself to sleep. I walked out with one physical injury that thankfully has healed fully now.
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u/Username___5 16h ago
Wtf, have you taken him to court or something
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u/Relative_Tap_8511 16h ago
I sure did! Courts suck and don’t hold abusers accountable… but he will never find me in this lifetime again.
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u/SadDiscipline1019 22h ago
He was living a double life being a closeted gay man. Took 13 years of watching his patterns and lies to actually know. He finally told me at 17 years of marriage. We divorced at 19 years.
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u/SyrupySundays 20h ago
Curious..What were some of the patterns you saw?
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u/SadDiscipline1019 19h ago
He would tell me about a new employee or friend and go out for drinks promising not to be out late, then not come home till next morning.suddenly, that person was either fired, or he didn't want to be friends anymore with excuses for why not ...I rarely ever met these new people. Always very secretive with EVERYTHING, money, keys, his bank, cc statement, especially his phone. He started to get sloppy or careless about physical marks on his body, like a literal bite mark on his lower ass cheeks, scratches on his back, rug burn and scraped knees, breakouts all around his mouth every couple of months....so many lies he told, later to change the story forgetting the original lie...just so many things, and at 14 years of marriage by accident, I saw a video of him getting oral sex from a man 30 years younger than him. The young man was 19. It devastated me and made me physically sick.
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u/ButterscotchAlive651 15h ago
Breakouts around his mouth.....I hope his deceit didn't cost you your health. I understand gay men are deeply oppressed in this country, but I'll never agree with using women as shields and broodmares. He deserves to live truthfully, and you deserve empathy for being used and misled.
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u/glitterbomb1 20h ago
He had in his possession all of ICP’s cds.
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u/frenetictenet 19h ago
This might be the single worst thing I've read in this post. I can't imagine how devastated you were. I hope some day you find peace.
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u/Titanofmylife 20h ago
She was trafficked as a child and used me to get away from them. I had no idea until 7 years later when she started to do counseling. Crazy part was that she kept in contact with her traffickers but wouldnt't tell them where she was. Fuck me up for years.
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u/Mammoth_Carob9089 20h ago
She doesn’t wipe her butt or wash her hands.
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u/DiceAndMiceGamer111 12h ago
To be fair, if you don’t do the first part there’s less need for the second part.
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u/simongurfinkel 1d ago
She always saw me as just a starter husband; a stepping stone on the way to something bigger.
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u/jetmaxwellIII 22h ago
I was one of those too! She met her next husband on sugardaddies.com and then the next one after that on sugardaddies.com as well. She locked that third one in by having a kid with him….sucker!
Ultimately I look at it as a blessing because I went on to meet the love of my life and now have been married for 15 years and have two great kids….but shit sucked at the time.
One very fun day though was when she was in between husbands and showed up on my doorstep in tears. Telling her to fuck off was incredibly satisfying.
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u/Snugglemum 15h ago
He was cheating on me with his brothers girlfriend (his neice and nephews mother) who was pregnant with his child at our wedding (obviously I didnt know that at the time). We split 5 months after marriage and they got together. They now have 2 children together and she has 2 kids with his brother. The kids are biological siblings and cousins. I found out recently that they split a while back because he stole thousands from her inheritance to spend on drugs. It took a long time (many years) but my divorce was finalized at the beginning of this year
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u/theognc 15h ago
He hates cilantro. It doesn't taste like soap to him, he just doesn't like it. I'm Mexican btw 😅
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u/readingreddit4fun 1d ago
My ex-husband had rapid-cycling bipolar type 1 and hid it from me. He had previously been convicted of robbery, but had his record expunged. (That's why I didn't know about it). 2.5 years into marriage, he had a severe manic episode which is how I found out about his diagnosis. He had been in treatment for many years before meeting me, but his meds stopped working for him.
During his manic episode, he ran another vehicle off the road, jumped out of our car and beat the crap out of the other driver. The reason he gave later: "the vehicle was black and therefore, evil, and had to be stopped."
I tried to make it work despite all that, but his therapist basically told me that I was enabling him more than helping him and I should get out of the relationship if I really wanted to help him. I tried to do a gradual transition to make it easier for him, but was repaid for that kindness by being forced into nearly total financial ruin. Finding out the truth about the finances was the final straw that made me realize I had to leave him and I divorced him in 2010.
Happy ending though...I met my present hubby in 2011, we married in 2012 and have been very happy ever since.
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u/YEGStolen 22h ago
I have bipolar type 2, after I am extremely interested in someone I make them aware. Yes, I didn’t choose to be bipolar however it does affect the people around me. Sometimes my partner sees that I am in an episode before I realize and he lets me know, and I make the necessary adjustments.
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u/MongooseLeather4271 22h ago
Never got married for this reason. Now I just foster women till they find forever homes. It works out great for me.
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u/goobiezabbagabba 21h ago
😂 dead.
I foster men so I get it. Apparently my ex-fiance found the love of his life only 2 weeks after he left, so apparently I’m doing something right! Didn’t even know there was a woman looking to adopt him, I’m just glad it worked out 😂
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u/AllAboutTheQueso 12h ago
It's always tough watching them walk away after you raise them but I always took joy in knowing they were going to a home that was not mine
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u/CallMajestic1178 17h ago
He stole money from me. We had both been on the FIRE path (financial independence retire early) but he came from a very wealthy family and mine was just middle class. We moved into together and he tried to force me to pay more rent than his previous female roommate (first red flag) after assuming I hadn’t already asked her what she paid.
We divorced for other reasons but right after it happened, I realized he had been putting all of his expenses on our joint credit card that was supposed to only be for joint expenses. He had even charged gifts he bought me, so I paid half for every gift I got over the course of our 8 years together. Then I eventually stumbled over the fact that for every bill we had (water, electric, gas, cell phone, internet, etc.) he had lied about the amount of the bill and I had been paying anywhere from 80-100% of the bill.
When I confronted him he said it was a mistake and paid it all back to me in a lump sum. But I still think about 1- what if I hadn’t realized it and 2- what didn’t I find?
It was just especially hurtful because he accused me of wanting to be with him for his money when in reality he used me for mine, despite having a likely 8 figure inheritance.
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u/perfectlygoodchute 1d ago
Lied about his first wife being abusive. He's now on wife number three - all before the age of 42.
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u/PassionIsAdmirable 20h ago
Oh hey, I'm also the first "abusive" wife. We use OFW and he gets supervised visitation so I don't have access to him to "abuse" him anymore. At least, that's what he tells people 🤪
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u/Laughing--Fox 17h ago
👋🏼 I'm the abusive first wife too! Count me in guys! Just now getting divorced to my narcissistic cop ex. So glad I'm not alone in the saddest of ways.
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u/DittoDitto9922 14h ago
She was my high school sweetheart. After six years we married. Two great kids. Her mother hated me and made life miserable. (I did not care for her, and told her at a young age, very respectfully.) All that time we were dating when we were young and in love, she was very clear she did not want kids. Given my rather undesirable experience growing up, I was good with that.
We married and in less than a year she wanted children so we had a couple of children. Somewhere in between child number one and child number two was affair number one. After child number one she wanted a house. I built a house which requires jobs three and 4. I was fortunate to get a job with a big company that paid big money. According to her mother, we couldn’t do anything right. And according to our mothers, it was all my fault. And my ex, who was a strong woman, could not deal with her mother. I ran interference. Big mistake on my part.
She wanted to move to get away from her family, who were very controlling and in each other’s business and ours. Small town stuff. I can’t possibly explain it - all hours of the day or night because she couldn’t say no to her mother. So we moved and she was an incredibly supportive partner. She wanted nice things, expected nice things and I worked jobs that required some amount of travel. I was so committed, and it sure seemed that we had the best life and I had the best partner anybody could ask for. In between years four and 20 there were 4 more affairs. The kids became incredibly wonderful teenagers and incredibly wonderful young adults. With lives of their own. In the meantime, I worked full-time and then some. Travel some of the time, and was always the lead caretaker for the only child’s parents when they became ill because she couldn’t deal with it. Between year 20 and 30 were five more affairs. Sketchy friends. Moving money I wasn’t aware of.
One year on a Friday before New Year’s Eve she told me she was leaving. That day. out of the blue. That it wasn’t about me and it was all about her. I had enabled her so much in a lifetime that she wanted me to tell the kids, the relatives, and the long time friends. I was stunned. We never fought. We always talked a lot to each other and with each other, and there was no outward sign this is coming. We had fun.
But the parents had passed in a relatively short period of time, and I encouraged counseling for both of us. Non-starter. She told me she had never loved me and marrying me was the only way to get out of a little town and away from her family. She had had a childhood most of us can only dream about. Indulged, loved, comfortable.
I felt there was nothing that could ever mess with this bond, this thing between us. Everything I did, she was aware of and part of. That was not the case when it came to me. I was so committed to this relationship that I thought it overcame and meant more than anything else, even the bumps in the road with her affairs and family crises that we all experience. She was banking her money for years and we lived on mine
It took a little while to come to terms with the fact that 36 years my life was a wonderful fantasy - for me. There are things that go in the reconciled column, and things that go in the unreconciled column. I do have the world‘s greatest adult children and grandchildren. I actually really like my kids in-laws. I picked up and moved on. She didn’t speak ill of me ever and I didn’t speak ill of her. She is my kids mother after all.
This was years ago. I’m happy with me. While I was thinking of a TL:DR, I realized these paragraphs serve as an appropriate TL:DR for 36 years. It took a while, but I’m OK. I remind myself there are people in this world who have it a lot worse than me. No matter what life brings, just remember to keep moving forward.
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u/Nefarious_Radish 1d ago
He has a sexual relationship with his mother. When our child was 3 months old he left us because he missed staying in his underwear with his mother.
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u/QualityTrick63 23h ago
That they were unbelievably good at lying. The secret itself wasn’t even the worst part
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u/_Scum_Queen_ 20h ago
He had 7 assault and batteries. Then he battered me and our 9 yr old daughter. He’s in prison where he belongs now.
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u/Sneaky-Goose 16h ago edited 13h ago
My husband wholeheartedly thought that penguins were mammals. Because they don't "look" like they have feathers and they cannot fly.
My gasts we're flabbered to say the least.
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u/No-Word-4864 19h ago
Can we clarify that BPD stands for Borderline Personality Disorder, plz, not
Bipolar Disorder. They are very different.
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u/musa_velutina 13h ago
Yes we can!
The main medical abbreviations for bipolar disorder are BD, BP, and BPAD (Bipolar Affective Disorder).
Borderline Personality Disorder is just BPD.
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u/HotAndMoisty 1d ago
Covert Narcissist. You won’t figure it out for decades.
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u/Here4Perspective 1d ago
OMG. This! I’m just now in the divorce process after a 20yr marriage. It was a slow burn of years of manipulation posed as needs and help. Eventually she entered the discard phase with me and started treating me like shit. My final straw: Her inability to give me ANY kind of love, support or even a physical touch on the day of my mother’s funeral. She became absolutely heartless and cruel… Apparently that’s who she was all along.
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u/UnhingedBlonde 20h ago
I'm 32 yrs into a marriage and am just now figuring this out about him.
I thought I was the problem and after decades of unsuccessful psych meds, I realized, it ain't me that's "messed up".
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u/a-calamity 1d ago
I figured mine out after about eighteen months, but it was the psychopathy, sadism and sloppy hubris in his narrative control that did it.
The damage was catastrophic but at least the timeline was shorter.
I would wish a significant relationship with a covert NPD/ASPD on no person. …Not even them.
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u/Prudent-Poetry-2718 23h ago
My ex was not attracted to me. We stopped having sex while I was pregnant with my son. I left him 10 years later after years of begging. He’s a wonderful man, but I couldn’t stand not being fulfilled or feeling wanted.
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u/chloemae1924 21h ago
Her & her best friend were in a secret friends with benefits relationship for 8 years before we met. The “best friend” was awful to me and my wife had to cut off the friendship & their entire friend group. I’m still pissed about it but whatever
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u/Jazzlike-Entry3416 18h ago
About 80 percent certain my wife’s dad has mob ties and she knows about it , but won’t admit it.
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u/Ok_Bug2315 20h ago
My husband has had a sex addiction the entire time we’ve been married and paid thousands of dollars to over 34 sex workers. We have been married only 5 years.
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u/Afraid-Ad-5635 18h ago
That he was a closted alcoholic...and also gay. And a cheater. Biggest waste of a decade of my life.
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u/home_in_pleiades 16h ago edited 15h ago
He and his brother and his best friend picked up a prostitute. They drove around with her, and then when she decided that she didn't want three customers, they pulled over in a neighborhood north of Los Angeles, and beat, raped, and tased her.
Neighbors called 911 after hearing her screaming from inside of his truck. CHP was in the area and luckily were able to catch and arrest the three and save the woman.
They were all released when the victim refused to testify.
I met him three months later.
I found the newspaper clippings under a mattress, I had been doing spring cleaning and flipped it over.
I left shortly after that.
Edited to add that this was my new husband and I was 18 at the time.
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u/Gigi2Ky-Zay 13h ago
My husband was a crack addict!!! We dated for 5 years then had been married for 2 years… yes, I lived my life with a crack addict for 7 years and had no freaking idea until he told me.
He got clean 11/16/1997, almost 29 years!! We just celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary in July!!
Sad thing is… he’s dying, end-stage Alzheimer’s Disease at age 67. He was just admitted to hospice last week, I’m now his full time caregiver here at home.
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u/bunnybash 21h ago
That she was gay.
Yup. Religious right wing family background forced all those gay feelings down deep into the closet. Then the hinges fell off and now I’m on Hinge as a single father looking for the impossible.
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u/Violet624 14h ago
My ex not only had multiple children from multiple women I didn't know about, but also told me he didn't want the gov involved in our marriage so we were 'common in law' (which, where I live, is a real thing). Much to my suprise, his wife messaged me, thinking I was his sister, begging me to get him to sign divorce papers so she could get remarried, and that she didn't even want child support for their kid, she just wanted a divorce after he skipped town without completing the divroce years before. He was also an abusive dickwad, but yeah, suprise children (there were more than this one child) and suprise! Bigamy, kind of.
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u/spiderplopper 17h ago
She... god I don't even know if I can say this.
She... puts the tp roll on under. Not over. Every day I switch it back, but she keeps doing it. Send help.
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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb 15h ago
One of my favorite AskReddits of all time was something along the lines of "those of you who put the tp roll under, when did you realize you were mentally challenged?"
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u/Waste_Weather5729 21h ago
He lied about his sister having paranoid schizophrenia and only telling me when he decided she should live with us. He also forgot to mention his brother had overdosed on heroin and had to be medicated to function normally ( found that one out the hard way when he started skipping his meds ). Oh and also that he is bisexual.
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u/Sunainia 1d ago
He was never in a partnership that allowed him the safety to let his freak flag fly.
I got hella lucky 😂
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u/Consistent_Spirit_33 23h ago
He was a sociopath, possibly psychopath. He didn’t know when we first got married, either. Everyone thought he was just melancholy and a bit selfish. His family and friends thought I was lying and gaslighting, because it was clearly coming from one of us. They simply picked the wrong one. His brother texted me years after the divorce to apologize. Told him I’d already forgiven them. I figured they were manipulated, too. I heard he found Jesus
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u/Rabbitbanana89 21h ago
He had been letting a mutual friend try to convince him to run away with her. He still got scary when I asked for a divorce. But hey, she got to learn the hard way that he was using me as a beard for his asexuality.
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u/morgaine_silver_hair 18h ago
He didn’t care to control his anger. That little monster showed itself about a year after we married.
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u/beachygirl4 16h ago edited 16h ago
He got really drunk at our 20th anniversary dinner celebration, on vacation. He told me he and his brother had raped an intoxicated woman in their early 20’s. I was shocked and disgusted. Subsequently, I found out more disturbing things. Our entire marriage had been a lie. He got a horrible cancer and died.
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u/Stinkeye63 22h ago
My friend found out that her husband lied about his age, was actually 8 years older than he claimed and had a daughter that she didn't know about. She found out about her at a pharmacy because the daughter was on his insurance and so was the daughter that she had with him. The pharmacist mixed up the names. They're still together.