I have an issue I'd like to share and would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
I met my current wife 3 years ago. We've been married for just over 1 year and we are both divorced and I have a 5 year girl from a previous marriage. We are both from a Christian India background that have fairly traditional views, but we are both fairly liberal in our views.
We have our ups and downs but life is good.
When we first met, she asked me about me about all my past relationships and relationships after my divorce. I answered all her questions truthfully, thinking at the time if she doesn't like it, then we don't need to progress further. Honestly, I wasn't interested in her past relationships, I knew she was married for a couple of years and she must have had previous boyfriends etc, but I was interested in the present. Anyway, she still went on to tell me her husband was her first love, she had one previous boyfriend but this was in the college days and not a sexual relationship.
Anyway, we developed a relationship and a few times we had some major arguments she gave me a guilt trip that I was her second love after a failed marriage and she would never love again, making me feel guilty and being the one to patch the relationship up again. At the time I thought, this girl is head over heels for me, I liked her a lot (wasn't in love) and I don't want to be the one to ruin her life.
Anyway, recently in conversation, again she started about on of my previous flings, she then told me about 2 other serious boyfriends she had intimate relationships with, her ex-husband wasn't her first.
I asked why she lied, she told me because I would judge her and sex outside marriage wasn't something that's the norm in our culture.
Back to the present, we are in love, our relationship is good and healthy, but I can't get this lie out of my head. Also the guilt trips she put me on in the past when we were dating, I think are totally out of order.
I know that's in the past, but now I don't know if she is lying to me or not. Before this I had full trust in her. She has a lot of male friends from school / uni days, work friends, I wasn't ever suspicious of anything, but now the devil on my should isn't letting my mind be at peace.
I've talked to her about it and how I feel. She says she glad she's didn't tell me, otherwise we wouldn't be together now.
What I want is to get this out of my head, but talking to her isn't helping me or her. I end up making her feel guilty about her past relationships which is not what I want to do. She's not cheated on me, but if she didn't give me the guilt trips about being her second love then there is a 50 / 50 chance I may have split up with her when we where dating.
I don't know what to do, I want to have a clear head, but I'm an emotional rollercoaster at the moment.
You have a right to be angry. Your wife was the one who wanted to know about your past (personally, I don't think this is ever a good idea - save for numbers), but she not only lied about hers, but beat you up about yours!
You need to have a calm discussion about all this and get it out into the open. If necessary, do it in MC, but it needs to be brought out into the open and put to bed once and for all.
Not only was your wife deceitful, she compounds the problem by not seeing any problem with it. Well its more than that in that she’s pleased she deceived you and hasn’t any remorse at all.
I think it one thing to be deceived and the person doing whatever it takes to regain your trust in them, but quite another when they’re seemingly not bothered as to whether we trust them or not and wont do anything to regain that trust.
Trust is massive in a marriage and one of the very pillars of its foundation. Without that trust you really don’t know if you are living in a real or deluded world. Right now you’ve been deluded about her past and that’s a massive thing to come to grips with.
I don’t really know what advice to offer you. I think a person is either honest or they’re not, that they either have integrity or they don’t. Once we’ve caught a person out in a lie then as far as we are concerned they lose their integrity and credibility. It’s very hard to continue in a marriage with a person you simply can’t trust to tell you the truth no matter what the question or situation is.
You probably feel so upset and bad about it all because you’ve been seriously manipulated into marriage and wonder what else you don’t know and how else you’ve been manipulated.
I had been open to my H about my past relationships. I had never been married before. I am his 3rd.
He told me, or so I thought, about his also.
Come to find out, he had cheated on his previous wife, and had not told me about it. And the one he cheated with was one of the women he was talking to behind my back last year. (Just friends of course)
Oh boy....,
This gives me memories.
The problem with people like this is that they are manipulative and don't even see anything wrong with it. They take pleasure in running you through the gauntlet , whilst they hide their " dirty linens."
They always try to rewrite their own history, with a glorious spin.
It gives them a sense of moral superiority over you.
If someone has hid their cheating past from you for 10-12 years or through your entire marriage, do you forgive and work to move forward through it?
I'm sure I have not went through every detail of my past , but I would not hide the fact IF I had cheated on one of my exes.
And to be" secretly talking" to these AP's in our marriage, so I wouldn't find out about the past (instead of avoiding these "friends").... does that warrant forgiveness?
Second love.
Seems to me like she is putting you in an order.
You are her love. She needs to recognize that and stop acting like you are under her.
Judgement is going to be passed no matter anything you do in life, good or bad.
She needs to accept that you were honest with her, drop it and reveal hers fully so it can all be squashed.
No point in ruining a marriage over the past, but there is no room for lies inbetween unless there is still a reason she is keeping it secret.
I personally dont believe it has anything to do with her worrying about being judged.
Women minimize. You probably still don't have the facts. My wife can't keep her pre-marriage sex life straight, because she's forgotten what she said 25 years ago. All the facts have changed over the years. If you weren't her first, there's no telling how many regiments have passed through those gates.
I think you need some counseling to help you sort out your feelings and how to handle what you are going through. Don't let the confusion you have make the decisions. You need a clear head to handle this.
I am very p*ssed off at the lies but we had a proper chat about this and went through all the details, in terms of her relationships, nitty gritty, why she lied etc. Initially she went on her defensive saying it's in the past, it doesn't matter. But I told her it matters to me, this should be about my feelings not hers, I'm the one that feels deceived not her.
She'd told me about her boyfriend of before her previous marriage, but there was one brief boyfriend in-between that she didn't tell me about, who she lost her virginity too. He turned out to be a cheat and after him she met her ex-husband. After a nasty break-up with her ex, she met another guy who she dated for 10 months. Again he cheated on her they broke up, then after around 8 months we met. So in her words, the first used her for her naivety, second for a financial benefits and third pretended to be a shoulder to cry on to get his end away.
Her reasons for not mentioning this were they were unpleasant experiences for her which she regretted and didn't want me to judge her by it. I don't fully buy this. Would appreciate some women to comment.
She says she fell in love with me one our 2nd meeting and didn't want anything to get between us.
Do women fall in love so quick? In my previous relationship no girl has fallen in love with me as quickly. Strong attractions yes, but the I Love You words, not for a least a month!
She says, apart from that, after we met she's told me everything in the present, not hidden anything. Which I do believe. I have access to her phone and computer anytime I want. We just mutually respect each others privacy.
Life until this revelation has been getting better and better. I've felt we'd got stronger and have a better understanding of each other. We do lots of things together and she treats my Girl very well when she's around.
I think I need to forget all this and forgive her for lying. Apart from our relationship she has got anything else from it. She earns, has a good salary etc etc.
I need to get these thoughts out of my head. I don't feel jealous of her previous relationships, may be deep down I do. I think if I can't get past this I'm going to seek counselling. I don't want to beat her up emotionally for this, in fact I don't want to talk about this anymore to her. Because it did open up some old wounds.
I asked why she lied, she told me because I would judge her and sex outside marriage wasn't something that's the norm in our culture.
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Also the guilt trips she put me on in the past when we were dating, I think are totally out of order.
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I know that's in the past, but now I don't know if she is lying to me or not. Before this I had full trust in her.
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I've talked to her about it and how I feel. She says she glad she's didn't tell me, otherwise we wouldn't be together now.
I think you are in a tough spot with her. She has a different view of honesty than you do. Her world view is one which allows lies if they are protective of her. The reason you feel so unbalanced from learning of the lies is that you had projected your own value system onto her, and now you find out her values are in conflict with yours.
Note that she says quite directly that she lied to protect the false image she had given you of her past. And she today recognizes that the truth may have led to you not wanting to marry her, and she says she is glad for the outcome of the marriage due to the lie.
To put it another way, she lied to get what she wanted even though she knew that the truth would likely have caused you to make a different decision.
She openly admits this value system. She is not ashamed of it. It is who she is. She will continue to act according to this value system in the future. I personally see this as not only a character flaw but as a red flag of some significant hidden personality dysfunctions.
You value truth and full disclosure honesty. She values outcome. This is a fundamental conflict of values between you two.
I think you are in a tough spot with her. She has a different view of honesty than you do. Her world view is one which allows lies if they are protective of her. The reason you feel so unbalanced from learning of the lies is that you had projected your own value system onto her, and now you find out her values are in conflict with yours.
Note that she says quite directly that she lied to protect the false image she had given you of her past. And she today recognizes that the truth may have led to you not wanting to marry her, and she says she is glad for the outcome of the marriage due to the lie.
To put it another way, she lied to get what she wanted even though she knew that the truth would likely have caused you to make a different decision.
She openly admits this value system. She is not ashamed of it. It is who she is. She will continue to act according to this value system in the future. I personally see this as not only a character flaw but as a red flag of some significant hidden personality dysfunctions.
You value truth and full disclosure honesty. She values outcome. This is a fundamental conflict of values between you two.
Your post is one of the best I’ve read here on TAM.
What you articulate here is I believe one of the central causes of conflict within a marriage. That is, it is the unique “value system” of each partner that causes the conflict. And I believe it’s the conflicting value systems that bring most marriages down.
Sometimes the two value systems are so deeply different that it makes it impossible for us to “understand” our partner. In that in no way can we comprehend how they can behave in the ways that they do. What we can do though is “accept without understanding”.
What I’m trying to say is we don’t need to know why they behave like they do, we’re better off just accepting say that they are deceitful, a liar, a cheat or whatever and then look to see the affect of their behaviour on our self.
I am very p*ssed off at the lies but we had a proper chat about this and went through all the details, in terms of her relationships, nitty gritty, why she lied etc. Initially she went on her defensive saying it's in the past, it doesn't matter. But I told her it matters to me, this should be about my feelings not hers, I'm the one that feels deceived not her.
She'd told me about her boyfriend of before her previous marriage, but there was one brief boyfriend in-between that she didn't tell me about, who she lost her virginity too. He turned out to be a cheat and after him she met her ex-husband. After a nasty break-up with her ex, she met another guy who she dated for 10 months. Again he cheated on her they broke up, then after around 8 months we met. So in her words, the first used her for her naivety, second for a financial benefits and third pretended to be a shoulder to cry on to get his end away.
Her reasons for not mentioning this were they were unpleasant experiences for her which she regretted and didn't want me to judge her by it. I don't fully buy this. Would appreciate some women to comment.
She says she fell in love with me one our 2nd meeting and didn't want anything to get between us.
Do women fall in love so quick? In my previous relationship no girl has fallen in love with me as quickly. Strong attractions yes, but the I Love You words, not for a least a month!
She says, apart from that, after we met she's told me everything in the present, not hidden anything. Which I do believe. I have access to her phone and computer anytime I want. We just mutually respect each others privacy.
Life until this revelation has been getting better and better. I've felt we'd got stronger and have a better understanding of each other. We do lots of things together and she treats my Girl very well when she's around.
I think I need to forget all this and forgive her for lying. Apart from our relationship she has got anything else from it. She earns, has a good salary etc etc.
I need to get these thoughts out of my head. I don't feel jealous of her previous relationships, may be deep down I do. I think if I can't get past this I'm going to seek counselling. I don't want to beat her up emotionally for this, in fact I don't want to talk about this anymore to her. Because it did open up some old wounds.
I would not be surprised if she has been the one who has cheated. She seems inconsistent and lies
You should not tolerate such lying. I assure you there are much better women out there. Id hate to see you in court a few years later which is usually were these things head after a person cannot stand lying anymore.
Has she asked for forgiveness for lying to you? If so you can choose to forgive her.
If she's not asking for forgiveness, then why are you forgiving her?
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Lies about past before Marrage 
