# Lies about past before Marrage



## JohnLondon (Jul 27, 2012)

Hello Forum,

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.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

John


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## Cosmos (May 4, 2012)

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.


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

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.


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## Numb in Ohio (Oct 31, 2011)

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) 

Talk about a revelation.


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

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.

Your problem is that she is your wife.

Maybe some sort of counselling may be in order.


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## Numb in Ohio (Oct 31, 2011)

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?


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## bkaydezz (Jul 9, 2012)

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.


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## Machiavelli (Feb 25, 2012)

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.


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## 2ntnuf (Jul 14, 2012)

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.


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## JohnLondon (Jul 27, 2012)

Thanks all for your messages. 

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.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

JohnLondon said:


> 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.
> .
> .
> .
> ...


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.


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Thor said:


> 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.
> 
> ...


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.


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## Goldmember357 (Jan 31, 2012)

LEAVE!!!

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!!!??????????????????????


She lies
She bashes you
She bashes you about your "problems" 
She Lies about her past and her problems



This has trouble all over it. LEAVE!!! There are other women out there


If you got a liar its best to LEAVE. I have no idea how to begin explaining why its bad to be with Liars


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## Goldmember357 (Jan 31, 2012)

JohnLondon said:


> Thanks all for your messages.
> 
> 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.
> 
> ...


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.


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

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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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

AFEH said:


> 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.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the compliment. You are right that we waste too much time trying to figure out why our spouse does certain things rather than just accepting the fact that they do it.

I admit that the philosophical content of my post is not entirely my original creation. Due to my wife's 3 decades of deception, this is an area I have been thinking about for the past year. I have recently realized that the little :scratchhead: moments I had over the years were clues that her value system is very different than mine. But I had projected my values onto her and thus presumed she was playing from the same rule book as I. So I failed to recognize all the red flags and clues.

There are some excellent related articles on the truthaboutdeception site. Lying Limits Choice - Truth About Deception . 

_'People often use deception to limit their spouse's or romantic partner's choices. More often than not, we lie to our partners because we want to take away their ability to make decisions for themselves.' _

Consequences of Discovering Deception - Truth About Deception explains the op's reaction. 

_'finding out about a partner's use of deception raises many questions ("Who are you?" and "Why didn't I see that coming?"). Having such fundamental beliefs challenged leaves people feeling uncertain and out of control - "How did this happen to me?" Not only does uncovering deception shatter our fundamental beliefs, but it also destroys trust. When a spouse or romantic gets caught in a lie, it raises suspicion, which causes people to re-evaluate their partner as well as their relationship ("What else having you been lying about?")'_

An article which explains in too much detail (but still worth reading) is Lying. 

_'The reason that I hate lies is because, like you, I wish to navigate carefully through life, and to do so I must be able to calculate my true position. When you lie to me, you know your position but you have given me false data which obscures mine. Lying is theft. When you tell me something which I take to be true and as a result I invest my time, or my money, or even my care, you have stolen these things from me because you obtained them with false information. '_


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## Numb in Ohio (Oct 31, 2011)

AFEH said:


> 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.


This makes a lot of sense. Good post.


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## JohnLondon (Jul 27, 2012)

@Thor that is a very good point. She did manipulate to get what she wanted, but that said what we have in the present isn't bad. It's actually good. But I understand I do need to keep my guard up about it and understand her value system may not be the same as mine. I don't think its a red flag, as I don't believe she would ever manipulate for a gain that would lead to a loss to me or anyone else. Yes, I did lose my ability to decide, but the outcome isn't a negative for me.

@Goldmember357, I don't think that she is that bad, she has a very moral job and work she does for the community is commendable. As I've said in the present she's not given me any reason to doubt her for infidelity.

@MarkUK, yes, she was very sorry. I believe her story because she has told me bits and bobs that add up. I have a good memory and remember every conversation. All the pieces of information I know and the latest confession do add up.

The BF who she lost her virginity to was a brief spell and on his rebound she met her ex-husband. I've had the pleasure to meet him and her friends have told me about him. He was a total manipulator and used my Mrs's vulnerability at the time. Regarding the BF after she divorced, he was in a different town so no way she knew him whilst married so can't suspect that she did the cheating, besides I know the reasons of the divorce. She had filed the petition.

Thinking back, the arguments we used to have, even if I knew all the information, I probably would've made the same decisions. Just not with the same reasoning. 

She's never bashed me for my past. But she did make me feel that what we had then was very special to her as I was the second person she was intimate with. This is the complete lie and what bothers me.

I will put this behind me. It will take me time. But the time we've spent together and the understanding we've developed is far greater in value then some bad choices she's made in her past. This has also been a two way street, not all giving from my side.

Writing my thoughts here has really helped.

I may create some more posts in the general section asking about how quickly women fall in love and how women feel with partners who have kids.

Thanks,
John


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