My partner just divulged some of his past to me 3 weeks before we marry

I think it's really really odd and sad that your instinct is to judge him this

I don't really see what bearing it has you marrying him. If you're having second of thoughts anyway then of course don't marry him.

This was clearly a complicated and nuanced situation and it's really odd that you're seeing it in black and white.

As a mum I actually really admire dads who recognize the importance of the mother child relationship.

I think your reaction maybe suggests that you Are looking for an excuse to not proceed with the wedding

many many adults today were children of the 70s and 80s and grew up with alcoholics in plain sight and nobody did anything about it. I honestly don’t think people understood the damage it caused to children then. Let it go. He has a good relationship with his daughter and he’s obviously very reflective about the way he handled things back then. Had he removed her from her mother she would have had a different wound. It’s not straightforward at all.

I absolutely agree with this.

One of the much used words on MN which I absolutely hate is Judgemental.
But i'm going to use it now.

Some of the judgemental posts on this thread are breath taking.

And the fact OP is sitting in judgement over a situation which was obviously really difficult for all concerned but which her intended H and his dd have come out of with a mutually close and loving relationship is really sad.

Much better she doesn't marry him.

Lie by omission? Are you for real?

I would never expect anyone to talk about such horrific, traumatic events from their past. No one has the right to demand that.

Especially as it was the DD's tragedy even more so than his.

Yes and this was 13yrs ago. We take 50/50 for granted these days but even 13yrs ago the courts were more biased towards women/mothers. I dated a man once whose ex did take his kids to France. He went through the courts and the courts still ruled in favour of his ex in the kids best interest’s, that must of been at least 10ish years ago.

I think we are also more aware these days that alcohol abuse doesn’t always fit the old stereotype of an alcoholic, you read on here all the time about partners being great at there jobs but heavy drinkers at home. She may of been someone who could meet all her daughter’s physical needs just perhaps not emotionally.

There is an awful lot of judgment going on in this thread from those who were not involved at the time, including, dare I say, from you, OP. I can see how this has all been very difficult for you to learn, but I think he deserves some credit for telling you. He didn't have to, and it must have been painful for him. He wishes to go into this marriage in a spirit of openness, which augurs well for the future.

As a side issue, and as someone married to a foreign national myself, I think the fact his wife was French should be considered when some posters judge him for "allowing" her to move to France with the daughter. It is quite likely that in doing so she would have had friends and relatives there to act as a support network in raising her daughter. Certainly it is probable that it would have helped her in establishing new social contacts and employment going forward. Who among us cannot understand that someone might wish to return to their roots to lick their wounds after a painful divorce? The situation was nuanced with pros and cons, especially if the wife was ill. I see this as being completely different from the scenario we often see on MN, where a feckless parent wishes to take their children abroad to country they have no links with, often at the behest of a new partner. This case is not as straightforward - and he clearly went to great effort and expense to keep up the contact with his daughter in the following years. Judging by these pages, few fathers would have made so much effort.

I understand this has come as a shock OP and you have my sympathy. Suicide is shocking. How much more of a shock must it have been for him and his daughter though, and I think it is admirable that he stepped up to the plate in the aftermath and that they have such a close and supportive relationship. That speaks for his character.

My fear is that in coming to terms with this uncomfortable truth you are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and I feel that would be a terrible shame. I wish you well. 🌹

Maybe understand what OP is saying before posting. He didn’t move to another country, his first wife moved back to her home country.

Honestly not trying to be judgey, just curious but:

DP’s first wife passed away 6 years ago, they’d been split for about 7 years before that and I’ve never pried as to the details of his first wife’s death, not my place nor business.

I find it a bit strange that you’ve been together 4 years, are planning to marry and haven’t spoken about this stuff. Has it never come up in conversation in 4 years? If dh had an ex that’d died I’d be like “Gosh, what happened?”. This maybe suggests a reluctance to discuss tricky/emotional
things in your relationship which could be a problem?

I can understand what you’re saying. It would
make me lose a bit of respect for him - but a lot of men seem to be able to disassociate themselves from their children’s lives like this if it suits them. Perhaps he didn’t really want to know what was going on too deeply as then he’d have had to do something about it?

I’m not sure if it’d be a reason for me to stop seeing him though if he’s an otherwise good man - people make mistakes. It may just take you a bit of time to digest it and have a think, which is fine.

And it’s entirely possible OP that the reason you haven’t been told this story before is because your DH to be was afraid of being judged by you… Which evidently he has been.

Is it possible that he is actually a good man? Is it possible that you are judgy and sanctimonious and it would have made it hard for him to confide in you?

Sometimes it’s helpful to self reflect as he is doing on his relationship with his DD and what he could have done better. This is good human behaviour.

Obviously he carries a lot of guilt that he didn’t do more at the time to protect his daughter from the situation, but it sounds like he wasn’t truly aware of
how bad the situation was & we can only deal
with what’s in front of us at the time. Hindsight is wonderful.

Can I ask OP, what would you have preferred him to do in the circumstances he describes? How should he have responded to this situation in your eyes?

Life is not black and white, and every action has a reaction. Sometimes the reality is crap, but the alternative is also crap.
For example: he visits his daughter monthly and becomes concerned about her mother, so he suggests the daughter returns to his country to live with him… the daughter presumably was settled in school & friendship groups and a life there, she may have been very distressed about leaving that, and also about leaving a mother who was not in a good place. Would she be made to chose between her mum and her dad ? This situation could have also caused huge friction between the parents, maybe even lengthy court battles and more… and still resulted in the death of his ex by overdose when her DD was “taken” away from her. Would he have felt less guilt then? Would his daughter have lived a happier life ?
Obviously I’m just speculating here, as no one knows what the alternate reality would be - but I think it’s safe to say it may not have been any better and would likely still have been extremely traumatic and upsetting for his DD because of the situation with the alcoholism.

For what it’s worth, I think he sounds like he has
tries to do the best by his daughter, been openly supportive and tried not to add more upheaval to her life. Many dads don’t regularly see their kids when they live half an hour up the road after a divorce / split. He has maintained a good relationship when his child was moved to a foreign country & it sounds as though they now have a good relationship and he’s been a huge support in the awful situation his DD has experienced.

Btw my kids trauma was nothing to do with alcohol. Have learned about that & experienced that after they were all grown up. So dispassionate observer to this story rather than someone over identifying.

As another daughter of an alcoholic, I entirely agree with this.

He told her because he couldn’t hide his emotions in the moment and was trying to explain where they come from.

My close friend committed suicide. For years I would get very emotional on the anniversary of his death. Mostly I was able to keep it to myself but on some occasions I was compelled to reveal what I was going through because I was around other people and it was obvious that I wasn’t my usual cheery self.

Op, it sounds to me that you have found a decent man. You could build a nice life together. A clue to his decency is his ongoing relationship with his daughter who seems to be doing well.

I think your take on alcoholism is a little simplistic. I work in a similar environment & am similarly passionate about the rights of a child and the damage from adults not doing what they should. But I also have close up experience of alcoholism and adults negotiating that with being a parent.

Given the detailed information it would have been better to have taken over. However his daughter was codependent - she will have covered for her mother. And tbh even if people tell you that they are drinking too much, no-one really understands what non-functioning alcoholism looks like unless they see it. He may still not really understand what not being able to get out of bed due to drink for days on end looked like. I find that when people are confronted with the reality of that - they thought they knew all about drinking, then they see it.

And presumably this was not constant. He mum could pull herself together sufficiently for him not to see how bad it was. Presumably she could function many days. I’ve seen paramedics conned into thinking the people trying to seek support are being controlling because of an ability to pull oneself together.

It was a difficult situation - and I doubt he realised how bad it was. He probably still doesn’t. He also may have been unclear how he could navigate providing for her while working and being there for her too. Moving her between countries regularly in teen years can be damaging as well. Her situation was not ideal and maybe there was a better solution - but there wasn’t an ideal simple answer. She sounds as if she has grown up to be a lovely young woman despite the trauma. My younger two kids went through significant trauma as children / teens. My attempts to remove them from the situation made it worse for my youngest tbh - luckily we only had to do that for a short while. Despite the trauma they have grown into lovely, fully functioning, mentally robust, caring adults. We could rake over what could have been done differently - and have had those discussions - but both have said the situation was complicated and they are aware there was no magic solution.

She was loved, presumably by both parents. And she has a close relationship with her father so she isn’t seeing him as having done anything wrong. Even if you think he did, her understanding of the situation is more important. And that close relationship is protective for her. She doesn’t need to know her father failed her if she doesn’t believe he did.

I think in professional roles we have to be careful in imagining things to have simple neutral solutions. I work as a professional in an area where I am also a mother and am appalled at some of the judgment I see dished out by people I know wouldn’t cope 5 minutes in the situation they are judging.

in this case removing her would have removed her from her mum (that was what made the situation worse for ds3 - he found it very difficult worrying about the person who was the ‘cause’ of the trauma - he’s still clear about that now) - and would have removed her from her teen friends and the school system she was embedded in. Maybe if would have been better for her. Maybe if wouldn’t have. Ideally her father would have uprooted and moved himself there, but the need to earn a living would have maybe made that difficult - and he probably my has no idea of the extent of drinking.

So easy isn’t it? Until one parent has Mh issues, isn’t so happy about the idea that the other parent is blocking their move, convinces the child that the father is a demon, mother commits suicide anyway, daughter blames father.

Sounds better doesn’t it?

He did what was easiest—he knew that being a full time single dad whilst XW was abroad would be WORK, so he let XW take DD.

I can’t tell you whether to marry him—it is up to you. I don’t know the rest of the details re: your relationship and his moral compass otherwise. If you need some breathing space to digest, you can always postpone.

I would say that if you have ANY doubts about getting married then please don't get married. Divorce is such a nightmare and so expensive. You have so much to lose.
It should never be entered with doubt.

All he had to do was say no to his ex and their kid moving to France. (They could not go without his permission, thanks to the Hague Convention.) Then the three of them would have stayed in Spain, probably with shared custody, and he’d have actually been around. There was never any need to take the daughter from her mother.

If he knew he should have done all he could to protect his daughter.
Getting help for her mother was not his responsibility, even if he had still been with her. No one can help an addict but themselves.

This does not sound to me like it was a situation with a black and white, right and wrong, answer. It sounds like a messy and challenging situation with lots of variables and someone doing the best he could to navigate a horribly difficult time.

if I had opened up to my fiancé about my feelings on that later only to be judged I would feel desperately sad.

This.

He and his daughter have been through so much. Calling off the wedding is going to be another blow to a man who has done what he thought was his best. He visited his daughter every weekend in another country. He was checking in to ensure that she was ok. That does not sound like a neglectful or irresponsible father.

You need time to process this. The bit that stands out for me is that he tells you three weeks before your wedding. The timing is poor as it feels like he tells you at a point it is very difficult for you to back out of the relationship. I would feel ambushed if i were you and i that is the bit i would resent. I would delay the wedding. There is no rush. Take your time.

I’d feel a bit manipulated by DP levelling with me so late in the day - my instinct would be to wonder what else he hasn’t been totally honest about and I’d postpone the wedding until I’ve had time to process. It feels like a lie by omission and I hate being lied to.

You are not unreasonable to feel how you feel, but I can also see what a difficult situation it was for him and his daughter.

If he’d decided to take his daughter away from her mother there’s a high chance she’d have committed suicide earlier and I guarantee his DD would blame him.

This isn’t for you to judge and I’ve now idea why this changes things for you.