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

Agree. If her poor mum had committed suicide anyway, his DD may have held him responsible for it by taking her.

I don't think there were any right decisions to be made in what was obviously very sad and messy situation, I'm sure he did what he felt was best at the time, but you feel what you feel.

I hope you realise that once you marry this man, if you do, you will be benefitting directly and indirectly from the capital he was able to accumulate whilst his daughter was in the care of an alcoholic.

Just something to think about given that his actions and intentions are being put under the microscope here.

It's been quoted already but I think this needs quoting every few pages!

OP you aren't being unreasonable to doubt whether you should marry but I do think you might not be being 100% honest with yourself about why.

He had told me that once they split his first wife took his daughter to France

He didn't choose to live in a different country, the mother did. You dont know the reasons.

I agree with this. If the daughter has forgiven him and they have moved on and now have a good relationship then I don't think it is any of the OP's business to now judge and get involved.

And his daughter wanted to live with her mother. The alternative would have been trying to remove her against her will, causing trauma and resentment. The fact that he didn’t is a testament to the relationship now. He visited regularly and has always maintained contact. He wasn’t aware of the true situation until his daughter divulged it to him as an adult several years later. What was he supposed to do ?

I wonder about this too

This poor guy has been living with the knowledge of this awful situation for years, but the OP somehow still judges him? This man needs love and support (as does his daughter). I would be touched that he felt able to trust me, and do everything I could to listen and support him.

Now imagine how his relationship might have been with his daughter if hed taken custody and then the ex had died.
The daughter likely would have blamed herself for not being there to stop it, and him for taking her away.
He did what he thought was best in the circumstances, without knowing all the information until after.

But the point is it applies to the entire UK and specifically references the UK rather than England and Wales/Scotland/NI 😊 Which was something you picked up in my post.
Anyway, on re reading your post I can see you were talking about the situation where the mother had a court order (but to get that court order obviously the father would have had the opportunity to refuse consent and the court would then have the power to overrule him). I think the point others made was that people can’t just take their kids across borders without the other parent’s consent. They would need to get a court order which would mean the court would hear the reasons the remaining parent doesn’t want them to go.

Have a good day.

IMHO you’re being too judgmental.

What do you think he should’ve done? Fought an unwell and mentally fragile woman for custody of her last remaining relative, when his teenage daughter had made it clear she wanted to stay with her mother?

If he’d won custody (unlikely given courts tend to take teenagers’ preferences into account, unless his argument was she was suffering neglect from her mother, which would’ve been even more toxic and devastating to prove) and the mother then took her own life, alone and without even her daughter, how would his daughter have felt about him?

If they now have a very close and loving relationship, that’s great. And that’s what you should accept.

Lots of lone parents struggle with their health or disabilities and lots of teenagers are young carers to parents and siblings. It’s not the easiest young adulthood, but as long as they feel loved by their parents, and supported by the wider community (teachers, social workers, friends), they should be able to choose what they’d prefer.

Can you expand on what you think his lack of actions were, given that his DD wanted to stay with her mum and he wasn’t fully aware of the situation until she told him years later ? He visited regularly and maintained contact, and they have a good relationship - so clearly found a way to navigate the situation without him going through the courts to have his DD removed from her mum, which would likely have cause irreparable trauma damage.

His DD is an adult, by my reckoning according to OP’s timeline of events she’s now 25 and their relationship reflects that she’s fine with his actions. What do you think would change that now ?

And OP indicated very clearly that she always thought the circumstances of his wife’s death were none of her business, so it was never discussed. Do you not think it relevant that the first time OP actually asked him to talk about it, it all came pouring out ? To me that suggests the reluctance to discuss it came from OP. I think it’s quite a stretch to blame OP’s fiancé for not telling her if she has never shown any interest until now.

How could he stop her?? Would his Daughter have been better off without her mother, the mother taking her life would deeply affect DD even more than it does now, feeling like she was there for her mother protecting her probably helped.
Not all alcoholic with depression are nasty. My DM became a drinker later in life. She was always really kind and loving no matter what, she was sad, with depression masking it with gin.
He was must tired carrying this on his mind.

I would be wondering why, after 4 years of being together and 3 weeks away from your wedding, has your partner now decided to tell you? I do find it odd that you haven't asked how his first wife died, regardless of the fact it was 7 years after they split. I find it odd that he hasn't had this conversation with you before now. He loves you, presumably trusts you, so therefore why not tell you? I wonder if he's told you because he's concerned someone within your wedding party may mention something to you in passing, even something vague, because they've assumed you know.

If your partner and his daughter lived in two different countries after the divorce, I can't see how he could have possibly known how bad it was. My only thought would be that he knew his ex had MH issues and he knew she had an issue with alcohol, but still agreed to allow his daughter to live with her Mum. By his own admission, he knew he couldn't care for his daughter full-time due to his job, so he turned a blind eye to his ex wife's issues, and allowed his daughter to move countries. That was purely because it was better for him, and in hindsight he now knows he should have prioritised his daughter, not his job.

His daughter wanted to stay with her Mum, because she knew her Mum had no one else. If she'd had lived with her Dad, then she feared what would happen to her Mum. She thought by staying with her Mum, she could keep an eye on her, the best she could. I'm sure deep down, she'd rather have lived with Dad, but knowing her Mum's difficulties and knowing she had no one else, kept her staying there. However, as I said, you partner didn't know how bad the situation had become, because his daughter hid it from him.

I wouldn't end a relationship over the situation. Your partner made mistakes, he knows he made mistakes and I'm sure if he could go back, he'd make different decisions. He can't do that, so he has to make peace with them instead, and stop beating himself up over it.

You do need a conversation with him about why he's now told you, 3 weeks before the wedding, as opposed to a year or 2 years ago.

He has his actions or lack thereof to own and a fair amount of guilt to go with it. That is his burden and it seems like he has tried to make amends by for example arranging his Ex's affairs. I won't judge or draw any conclusions

However my point is that the OP is deplorable

I don’t need to read it thanks, I was a lawyer too albeit in an adjacent area.

If you’re talking about child abduction specifically then I have no idea why you questioned or replied to my original post which was specifically talking about court orders; the only person to mention abduction was you hence the confusion.

I think this underlies most of the posts deriding this guy. People on Mumsnet universally are opposed to second marriages where there are children from first marriages and nobody can ever see any point in marrying if you’ve been married before.

He had doubts about her ability to parent, knew his ex was unwell and knew she was an alocoholic!

Another daughter of an alcoholic (father) here, in a very similar situation. My mum died when I was young & all the family knew he was an alcoholic/would pass out leaving me to fend for myself, but didn’t do anything.

Alcoholism is complicated, usually shrouded in secrecy and shame. Family members (we were a tight-knit family) still claim that it was my mum’s death that made my dad the alcoholic, rather than that he was drunk, violent & abusive before as well.

Edited to add that I’m from a similar culture, and also I didn’t have the vocabulary or emotional maturity to explain or understand what was going on. I think none of us did, other family members included.

I don’t think you should judge. He may have had a limited emotional toolbox to deal with this, and if the daughter has made peace with the situation, it sounds like much processing has been made.

I would question why you didn’t ask him before. Were you not curious to know? Maybe some people aren’t.

Good luck, OP. Hope you can forgive.

I think you are being harsh here OP. What might seem obvious from an outside angle is never as black and white as it seems. Her mother sounds like she was a functioning alcoholic. I don’t think you can judge unless you were directly involved in the situation at the time. What would matter to me would be the relationship he has with his daughter now, how he managed the aftermath of his ex wife’s death and the respect that he still gives his ex wife now, despite her faults. This tells you the kind of man he is.

Quite. It’s easy to say as a third party that we would have done things better or differently but until your actually in the situation where your ex and their alcoholism is becoming a problem and you just don’t know what to do, words are cheap and OPs reaction is exactly why there is so much stigma attached to addiction and people just don’t talk about it. It’s incredibly unfair to judge him over a situation in the past where he clearly just didn’t know what to do about it and was just as much a victim of his exes alcoholism as his daughter but as usual the unrealistic expectations on men dictate that he’s in the wrong by default of having a penis.

OP says she has a DS. Why on earth would she want to tie her assets to any man, let alone one she has any doubts at all about?

This deeply traumatic and scarring experience isn’t something that just ‘happened’ to him. He chose to not ask too many questions, despite knowing there were issues, resulting in his daughter dealing with a situation at a young age that was something a child shouldn’t have to deal with. He was part of the problem and should have been a much better parent. Stop framing him as a victim. He had a child and didn’t protect her.

OP doesn’t have to be ok with this. Her feelings are valid despite what her partner or daughter feel about this. She gets to decide if she wants to be with someone who didn’t do the best he could for his child. She is contemplating marrying this man, she has feelings on this matter. That isn’t making it all about her, it’s being sensible about a decision that will impact her future.

The minimising here by some people is shocking.

Child Abduction Act 1984, s 1 is your friend 😊 read it

1. There is no one universal “UK” legal system; Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales each have their own distinct legal systems with different laws and regulations (although they overlap)

yes, thanks, I’m a lawyer but very informative. I was referring to child abduction specifically which does refer to the entire UK. I don’t think I used the term “UK legal system”.

1. In all jurisdictions of the UK, a court order can override parental consent therefore it would NOT be illegal to take a child abroad without the other parent’s consent as long as you have a court order; this not not abduction. It’s this same premise which allows children to be taken into care etc

Well yes I’d have thought that was implied as i said it could be seen as controlling to try to prevent your ex from moving abroad (by refusing permission). Of course you can move with court permission which wouldn’t be abduction. Or with parental permission which is what happened here.

Thanks for the info about the Spanish system 😊

Basically his DD has accepted/forgiven him for his decisions.

Sorry but how can you speak for his DD?

OP has said he and his DD appear to have a close, good relationship. But you have absolutely no idea what his DD's views on her father were at the time. Whether she felt there was anything wrong with his behaviour or felt there was anything to forgive.