Defended dh and now find out he was economical with the truth. Maybe.

[TartYvette]

8 years ago a family member made some fairly serious allegations against dh. The is family member had form for drama but this seemed particularly nasty. Had they proceeded with the allegations (made to the police but not taken any further) dh's life would have been forever changed. I took on dh's version of events and defended and supported him completely. He cut contact with this family member.

After a few years they began to visit again and we were both welcoming in the hope that they would formally withdraw the accusation but when they point blank refused to we stopped seeing them. Last year dh re-established contact and made the decision to forgive and forget. I did not, I was adamant that making false and dangerous accusations is beyond the pale and really quite unforgiveable.

This family member s treatment of dh continues to be dismissive and rude and compounded my belief that they are not someone I want to be a part of my family. It has caused a gulf between dh's family and they feel I am too harsh.
Just now dh has told me that the accusations had foundation. I have been defending him at the cost of peaceful family relations and now he tells me he was lying to me all along!!!
Thing is though I cannot imagine dh doing any of these things. He is generally very honest and peaceful. But he does have form for taking all the blame even in situations where he wasn't even there! I suppose he has low self esteem. Part of me thinks this could be his plan to have me forgive the family member who, fwiw, claims to remember nothing about the incident so is no good for clarifying anything. What would you do? Forget, forgive and move on (and forget about troublesome principles in future), apologise profusely to the family member? Kill dh? Arrange counselling for dh??!! I don't know where to begin but suffice it to say I am not feeling the love for dh this morning!

What were the allegations, it does rather depend on that

I feel that those details are too outing. I have championed my husband s position as righteously wronged for years. Basically the accusation sounds much worse than it is (which was the accusers intention). I jumped up and defended him and now find I may have been totally wrong and I suppose that's my wwyd regardless of the specifics of the case. Did he betray me? Am I missing the point entirely? Maybe this is not my battle, and I should just butt out altogether.

It depends entirely on the allegations. If it was child sexual abuse, then it is not uncommon for victims to refuse to participate in a criminal trial or to maintain a 'normal' family. Extended family members pretending it didn't happen or sweeping it under the carpet is normal behaviour. Men lying about being perpetrators is fairly normal too. If the allegation was CSA, I'd believe the victim.

If it were about stealing cash from a purse or who broke an expensive family heirloom, I'd want to know why DH lied over something that he could have fixed years ago by apologising rather than letting this situation continue.

I'm not sure the lying is forgivable even in the second scenario.

The allegations were not sexual abuse though the initial accusation could have been construed as such, nor was it stealing, more verbal abuse.

Depends entirely on what the accusations were and exactly what he did.

Yep, we need the detail to give you an honest, accurate judgement of the situation.

For me, lying is bad. Really bad. Lying consistently over a long period of time about something so important would have me seriously thinking about ending the marriage.

Nothing is going to move forward here unless your dh is completely honest with you. He hasn't been and caused a family feud. You can't move on, any of you until he tells the truth. Whatever it is, is that what you're asking? Because you've not given us much to go on.

This is something I would want to discuss with the help of a therapist

madeleine we have made an appointment, he says he cannot remember details of the event so cannot clarify anything which leaves me having taken a stance on an event that everyone else is now claiming didn't (effectively as they cannot remember it) happen, so how can I back down from this, or even move on with dh. That latter I don't think I can do actually. I feel ridiculous, do not know how to mend bridges with the relative or even if I should bother.

Something broadly similar happened to me. In my case, my XH (then just DP) was sacked from work for gross misconduct; he denied the allegations to me, which were all circumstantial (I worked in the same firm at the time, and defended him). Several times over the years we talked what had happened and who might have been responsible.

Anyway, when our marriage was already in grave trouble, I asked him outright whether he did it and he confessed a half version. And then, in marriage counselling a month or so later, another version that made it clear that he had in fact done it and more than once.

It was the final nail in the coffin of our marriage, TBH.

Not just the original lie almost a decade ago, but the many, many occasions afterwards when he could have come clean and didn't. And the half-truth when it all started to come out. And for allowing me to make a fool of myself at work. The trust had completely gone.