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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not tell my DCs this

107 replies

MiddleAgedandConfused · 14/01/2015 15:45

Background - married my Uni boyfriend in my early twenties, divorced mid twenties - no kids together. Met current DH when I was about 30 and have been together 20 years; 2 DCs, 13 and 16. Family and a few old close friends know I am divorced, but I have no contact with anyone else from that time in my life. Haven't seen exDH for 25 years.
A close family member that I like and trust has told me that they think I should have told my DCs; they think that when the DCs find out I was married before they will be angry and resentful they had not been told earlier.
I have not taken a conscious decision to not tell them - I have never even really thought about it. DH and I have never discussed it. It is something I consider irrelevant - it happened years before they were born, before I met DH, so to me it just a non-story. But happy to tell them if it could be an issue.
AIBU not to say anything?
Or is the other person?

OP posts:
Groovee · 14/01/2015 15:47

My friend recently told me she had been married before her current dh but her DC don't know either. It's up to you, not your family member.

Spadequeen · 14/01/2015 15:48

Why the hell would your dc be angry and resentful? What the hell planet is your relative on?

TeenAndTween · 14/01/2015 15:49

Always better to have the truth in the open.

Can you find some photos of your uni days etc and look through them with the kids, laugh at the clothes etc and then point out 'ooh look that's my first husband, I haven't thought about him for years' and then go from there?

Chrysanthemum5 · 14/01/2015 15:49

I have a similar situation and I was thinking about it the other day. My DCs are younger than yours so I certainly don't plan on telling them now. However in the future I may tell them - mainly in a discussion about bring careful to make a wise choice in marriage!

MrsTerryPratchett · 14/01/2015 15:50

Ooooo. I have having the same dilemma. DD is 4 so no issue as yet. Don't know what to do. It is made interesting by the fact that my friends are still friends with ExH so he does come up. Not around DD.

Pros: She should know that fairy-tales are silly and real love is complicated. It is the truth and part of Mummy's 'story'. Makes it easy and I won't be caught in a stupid web of nonsense.

Cons: DH is wonderful and I want her to know that I love him more than anything except her, having been married before makes that weird somehow. Not important at all, telling her makes it important.

I'm lurking to find out the MN Jury's decision...

DandyMott · 14/01/2015 15:50

I felt a bit unsettled when I found out my mum had been engaged to someone else before she met my dad.

I think it's the I might never have been born type of thinking but also that's a pretty big thing in her life that I didn't know.

TeenAndTween · 14/01/2015 15:51

If it is a non-story then no problem telling them.

Better than when you die and they go through your stuff and find your marriage certificate (first or second saying divorcee).

In adoption we are advised to tell early in an age appropriate manner, then it is never a big reveal just always there.

Fudgeface123 · 14/01/2015 15:52

I don't get why you'd need to tell them? You were married before they came along, it doesn't impact their lives whatsoever and I don't understand why the kids would be angry and resentful

karatekimmi · 14/01/2015 15:52

My DH only found out his mum has been married and divorced after she died. Something came up when form filling out but he'd never been told. Don't think it bothered him though, but worth thinking about. I was shocked he didn't know mainly as he always claimed he was Catholic like his mother!!

MildDrPepperAddiction · 14/01/2015 15:52

It's up to you entirely.

However if I were in your DCs shoes I would be hurt if I found out and my mum didn't tell me.

Original poster
MiddleAgedandConfused · 14/01/2015 15:54

Like Chrysanthemum5 I think I always imagined I would tell them at some point when it was relevant to them - maybe later on in life if they ever need advice related to something like this.

OP posts:
NeedsAsockamnesty · 14/01/2015 15:55

It is your story not the children's and you have a right to keep that private

OrangesJuicyOranges · 14/01/2015 15:55

I asked my mum if anyone had ever proposed to her before dad did. I was about ten. It all got very serious in the room, mum called dad in and they 'confessed' to both having been married before. My sister and I were very upset. I think because of the atmosphere they created when telling us to be honest, I remember my biggest concern being had they had any other children, which they hadn't which was a relief. I wanted to see their wedding photos and they refused to show us high hub upset me as well as I guess it made it feel more like a 'bad' secret.

They are going to find out one day, inevitably. I am glad our parents told me but I wish they'd done it in a more matter of fact, low key way which wasn't so dramatic.

Fatalatomo · 14/01/2015 15:56

Apparently my father was married and divorced years before he met my mum and we were born (they divorced too)

I didn't find out until he died it was quite a shock and it don't really understand and was a little hurt why he would have wanted to hide what I think is quite a big thing to have happened in his past but it's not so thing I really think about now if I'm honest.

I will say though I could really have done without finding out while I was still in shock from his death and trying to arrange his funeral!

I think it's up to you if you want to tell them it's your life and past

NickiFury · 14/01/2015 15:58

I told my children because they asked. Was during a discussion about marriage and how some people get married more than once. They were a bit quiet for a little while but soon got over it. I wouldn't lie about but wouldn't necessarily have told them if they hadn't asked.

Original poster
MiddleAgedandConfused · 14/01/2015 15:58

I have no problem with telling them - I don't view as a secret or something I am ashamed of. It's just ancient history. i just want to do what is best for the DCs.

OP posts:
sliceofsoup · 14/01/2015 15:58

My 6 year old loves hearing stories about how I worked before she came along, what my job was etc. As she gets older I am sure it will become about other things I did before having her. In my situation it would just be a natural thing to tell her if I had been married before.

So my opinion is that I don't understand why your relative is being so dramatic about you having to tell them, but equally, I am not sure why NOT telling them is even a consideration.

sliceofsoup · 14/01/2015 16:00

I have no problem with telling them - I don't view as a secret or something I am ashamed of. It's just ancient history. i just want to do what is best for the DCs.

Xposts. Well then just tell them if it comes up in conversation.

WellTidy · 14/01/2015 16:00

I remember really well the day that my mum told me that she had been engaged to someone else before she met my dad. I must have been about 14. I don't think she planend to tell me, it just came out in conversation prompted by something on the radio. She was really flippant about it, I felt, and didn't really accept that it was a big deal to me. She just said that she'd been engaged to someone else, that she realised that he wasn't what she wanted, and that they split up (it was well ebfore she met my dad). And she saw how surprised I was and said "see, you think I was born age 41, but I wasn't" and that was conversation over as far as she was concerned. She did say that she was really embarrassed when she and my dad later got engaged, and people gacve them engagement preents. She felt that she's already accepted engagement presents once and shouldn't again, especially when people didn't really have lots of extra cash to spare.

We've never spoken of it since.

I wish she'd told me properly, and explained a bit more about why she ended the relationship, any further contact she then had with him, why she felt my dad was a better choice etc.

I might have to ask her again, 26 years on ...

Original poster
MiddleAgedandConfused · 14/01/2015 16:02

sliceofsoup - it's just never come up in conversation. There's loads of stuff I've never told them - this is just another thing.

OP posts:
Ladyofthehouse · 14/01/2015 16:02

When I was about ten I found my mum and dad's wedding certificate which said that my dad had had a previous marriage. He hadn't told me about this but to be honest I didn't feel betrayed or anything. I asked him about it and he explained that similar to you he had married young and it didn't work out, he didn't tell me because it wasn't important.....he loved mum and they were married now. No big drama.

I see no reason why he should have told me at all!

Ladyofthehouse · 14/01/2015 16:03

Also I know my mum was engaged 3 times before meeting my dad.....just came up in conversation. Again no big deal and I never expected a big sit down to discuss it at all.

Original poster
MiddleAgedandConfused · 14/01/2015 16:05

Ladyofthehouse - I had forgotten it would be on my wedding certificate. Interesting....

OP posts:
Bowlersarm · 14/01/2015 16:05

I think you should tell them. I found out my dad had been married before via my older siblings when I was about 16, and it felt very very odd to know that. Inexplicable as to why it felt odd, but it did. My dad never mentioned it, and I felt unable to speak to him or mum about it.

McButtonwillow · 14/01/2015 16:06

I'm in the same position as you middle got married and divorced in my early twenties and have no contact with ex-h. I've never thought about telling the dc, I suppose if the opportunity came up I might but it really has never occurred to me that they would need to know. I'd hate them to feel I'd hidden it from them though, so I'll have to have a think about it.

I view my first marriage as such a non event, I never think about it and only truly felt married when I met my current dh so it's almost as though I've blocked it from my memory if that makes sense?