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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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DH has hidden some heavy stuff...AIBU to want to separate?

829 replies

mummymalta · 29/05/2016 22:53

3 weeks ago DH revealed some very personal things which I feel I should have known before we got married. To be honest, we are all entitled to secrets and personal experiences I suppose, but where do you draw the line?

DH and I have been together for 10 years and married for 7. He's my best friend, I feel like I knew and loved him so much. Affirming these things is very strange to me. We were solid.

A "friend" of DH from the country he used to live in came to a party of a mutual friend of ours. Lets call him Bob. I don't know Bob, DH has only mentioned him briefly and my friend knows him but not well. He came with my friends brother who he is sort of close to. DH didn't want to come to the party (long day) and didn't know Bob would be there. I kissed the kids and ran out the house desperate for freedom on a friday night went to the party.

Get to the party and was enjoying child free time when my friends brother came over to say hi with Bob. "Bob you haven't met DH's wife have you? it's been about 12 years right? "
Bob: "Holy shit - you know I barely remember those days"
He then made a slick comment about him and DH being on coke half the time. I really cant remember what he said verbatim but I sort of nervously laughed (was shocked and he was drunk) and excused myself.

Naturally went home and curiously prodded DH the next morning in bed who waffled about trying it a couple of times and said Bob was a royal prick with a big bouth. I was uneasy that he didn't tell me but nothing divorce worthy. I ask why he didn't tell me and prodded as you do (smelled a rat, wife spidey sense) and then he told me:

He had a coke habit when he went to live abroad in his early twenties right before I met him. He said it was just a bit of fun and just when it started getting a bit out of control he met a girl who he really loved. They had a real relationship and spent a year getting high. Only god knows how he kept his job, but of course drug addiction doesn't necessarily have a face. Anyway she had previously had a heroin addiction and they started doing heavier stuff. He freaked out and ended it. She stopped picking up her mobile and he went to check on her she's dead in flat. Huge drama with her family/ police / drug debt I wont get into it but its fucking insane. He comes home tells no one traumatised. We meet about a year and a half later.

I didnt sense one thing - he spoke of his couple of years abroad quite normally but rarely looking back. I thought nothing of it why would I?

I'm still in shock, not just from the incident, but of the fact that he didn't tell me. I was so shocked that I just said he needs to give me time to digest it. We haven't spoken about it since because I've just shut down. I don't know what's wrong with me - I feel nothing. It's like he's a stranger now. We had a very happy and passionate marriage. Such a great banter affection. Even the kids sense something is off. He keeps trying to talk about it but i don't even hear a word he's saying. I just keep on thinking who are you?

AIBU to want to separate for a bit? I have had no time to digest this?! He said lets send the kids to their nans for half term and deal with this so off they go tomorrow.

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 30/05/2016 23:23

I do drink a little bit DoinItFine

DoinItFine · 30/05/2016 23:24

Whoever that guy was....he is in the past. My husband is lovely

The guy who beat his girlfriend and pimped her out to pay for his crack is no different from the man who cast her aside like a piece of trash, built his privileged life on lies, and now won't even talk about what happened when he has been rumbled.

He's not remorseful, he's not lovely.

He's just another rich white man who got away with abusing a woman and can't be arsed to do an act of contrition for your sake.

Because he is "over it".

What a nasty creep to talk so flippsntly about the serious harm he has done.

If he's so terribly sorry, what has he been doing all these years to out right his wrongs?

Secret donations to drug charities?

Volunteering with victims of pimps?

Support for women's shelters?

A lovely guy would have bern atoning a these years.

Not just being "over it".

mummymalta · 30/05/2016 23:28

fusionconfusion I apologise if i said just once but i'm sorry the fact that it was a one off is better than him chronically beating the crap out of her. By the way I know that being better than the wort doesn't make you good. I just didn't want people to use his story as an opportunity to paint him as more evil than the evil he already was.
The truth is the truth. If he beat her once he beat her once and thats that.
I've already said on here and to him in RL that I will never forgive or forget his actions but that doesn't mean we cant move forward nor does it mean it needs to be a dark cloud that hangs over us forever.
DH did disgusting things
He's a better person now
I don't condone those things
Now we are (slowly) moving on. Maybe time will show that we aren't going not forwards, but on.

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 30/05/2016 23:28

He can stay clean but he's never going to get over being white and middle class. That's a stain that will remain.

fusionconfusion · 30/05/2016 23:30

No, it doesn't make it even one little bit better. Not one. If you want to stay with him, stay with him without minimising violence to another human being. You can tell yourself the story it's the past - that's fine. But beating someone up "just once" isn't okay because it happened "just once". It really, really doesn't - and if you say it is "better", you are minimising and condoning it.. and ask yourself, is this what you want for yourself? Honestly? To be pushed to a place that you are weighing these things up and you are trying to find ways to say these kinds of things are absolutely fine? When you know he didn't come and tell you these things, but it just was outed?

nonladyofleisure · 30/05/2016 23:30

Just read more posts... I definitely think you need the break to absorb the info xx sorry

mummymalta · 30/05/2016 23:32

DoinItFine He didn't cast her aside they both were on drugs and she overdosed after they split up. He called the police when he found the body. He beat her once when he was high on crack. Not right. Wrong. Disgusting. I will never forgive him for it. But just because my husband has done something that disgusts me doesn't mean we cant move on. Not forget, not justify, not downplay - move on thats all.

OP posts:
NoMudNoLotus · 30/05/2016 23:35

Mummymalta - I think it's easier for you to believe that "drugs turn you into a different person".

They don't.

Aside from the drug addiction your DH did some vile things.

If he hadn't had the addictive personality would you be so quick to say it's all in the past ?

This attitude really does a disservice to all the people I have nursed over decades who have had addictions and who who haven't physically hurt or exploited people.

As for saying she cried rape when he declined to buy her crack - are you really that naive?? She had been pimped out for that very reason - the girl would know where to obtain crack if she needed it.

Good luck.

NoMudNoLotus · 30/05/2016 23:35

Mummymalta - I think it's easier for you to believe that "drugs turn you into a different person".

They don't.

Aside from the drug addiction your DH did some vile things.

If he hadn't had the addictive personality would you be so quick to say it's all in the past ?

This attitude really does a disservice to all the people I have nursed over decades who have had addictions and who who haven't physically hurt or exploited people.

As for saying she cried rape when he declined to buy her crack - are you really that naive?? She had been pimped out for that very reason - the girl would know where to obtain crack if she needed it.

Good luck.

mummymalta · 30/05/2016 23:35

fusionconfusion I'm not minimising I'm saying what happened. It happened once (which is one time too many) and I'm disgusted hurt and mortified. But I am also aware of the man he is today and feel like we can move on from this without condoning it or minimising it.

OP posts:
mummymalta · 30/05/2016 23:38

NoMudNoLotus I made a choice this morning to believe him. I had to. Me not believing what he has told me leads down a never ending road of maybe's and what if's and conspiracies. And I believe him because I believe him.

OP posts:
DoinItFine · 30/05/2016 23:38

Move on like he has "moved on".

By pretending all the evil things he did to her and others don't matter.

Hmm

What has he ever done to make up for all the harm he did?

He had no right to be "over" violent, exploitative crime of that nature.

His life after doing such wrong should always be affected by his remorse and efforts to atone.

What has he done, what does he continue to do, to attempt to make up for his past as an abusive, exploitative partner to a woman who is dead because of theife they lived together?

And yes, he did discard her.

The way he described her lack of significance to you was a shocking way to speak about a woman he treated so terribly.

NoMudNoLotus · 30/05/2016 23:38

And if you didn't have the privilege of being able to filter what you hear , and if he didn't have the privilege of being selective with what he tells you - and if you were to be able to WATCH a recording of how he treated that girl and others around him at that time - I wonder if you would make the same decision.

fusionconfusion · 30/05/2016 23:38

There's another thread today where a woman has tried therapy several times to come to terms with her husband who is crossdressing and is now making the difficult decision to leave him as it just isn't working as he's not the man she married. It is really far too soon after learning this information for you to "move on" from this. People take much, much longer to overcome their partner sexting someone from work or admitting to a gay fling when younger and you are talking about your dh having had multiple addictions, taking hard drugs, being involved in prostitution and beating up a woman, possibly even raping her in her mind at least... and you think three weeks on you are over it and moving on, when this morning you were full of suspicion about him? At the very least you should see a professional therapist to work this out and educate yourself on addictions and violence before you make any decisions.

Pomegranatemolasses · 30/05/2016 23:39

Am new to this thread. So, a year and a half after he had this horrendous drug habit, the girlfriend he pimped out, her death, beating her etc, literally a year and a half after all this drama; you met this lovely guy.

He managed all this time to hold down a job, then kick a massive drug habit by simply going cold turkey. By the time you met, a mere 18 months after this, he was simply one of those people who didn't drink.

No hint of his past addictive background ever emerged,

How amazing Hmm

Windsofwinter · 30/05/2016 23:39

There's no guarantee he wouldn't have beaten her again, or that it was just the once. I'm sure if she were her she'd have quite a different story to tell.

Lorsaidthedean · 30/05/2016 23:43

Although I am a little surprised that this desperate crackhead wasn't deported following his arrest. No doubt he has explained this to the op?

NoMudNoLotus · 30/05/2016 23:46

Doin, Pomegranate & Fusion I agree.

I find this thread sickening so I need to leave here now.

mummymalta · 30/05/2016 23:46

Lorsaidthedean Was not charged with one thing.

OP posts:
mummymalta · 30/05/2016 23:49

I don't know how many times I have to say his past behaviour makes me sick and I will never forgive it. That's the whole reason of the thread lest we forget. I'm just saying that after explained why he didn't tell me, and why he would rather not get into it I've softened a little - and feel we can somewhat move on slowly. I feel a little more optimistic.
I'm bowing out too
Seriously - Thank you all. I've taken everything on board. Every last thing.

OP posts:
laidbackneko · 30/05/2016 23:49

nomud I'm now leaving too Sad

Windsofwinter · 30/05/2016 23:50

I still don't see why he would admit this at all, other than to entertain us, considering the only info op had was that "Bob" let slip he'd previously used cocaine. In my experience, people usually admit the bare minimum when caught out. They don't usually admit to being a crack-smoking, heroin-injecting, thieving, lying, violent, "rough sex" loving, pimp who's been questioned for both rape and murder after a little "prodding". Particularly when they have a wife and children and have gone to great lengths to hide this criminal past for over a decade.

PhylumChordata · 30/05/2016 23:53

But it sounds like he may never have been an addict. Which makes it kind of worse.

By contrast when I met my dh he'd been caught up with drugs. it was during the rave scene days. One of his friends girlfriend took a bad pill and she died.

When I met dh 5 years later he sobbed about it, told me the week we met, told me how responsible he felt (he wasn't responsible at all except for being part of a big group who sometimes used drugs). He's never taken drugs again and he still cries when he thinks about her death. He feels remorse intensely and it's 25 years ago.

Citizensmith1 · 30/05/2016 23:53

mummymalta I can't say what I really want to because it would out me.

I'm not convinced he's been honest with you and that's all I can say on here.

I'm sorry you've found all this out and if I had my time again, when I was in similar situation to the one you're in now I wish I'd run for the hills and not believed what I was told by him, becuse it wasn't the truth. I wouldn't have given him the benefit of the doubt or a second chance. But this is your life, not mine. I know you're not going to run for the hills. I hope you'll be okay. x

Lorsaidthedean · 31/05/2016 00:00

So they arrested him for rape, but didn't notice he was a crackhead?

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