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

[mummymalta]

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.

And OP before I do actually go - just one last thing - you do know don't you that pimps don't actually need to put girls actually on a street to be a pimp don't you ??!!!!

He pimped her out. No re-phrasing of yours will change that. He "used the money she earned to buy drugs" are you really that naive ??!

I look after traumatised women who spend their whole lives trying to recover from violence and sexual exploitation - sometimes one incident of beating is enough to ruin a life.

I really am off now.

.

I have to stand up for Mummy here, there's a great deal of projection on this thread, there's a great deal of ignorance, sorting the wheat from the chaff for Mummy, who's had a terrible shock will not be easy.

All I can say is Mummy, I hope you have the fortitude and the self-awareness to deal with this sensibly.

The fortitude because you've been dealt a killer-blow, you didn't imagine for a moment that the steady man you married could have for one minute been involved in anything like this.

The self-awareness? Well, you know him much better than us, I think you can look at this thread, take it in, and then make your own decisions, because you know him, we don't, we're simply giving our experiences or opinions as we see it.

You have obviously been utterly rocked by these disclosures, it's now up to you and your husband how you deal with them, I would say, in his defense, it didn't seem there was any obfuscation when it all started to come out, he obviously feared the disclosure initially, but told you all, and there's much to be said for that.

From my experience, people can change, they do change, and honesty is a HUGE part of that journey.

Best wishes to you all.

'People deserve a second chance if they face up to their mistakes and are genuinely contrite and remorseful. Not sure if mummymalta's dh is in this category. He may be in the deny, minimise and brush under the carpet category.'

And now mummymalta you're colluding with him to a degree.

I don't think he's told you everything because he knows you would leave if he did.

He DID pimp her out, massaging semantics won't change the FACT

You only have his word that

She introduced him to the drugs
The rape allegation was false (extremely rare even with addicts)
That he 'only' bear her once

I'm also the daughter of an addict and come from a family of addicts (mainly alcohol but also drugs including heroin etc). In my experience it reduces inhibitions BUT it doesn't change who they are fundamentally. People who are violent/aggressive are anyway regardless of what substances they take, the reverse is also true.

I agree with a pp who said blaming the drugs for heinous violence is insulting to those addicts who DONT do this.

All that said I would also like to be a little advisory to you - you don't have to stick to any decision you make now. You have children in this mess to consider also. If AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON you feel you can't live with him/his past YOU CAN LEAVE AT ANY TIME. If he tries to convince you otherwise it's not his decision to make as ultimately he majorly deceived you!

Re the pp's shocked that ow/affairs people have been vilified far more than this husband I agree. But then mn generally speaking seems to 'think' drugs aren't that big a deal. It's one aspect of mn I hate.

They are illegal, dangerous, cause misery and suffering for millions (and not just those directly involved just look at the exploitation and corruption of whole countries by drug cartels), it IS a big deal. Personally I think uk is getting far too complacent in it's attitude to drugs.

Argh fucking hate auto correct and no edit

You only have his word that he only beat her once (although that's bad enough that I would leave if a partner of mine confessed this - even without drugs etc being a factor).

This thread is so sad.
For so many reasons.

MrsPMT Cross-posted Extra you said the same, and put it better than I did

Thank you MrsPMT. Weird how my post got deleted but yours didn't huh. I'm glad they didn't delete yours, but I'm pretty pissed off that they deleted my post asking people to stop troll hunting, yet left other troll hunting posts there. It makes it look like I was troll hunting.

MummyMalta. I wasn't troll hunting at all. Fwiw, I believe you.

I think you need to see how things go. Right now you are scared of losing him, being without the man you love, splitting up your family 'for something that happened in the past'.

Your brain can't put the things he did in NY together with the man you love, you are currently able to keep them separate, however, I think it's simply too much to do that for the rest of your life. Earlier on you posted...

"I've asked him a couple of times why he doesn't drink and he always calmly just says it's not for him and it just seemed so reasonable at the time. Loads of people simply don't I have a friend who has never ever ever touched a drop of alcohol so I never questioned*

He's spent 10 years lying to you on a reasonably frequent basis. Everytime you had a discussion about alcohol, drugs, violence, police etc Snippets of other conversations will come back to you, the times he chose to lie to you again and again instead of telling you the truth.

To me, his comparison re 'you wouldn't ask a prostitue to tell you about all of her tricks' tells you so much about him, if only you'd listen.

You're both trying to put the worms back in the can and it simply cannot be done 🙁 Not without it turning you into a shadow of your former self.

💐

He's spent 10 years lying to you on a reasonably frequent basis. Everytime you had a discussion about alcohol, drugs, violence, police etc Snippets of other conversations will come back to you, the times he chose to lie to you again and again instead of telling you the truth.

Good point

It was ultimately horrible and sad and he put it behind him. Don't let it spoil what sounds like a good relationship.
Good luck with coming to terms with it together.

I don't get this judgmental position. Things happen, sometimes we make decisions in our lives which aren't admirable. I haven't read the whole thread but unless he used to be a drug dealer who's not sorry for that, why be so tough? I don't believe I have to know everything about my partner's past and get that people sometimes simply want to forget and move on and not make what happened a major event shaping their future relationships.

Clandestino you really need to at least read ops posts

NOT just drugs, pimping, extreme violence and exploitation, rape allegation...

DH kindly but firmly told me he understands me being upset but he's not going there and said the only reason he told me is because he didn't want to lie to my face. He said he's told me enough and yes of course he didn't tell everything but the notion of that we need to know every last detail of each others lives before meeting is romanticised rubbish

There is all sorts wrong with this. There is more and he is hiding it.

The only reason he talked to you at all is that his friend blurted out his secret. If this hadn't happened and if you hadn't pursued it then you would never have been told.

Plus, if it's all a drugged up blur how can he be sure he didn't rape her (and he must have raped her if they 'had sex' while she was drugged up - how did she give consent?) or beat her 'only' once.

math I believe the OP said he reported that there was rough sex and that "she didn't say no."

Poor lass wouldn't have been to say no he was pimping her for gods sake.

If he doesn't want to discuss it further he has very right.

Perhaps he's worried about the tin of worms it opens.

There isn't a Marriage vow which demands free knowledge into every aspect of your past. Really don't understand why so many people are adamantly against him keeping anything back.

There's also a lot of projection here.

I suppose for me the crucial thing is you've said you've a caring, happy marriage. Can you live with the fact that at some point hubby was in a toxic drug addled relationship where he was his worst self?

The only thing imo that your husband has done is beat his ex girlfriend up.

Sadly there are plenty of women using prostitution to finance a drug habit and whilst we will never know what happened it doesn't take too big a leap to imagine an habitual drug user in withdrawl shouting rape as her BF(and frequent source of finance for drugs) won't give her money to buy some. Her death could easily (and most likely) be an overdose.

OP the reason your husband doesn't drink is BECAUSE he is an addict, he knows if he gets pissed all the inhibitions to stop taking drugs etc. Will vanish. It may well be he has had a long look at himself 10 years ago and has determined to live a different life. Good luck.

Sorry that was meant to read the only inexcusable thing your husband has done wrong is to beat his GF up. The rest is assumption.

Yup, that's all. Just beating up a woman because she wouldn't give him crack.

Nothing to worry about. No big deal.

I'm sure she wasn't afraid of him.

Just a total one off completely out of character and there were no other times she had to worry about refusing him things he wanted.

I am absolutely NOT excusing what he has done in the past. His behaviour has clearly been abhorrent.

BUT unless he has a secret parallel life you know nothing about, which I think is unlikely, he has also changed. He has, by your account, been a good husband and father. That's partly why these revelations are such a shock, right?

Redemption is important. People can change. They can learn, grow up, rebuild their lives, alter their moral commitments. All of us alter with time without even being aware of it (how many of us can honestly say we wouldn't cringe at our teenage selves?) It sounds to me like your DH has made a huge commitment to something much healthier with you and your family and that there is little of that past life still around in his present self.

I do think that coming to terms with a past like that is important, and I think the fact he's been honest with you now is actually a sign of trust and faith in your marriage. You are right, however, to think that there is work to do so that you can both assimilate and deal with the consequences of the past. It's been black boxed for so long, it's now time to get it out and look it in the eye - and that requires a whole different level of moral courage from your DH. But it can be done.

And before anyone accuses me of being naive, I was a drug addict myself when younger. And before anyone then accuses me of being weak, I think that being abused and raped was a large factor in my becoming homeless and addicted before I was legally an adult. Behind a lot of drug stories there is pain that is intolerable. I am now deeply middle class, and most people who know me would be very shocked if they knew about my past.

He hasn't beej honest with her now.

He is refusing to talk about what happened becausevhe can't be arsed.

She only knows what Bob knows because he had to tell her that much.

Redemption is possible.

But not for a person who makes no amends.

Givibg up the drug life and going home to a privileged conventional life is not a moral act.

He did what suited him and what he wanted.

What has he ever done to atone for the legal and moral crimes he committed and the significant harm he did?

Nothing, it would appear. Not a single thing.

Why separate? Can't see any reason to do so. He is clean now, was when you met him and has been since. We all have a bit of a past. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I agree that he needs to move on to that stage now DoinIt - I just said that above.

However, confronting really terrible things you have done requires real moral courage because there is a cesspool of self-loathing that will hit him when he actually confronts the magnitude of what he's done. It sounds to me like he's avoiding/rationalising like crazy at the moment - he's compartmentalised his life into a neat before and after. I think that's probably quite a normal reaction to guilt, though it is cowardly. We all want to avoid confronting the magnitude of bad things we've done. But he does need to come out the other side and start dealing with it openly and honestly if he's going to live with himself. However, it's early days - this is a massive moment of revelation, and no-one makes that huge leap from denial to acceptance in a day or two!! Time is needed.

There is a reason those people who have committed crime often fear confronting the victim of their crime more than they fear prison! And why that can be a more transformative moment for them than being inside.

Doinitfine

Where does it say that he beat her up for not giving him crack, the bit I read was he beat her up whilst high as a kite so clearly had got the stuff.

I am not suggesting any of this is nice, it's drugs culture which is beyond fucked up but all this sort of shit goes with the territory.

I don't think having a code of morals where beating someone up even 'just once' is considered unacceptable is 'projection'. Ironically enough I am an absolute bleeding heart liberal who would give everyone a second chance but none of this sounds healthy as it is. If you conceal very serious events from your past in an intimate relationship you do not have 'every right' to choose not to communicate about this when it is found out. Or rather you do, but not to expect the other person to accept that as it is your preference.

The big concern is not the past. It is now. The OP had very different instincts about this 24 hours ago. Now it is all about 'moving on'. Honestly there have been very minor revelations that have rocked many a marriage that have taken a lot longer to resolve. OP needs time to pass and given the gravity of these admissions ideally professional help with someone skilled and objective to ensure the decision she makes is her decision and not based on the perspectives of others, including ALL of us on this thread. Anything else is just fudging the issue but it won't just conveniently go away. The burden of knowledge is too great. Everything has a different frame now one way or the other and there can be no going back.

And no this shit does NOT go with the territory and even if it did the OP did not marry someone who had been in this terrain with full knowledge or consent. Savoury has fuck all to do with it.