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.

He beat her up because he thought she had more crack and wouldn't give him any.

Fusion

Erm why don't you think this sort of shit goes with the rerritory.

Violence, prostitution, self harm, poor health, paranoia, delusions, death pretty much sums up the existence of a crack addict.

Indeed it does but it is not the territory being violent. It is the person. That's recovery 101. You don't get to blame the drug.

What if your naive young DS did something like this in his early 20s. Then changed his life, settled down and became a good man hard working with a good family.

And after 10 years his wife wants to kick him to the kerb for something that happened before he knew she existed.

Nice.

Shit sorry should have rtft. Commuting so hard. Didnt see it was long.

fusion - I'm afraid study after study shows that cocaine is associated with violent behaviour. It may be liked to the effects of the drug on norepinephrine and serotonin, e.g. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1683859

Slightly missing the point there, Shove. You don't get to abdicate personal responsibility because you were incredibly violent on street drugs you chose to take.

Alcohol.is also associated with violent behaviour.

But nobody would be giving this dude a free pass on beating up his girlfriend for not giving him booze.

The problem here is not so much his past as his present.

He is a man who has done terrible wrong and who is not remorseful in any meaningful way.

"Moving on" and putting things behind you is easy.

It doesn't show any moral strength at all.

He is still refusing to be open about the harm he caused. That is not remorse.

Who is giving him a pass on that??

Has anyone seen the film "Shutter". Its set mainly in Japan.

OP may want to watch it. It contains some supernatural crap but aside from that it is close to the ops situation.

Wife finds out DH concealed the death of an ex gf and he was the cause of her suicide.

He told his wife im a different and better person.

She says to him...how does forgetting this make you a better person and the sick thing is you could....you could live with this.

Then she leaves him.

Case in point.

No-one is giving him a 'free pass on beating up his girlfriend'. What we are saying is that his behaviour is inexcusable, but that it goes with the territory of serious drug addiction and that the fact that he was coked up out of his head may go some way to explaining - not excusing - the behaviour.

Just because you admit that an addictive substance is in play does not mean that you are absolving someone of moral responsibility. It just means that the situation is slightly different in volitional terms. Being violent after taking a drug that makes you violent is a different situation from being violent without that drug in play. If I take a substance that makes me see the world in red, and I see the world in red that's not a great surprise. When I come off that substance, I can see the world in my 'normal' colour again.

This is NOT the same as arguing that a person doesn't have responsibility for their actions when they are taking addictive substances. It just gives those actions a different volitional quality. Retribution still has to be paid for damage done in both cases, though.

Also so much of this thread is conjecture, we don't know how these events panned out, mitigating circumstances levels of provocation, they are rarely cut and dried , there will be her truth , his truth and the actual truth will fall somewhere in between.

This is no doubt a pretty unpleasant chapter in his life and it is hardly surprising he wants to forget about it. He has been a model citizen and a great husband and devoted father for the last ten years according to OP and that seems to be what she wishes to focus on. I wish her luck, I suspect she may need some sort of counselling as it is quite a revelation to get beyond.

Everyone who says it was years ago and so irrelevant and who assumes remorse that tgere is zero evidence fir is giving him a pass on his violent, abusive past.

If a woman just came on and said she fiund out her husband severely beat up an old girlfriend and used to take monet from her that she earned on the game, with no mention of drugs being involved, woukd people really say it was ancient history and he was now a different person?

The weird thing is the focus by the OP and so many responders to the drug element.

Taking recreational drugs - meh, you are only harming yourself.

What is significant here is the discovery kf a past highly abusive and exploitative relationship.

We actually have laws to force men to reveal this kind of information abkut themselves.

But apparently if they were on drugs it's all to be forgotten about and no harm done (apart from the inconvenient dead woman).

shove and blindsider I love what you're doing but it just seems like people want to believe a violent man will always be so.

I've never been a drug addict. There are some gritty documentaries on YouTube, it's the closest I'll ever get to that world I pray. Everytime I watched a drug addict tell their story, a wish to improve their lives always followed. OP mentioned the poor lady was on Heroin, and apparently her husband was not. There seemed to always be more deaths in the heroin documentaries. It could be one reason why he escaped and she unfortunately did not. There is no proof he did or did not rape/pimp/exploit this woman. But he did beat her, and to some, this means the OP should throw it all away rather than continue to work with him so both can be at peace with themselves.

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.

I wholeheartedly agree. I think the OP is going through various stages of grief. These revelations are huge and will lead to a grieving process for the man she thought she married, and the marriage she believed she had. Every experience in the future will be coloured by this, unless she blocks it out, as her dh seems to have managed to do. But even that will have underlying repercussions. So, OP if you ever manage to come back to this thread in another phase of what you're feeling, I hope you can get some help to really process this rather than bury it in the name of 'moving on'.

jaydot - thanks . The misery of it can't really be put into words, not least because the drugs are often a symptom of something else (not always, but often).

I absolutely agree with those saying that the OP is going through grief. It is a tremendous shock to realise someone you love, trust and respect has a less than admirable past where they have done terrible things. It will take time to process that. It also takes a great deal of time for that individual to really come to terms with what they have done. None of us want to believe that we, too, can do evil things, and facing that head-on takes time. The notion that someone can simply 'show remorse' and everything is forgiven is crazy (though it would be the easiest thing in the world for this guy just to cry a few crocodile tears for the sake of appearances and then go back to normal). Reality is, if he's serious it will take decades of retribution and remorse. It is a process even a life story, not a moment. The other thing is that it takes a good counsellor to deal with that seriously- there is a temptation amongst the therapeutic professions sometimes to excuse and explain away rather than to confront. Having a therapist who is skilled and experienced at dealing with offending may help.

OP!

12 years is not really THAT long ago, and it's suspicious that he never alluded to any of this throughout your relationship/marriage! If it were my husband, as much as I'd like to bury my head in the sand about it all I wouldn't be able to get over it I don't think.

If it was me that had that past, I think i would be waking up with nightmares regularly and would be consumed with shame and guilt, red flags should be waving from high heaven for me that your husband isn't.

Just out of interest, why did it take you 3 weeks to talk to him about it?

Also, go find Bob!

I'm struggling with the idea that someone so out of his mind on crack, and so desperate to get his hands on more beat his GF senseless then got clean 'just by cold turkey'. So clean that18 months later there was a new life and no traces of anything off or dodgy.

I asked up thread, but what of the crimes they committed and the other people they hurt that OP mentions? Has all this just been swept under the carpet and these people just happy to write it off? If crimes were committed then he still has to answer to them, no? Bob knows him from then and now, thanks to OP, knows where he is. Why is OP not worried about this landing on her doorstep?

You're in shock but tbh, I think he had the right to keep this private.

You need time to come to terms with this. I don't think he lied to you. He just kept it hidden deep inside.

I've done shit loads of things I've not told DH about. Why the fuck would I tell him everything?! (admittedly no dead people to talk about though)

We may marry but we're still our own person , private thoughts etc. It doesn't make any comment on your relationship. He obviously just wanted to totally blur it and forget about it.

Take your time.

I'm struggling with the idea that someone so out of his mind on crack, and so desperate to get his hands on more beat his GF senseless then got clean 'just by cold turkey'. So clean that18 months later there was a new life and no traces of anything off or dodgy.

^^ this :/

OK, just speaking from personal experience here Drug detox takes surprisingly little time - for the physical addiction.

For the patterns of addiction/mental state to resolve can be much longer particularly if the causes of the addiction are quite traumatic. However, a young person who has made a mistake in becoming addicted and can just change scene and crowd probably has more malleability in that regard than an older person who is more rooted in place and culture.

In my case, 18 months was long enough to go from serious addiction and homelessness to uni, where I was the least intoxicated, most goody-two-shoes 18 year old student ever .

Reading all these posts has made me feel a little sad... that some people are of the belief that someone cannot change. Old dog and spots and all that. I disagree. It's true that some people don't or won't change their behaviour all the time but it's also true that many people do.

As humans we're capable of growth and self development IF we commit to that goal. To think otherwise is to deny a very important part of being human.

Weird how your post got deleted Extra , maybe just got mixed up in all the deletions?

Good to see OP being taken seriously, obv I have no idea if OP is telling the truth or researching a book but think its only fair that she be given the benefit of the doubt esp as its such a big issue.

I have no relevant experience (apart from friend with difficult life I mentioned earlier) and def come from a viewpoint that when you are with someone/to marry its important to be truthful and honest. Which OP's H has not done, v difficult situation.

Again best wishes OP