To think my ex-wife doesn't need to tell my male partner I was previously married to a woman

[Qedwai]

I've created a new account for this. Despite being British born I come from a very conservative family. I was always worried that revealing my sexuality would result in me being killed. This is no exaggeration. My family despise homosexuals. So I hid my sexuality from everyone. When I went to university at 18 I met my now partner. I am now 33 and we have been together for almost 16 years. We have two children through surrogacy (hence why I'm a member of mumsnet).

What he doesn't know is that I was previously married. At 19 I was bullied into an arranged marriage that I never wanted. I was scared and felt I had to go through with it. She was from a different country and I got married islamically (never legally) aged 19. My University course took a total of 7 years. 5 to qualify and three to be fully specialised. This allowed me an excuse to stay away from my wife as much as possible as I was not sexually attracted to her and was never able to have sex.

I was extremely torn as my Partner was putting pressure on me to come out and my wife was putting pressure on me to finalise the immigration process so that she could move to the UK to start a life with me. So at 25 I just came out to my family. They never spoke to me again.

I also explained the situation to my wife. She hated me too which I understand. The only thing I never did was tell my Partner any of this. I came out publicly after coming out to my family and wife and did wrestle with telling my partner but we were in the process of moving in together and I was absolutely terrified of losing him. He was, and is my absolute world.

My ex-wife has remained out of my life for years but recently started saying she was going to tell my Partner that I was married.This is because I am due to marry my Partner in a few weeks time.

I was never able to have sex with my wife and the marriage was annulled when this came to light. So in a way we were never even married.

AIBU to think this is very spiteful for her to want to tell my Partner? Do you think he will be very hurt by this? Enough to call off the wedding? He is a man with great integrity and morals. He will be horrified to think he had slept with a man while that man was married to someone else.

In my circle of friends this scenario has happened to many of them so is not uncommon. If I didn't love him so much I would have told him years ago. But a future without him would be unbearable so there's too much to lose.

alis - well, I would, and it sounds as if, if the OP's partner is a person of high integrity as the OP says, he would too.

I am only speculating, because obviously I don't know the OP, but I am hoping he's wrong when he says he worries his partner would leave. Something that really struck me when I came out was how very common it is for people to have been in heterosexual relationships and marriages, and to have felt pressured into those, and to have found it hard to admit to them. It is much more common than I would have realised from reading your standard Guardian-weekend type coming-out story. And people only tell you when they realise you're in the same boat.

I wonder if the OP could find other people who could advise him how they told their partners about similar situations? Or even, if he could find mutual friends of his and his partner's, who would be able to help him talk it through? That sort of thing can be really helpful.

I think you have lied by omission Op and that will bother your partner more than the actual sham marriage. If your partner has integrity and is moral he will see that you lied to him and your wife. It would be a deal breaker for me.

I don't think she's being a vengeful bitch. She is or rather was understandably bitter. In her eyes you were going to get married and have a life together. This didn't work out the way she expected. It must feel like having a rug pulled out from underneath you when you find yourself in such a position.

I think you should tell your partner of your own volition. It will come as a shock but if you are both in love as much as you say you are then he should understand the reasons behind why that happened. It's not as if you have a hidden second family or are a bigamist.

robins yes, I can see why at nineteen he might not have said anything, but not past that. 25 is not a child. Imagine:

"Been with DP for sixteen years, since we were eighteen. We have two DC together. We're due to get married later this year, but last night DP dropped a bombshell that a year after we got together, he went home to his home country and married a woman in an Islamic ceremony. He then came back to the uK and continued his relationship with me, while his wife stayed back in his home country waiting for him to finish uni and to get a visa for her to come over here. After seven years he finally came clean about being in a relationship with me, and his family have disowned him. Due to the marriage never having been consummated, it was annulled. Now his ex has been threatening to tell me which is why he feels he had to tell me. He said he married under pressure from his family, but I don't understand why he never felt he could tell me, and feel he's only telling me now that he's being threatened by his ex, who I feel he shouldn't still be in contact with anyway. WWYD?"

Do people really believe that the response would be "he was in an impossible situation and had to marry this woman, you need to let this all go." Really? Given the levels of omission on his part? Even if the marriage had never been consummated, the fact remains that this man has been lying to his partner for sixteen years. It's not the marriage, it's the lies, and the reality that he doesn't trust his partner enough to be open with him.

Actually, I called your ex a cow OP and to be fair, that's unkind. I think her reasons for telling your Dp are probably spiteful and I can understand her hurt. She must have been devastated.

I got married abroad at 21 and was heavily pressurised into it. The marriage barely lasted six months. But whenever I get into a new relationship I tell them this pretty early on. If it scares them away then at least we both know early on.
I think if you write it all down in a letter for him to read and then give him the space and time to ask you questions, that might make it easier for him. He might also feel that you didn't "trust" him enough to tell earlier and sad that you've had to deal with this on your own without his support.
Feel free to DM me if you want to OP.

My DP is not on Mumsnet. If he was I wouldn't have posted.

I have aspects of my religion that I believe and that caused me great distress with how I was living. It took me a while to believe that staying with my Partner was not morally wrong in some way. I no longer believe in any aspect of the religion I was brought up with.

I wanted to come out to my 'Wife' as soon as I was 'married' but feared for my life and that of my Partners. I actually feared more for his life than my own.

My family disowning me was the best possible option and the worst would have been fatally injuring us (that is no exaggeration). I have not gone back to my home country since I met my Partner to visit my Grandparents as it is not safe to do so.

The only reason I married and took so long to break off the marriage is because I was scared for our safety. Eventually I gained the courage to do so and just hoped my family would disown me rather than actively harm me which thankfully they did. I knew that I couldn't keep up the pretence.

Not every single one of my family have disowned me. I have two family members who I am still never close to and accept me and my partner.

Sorry I meant HAD aspects of my religion that I believed. I no longer believe any aspect of it.

It is wonderful that you think you would be okay with being lied to for a decade and a half, Robin.

But a great many people would not be. It is a shame not everybody can have the high integrity you do, but the fact of the matter is that they do not.

wanna - yes, I can understand why he would do that at 25. 25 is not a child, but it is still fairly young, and he may still have been hoping against hope that things would somehow work out. People do. It is not at all uncommon for people to keep hoping they'll somehow 'stop' being gay. And you do second-guess yourself.

Your 'imagine' scenario skates over his sexuality, and I don't think it can be skated over.

I do generally get very irritated by this assumption that if you come out as gay, any bad actions within a heterosexual relationship are magically excused and your partner is required to smile and be happy for you - don't get me wrong. But that doesn't mean the OP's struggle should be described as if it's exactly the same as it would be for a heterosexual man in this situation.

alis, you must have confused me with another poster, I think?

Of course you should tell him. This sort of thing will fester unless you just let it into the clear light of day & reason. Just as I hope you felt a burden lift & personal freedom when you came out, you will stop living in tension about what your ex-wife might do.

And stop characterising your ex-wife as spiteful. She is even more of a victim in this, and may well be seen now as "tainted god" and unmarriageable.

Women are far more the victims of fundamentalist religious practices of whatever creed (such as a forced arranged marriage) than men. Have some empathy for her difficult situation; it's far more like your situation than you want to admit.

And if you were forced into marrying her, then imagine what pressures were put on her, as she is living in a country where female infanticide, dowry murder, and the banning of education for women & girls are not unheard of.

What do YOU want to do OP?
You've already lived with secrets, do you want another one around you? Do you want to start your new married life based on honesty and openness - because I am sure that what you'd expect from your DP too.

The only two questions you've asked in your opening post are:
AIBU to think this is very spiteful for her to want to tell my Partner?
No I don't think it is spiteful of her. She is hurt and distraught, but both you and her need to move on from this. And to be honest whether she is "spiteful" or not shouldn't be your main concern right now - your DP and your children should be.

Do you think he will be very hurt by this? Enough to call off the wedding? Very likely he'll be hurt and upset - I can't imagine he'll be happy and thrilled. But as mentioned before he might feel a multitude of other emotions: sadness, distrust, worry etc. But you'll only know the answer to that if you tell him. And I bet he'd be a whole lot more upset if he found out from exW rather than you.

I'm afraid I'm with the PP who have expressed sympathy for your DW; regardless of your own path, hers was one where she believed she was married; waited (presumably faithfully given culture) for seven years - seven years at the prime of her life in many respects - for her husband to return home and to start a family.

Whichever way you cut it, and I promise I get how hard your own path has been, from her POV she was married, her DH cheated on her and had 2 children with someone else. Whilst your path has been hard, you have at least built your life up year by year and had a life; I suspect she had little of the latter and she very clearly had none of the former as, as far as she was concerned, her life was already 'built' but simply on pause whilst she waited for her husband to come home.

Likewise your DP has had a very big part of your life kept secret from him whilst he built a life and a family with you. Both of them have been deceived around things they each had a right to know IMHO. Also, in terms of telling him now I would get in there first as how can you actually prevent her from telling him now if she is inclined to do so? Ergo I'd defuse, or at least minimise power of, that bomb before she drops it.

Sep, I would very strongly advise you to ask MN to move thread to OTBT/30 days as you are describing a highly unique - and thus uber personally identifying - situation. IE I doubt there are many marriages due in next few weeks between a Muslim Doctor and a 'British liberal' who already have DC. I'm concerned you are going to inadvertently out yourself here before you've even had a chance to decide what to do vis telling DP.

I think that you have behaved appallingly in all of this, you should apologise to your Ex and come clean to your current partner, ask for his forgiveness and reassure him that your relationship with his and your DC's is where your focus and commitment for the future lies.

FWIW I would forgive you if I was your DP but you would have some serious making up to do. I have dear friends whom are Gay and were married to a female, in one case fathering children, they came out and made things right with their ex's and DC. You need to do the same.

Your comments about your partner are full of contradictions, he must be fairly liberal to be in your family set, therefore don't use his integrity as a reason to continue with your deception.

I know that I have given you a hard time here but I wish you well with your family and wedding plans, if I knew you in RL I would give the same advice and be supportive of you.

tainted goods

darn phone!

Of course your wife has no right. Can she really still be bitter, she's hanging on a lot of anger still.

OP tell your DP
Then I hope you will continue to be happy together for many years, it must be awful to of not been allowed to be who you are in your culture. How incredibly sad near all of your family dis owed you, so sad to read.

I think you should tell your partner, explain it exactly as it happened - you were coerced into a fake marriage, one that was neither legally registered nor consummated, with a woman who lived in a different country. Your parents set this situation up, not you.

Yes, you should have told him ages ago - but in most senses of the word, you were NOT married. Islamically you might have been, but since the marriage has since been annulled, it no longer exists. Your slate has been wiped clean.

Your wife would be unnecessarily spiteful to do this to you now, IMO - but since there is a risk of it, you must pre-empt her and do it yourself.

Good luck.

It would be wrong of your wife to say anything. She needs to let go or she risks becoming bigger.
Yes I am sure she is hurt but that is no excuse. I am sure I'd be hurt if I was the wife but I would also feel sadness for my DH knowing that he spent so long not 'allowed' to be who he really was because that is not how life should be for anyone.

Tell your DP, the marriage was annulled so in a way the marriage was never confirmed if you like. You had no sexual relationship and I am sure your DP will understand the pressure you was under to marry at that time.

I wish you many years of happiness OP, it was be awful to be dis owned by your own family just for being who you are

I feel really really sorry for the woman I married. She's done nothing wrong, had been waiting for years to consummate the marriage and move to the UK and have children and it was never going to happen. I was never conflicted. I always knew I would never consummate the marriage. I would never have done that and cheat on my Partner.

After two years the marriage technically became annulled as the marriage had not been consummated. But it was her that put pressure on me to tell no one and this was why we kept that fact secret for so long. She was happy to just move to the UK with an annulled marriage.

I have been completely physically faithful to my Partner. I know I got MARRIED but I have never been physical with anyone but him and this is my only secret I have kept from him.

I knew that if I told him about being forced to get married at the time he would have outed me to my family or dumped me. Neither of which I could have coped with at the time. If I'd been with him longer when this happened first this would never have happened, but we hadn't been together long when all this started.

We have an incredible relationship now. We get on incredibly well without arguments.

I wonder if something has happened in her life that makes her feel differently now?

Also, you say your partner would have dumped you or outed you - but he was (presumably) 25 too, right? And you did not have two young children. He might feel quite differently now.

It sounds as though you have had a truly horrendous time. I am concerned though, that you are marrying someone who you can't be honest with. He is either not the right person for you, or you are doing him a dreadful disservice.

I agree, you must tell your partner, before your 'ex wife' does.
For what it's worth, I am from a white liberal family, and do have sympathy and empathy, both for you and your ex. I even have some sympathy for your family. What a shame that they feel unable to love their child unconditionally .
It's a very sad situation all round but you can move on. Good luck.

You need to tell your partner. Regardless of what he decides to do he deserves to know. You don't want something like this hanging over you. Start your marriage on a fresh footing.

Also fwiw I would forgive you too. I'd be mightily fucked off and you'd have a lot of making up to do but I think I would get past it.

It would be a thousand times worse to hear it from someone else.

If your partner wouldn't understand what you have been through then you shouldn't marry him! You do need to tell him, secrets can kill marriages. Think of what you have already been through together, surrogacy etc. You will feel better being honest. 💐