My partner just divulged some of his past to me 3 weeks before we marry

[Dreamingfever]

First of all, I’m going to be mentioning suicide so please don’t read if that will upset you in anyway.
My partner and I have been together for 4 years, we are both in our 50s so won’t have any children together. I have a DS from my first marriage, he has a DD from his first marriage, both now early 20s.

DPs first wife passed away 6 years ago, they’d been split for about 7 years before that and I’ve never pried as to the details of his first wife’s death, not my place nor business.
He didn’t live in the UK for most of his adult life, he’s a dual national so spent most of his life in Spain, his mother is Spanish. His first wife was French.
He had told me that once they split his first wife took his daughter to France, he spent most of the holidays with his daughter (who was 12 by the time they split), would take weekends to visit her. I’ve always thought I couldn’t have lived in a different country to my DS but I wasn’t there, I don’t know what the relationship between him and his first wife was like etc. He seems to have a very positive relationship with his daughter, she lives abroad still (different country from either she was raised in) but he calls her often, visits often and we just flew out to spend Christmas with her.

Tonight he seemed upset, I asked why and he told me it was the anniversary of his first wife’s death. I asked if he wanted to talk about it and he said actually he’d like to tell me about it before we marry.

He told me that his first wife was amazing for many years but when her own parents passed she struggled with her mental health, when they split she asked to take her daughter to her parents home she’d recently inherited and raise her there. He admitted he had been hesitant about her abilities to raise their daughter but he worked long hours, and felt a daughter needed her mother, so agreed.
He then told me that over the years he knew her mother was unwell, an alcoholic he claimed was what he knew. He thought about asking to have his daughter back, reporting it to someone, but feared it would only make things worse. He said he told his daughter she could move home anytime but she never wanted to.
His daughter then moved to a different city for university. Then 6 years ago her mother, his first wife, took her own life, overdose alcohol and prescription drugs.
He arranged everything as his first wife had no living family she was close to, any only child, both parents passed, and her daughter just 19.
He also sold the property and sorted out everything inheritance related for his daughter.

He then said during a deep chat over some wine with his daughter he learned his first wife had been an alcoholic for many years, she never told him as she was scared she’d be separated from her mother. She was honest about her teen years being difficult, often coming home to her mum passed out, making her own meals, taking the metro to school and back unsure of her mothers well being etc.

He admitted he has felt immense guilt since and always finds the anniversary a hard day.

Now I’m conflicted, I feel awful for him. But I worked with young adults and teens for many years and I often felt the excuse of “no one else knew” was a weak one, I’ve always felt it shouldn’t be a child’s responsibility to know when an adult needs help or they need help but someone should be looking out for them, I feel he failed to do this, he knew she was an alcoholic and failed to both protect his daughter and get help for her mother.

This clouds my judgement of him, I feel I can no longer see him as a the devoted father, kind man, and loving partner I believed he was.

AIBU to feel like this? Is it the past, something to be moved on from? Or an indicator that he may not be the kind of man I’ve been made to believe he is?

I dont think it works like that, no. I think the OP is asking if her reservations are justified and she should uproot her life by listening to them.

Just because he personally hasn't emotionally grown enough to discuss important life events and choices he has made, doesn't mean everyone around him has to infantilise his behaviours.

I think now would be a really good time for you both to work on your communication skills tbh. How on earth has this not come up before now?

I think it sounds like he made the best decisions he felt he could at the time. Just because you think they were the wrong ones doesn't really change that. It sounds like a difficult situation, he was an involved father, and he has a good relationship with his daughter now. Maybe with the benefit of hindsight and knowledge he would make different decisions.

The answer to which is “yes, if you feel that is the right thing for YOU”.

She isn’t talking about dumping this man - she’s saying it’s altered the way she feels about him and that’s perfectly ok. It would be ok if she decided this was a reason to dump him also.

A person can leave a relationship for any reason they want.

Tell me you know nothing about male socialisation without telling me you know nothing about male socialisation.

All addicts lie and conceal the extent of their addiction. Visiting once a month will tell you nothing. Remember: he gave his daughter the choice to live with her or not. He looked after her as best he could.
You can't "get help" for alcoholics, they have to seek it themselves.
His daughter seems to have got through it all reasonably intact.
I think you're being ridiculous, or you're looking for a reason to undermine your relationship. That would be where I would focus attention instead of judging a situation which you were previously unaware of, and really doesn't affect you unless you want it to.

No I dont think that is the answer. I dont think all reservations are positive for the holder.

And I think if she’s feeling a certain way and having reservations she should take the time to figure out exactly what it is that’s bothering her and why before she gets married.

There’s absolutely no reason for them to marry anyway. And Certainly no reason to rush.

he may have been aware she had an alcohol problem but not how bad. You can have functioning alcoholics no one would know about

His daughter was worried for her mother and didn’t want to be taken away so said nothing as she didn’t want to move countries

he lived in a different country so how would he know exactly what was happening? And actually you will have the same situation where parents in the same country and kids won’t speak up because they want to protect a parent

if you don’t like what he has done then don’t get married

Why does the OP and her fiance feel that there is actually no need to marry? Or are you deciding that they have no reason?

A very difficult situation. I think it's easy for you to judge this now, an outsider, in 2026. A decade or more ago and also across two different jurisdictions, the situation in which he was put in by his wife may well have been very difficult to manage legally, even if he had been fully aware of what had been going on, which it doesn't sound like. It could be the case he was afraid to rock the boat and lose his daughter completely, maybe he chose a lesser of the two evils? It sounds like he has a good relationship with his daughter and he remained present in her life and supported her as much as he could. I think you are looking at this in a very black and white manner but the situation is definitely grey, multidimensional and I wouldn't rush to be judgmental personally. It must have been difficult for all of them because of the mother.

What do you think he should have done instead, OP?
It's not clear to me that he could have said "Right, daughter lives with me, that's decided, done and dusted."

Sounds like there could have been almighty custody battle, no guarantee he would have won it, and all his shortcomings (long work hours etc) would have been used as accusations against him. Meanwhile, his daughter would have been scared of losing contact with her mother if she lived FT with him.

It's not clear to me that he had simple easy ways to make things turn out how YOU think they should have happened instead.

Older people have long histories and can be hard to explain painful past events.

Well... Yeah. Agreed.

It would seem to me like a very relevant part of his (and his DDs) backstory.
How well do you know his DD? Or how often have you seen/talked with her? I feel like "My mum was a raging alcoholic who took her own life" is something that a young adult - who must have still been in her teens when you first met - would have bought up fairly organically, and repeatedly.

That being said, I don't think I could blow up the relationship over this. It was a very unusual and difficult situation, and I think it's a case of "walking a mile in someone elses shoes before we judge."

Children of alcoholics are parentified, taking on the adult role and looking after them emotionally as well as in other ways, and I'd be concerned about his DD's well being. They may not have worked it out, she may just be following the patterns she learned as a child.
The fact he hasn't mentioned getting his DD any kind of therapy is a red flag.

Really? You think she’d repeatedly bring that up? Especially as she kept the alcoholism quiet for ages to protect her mum. I’d think the opposite. Why would she share that regularly with people?

This is it exactly.

He agreed to letting her move because it made his life easier. He admitted he knew she was struggling with mental health even before the move, and still allowed his young child move to a new country with her mum where they had no family support left. And then only visited monthly? He says he knew the mum was struggling with alcoholism (and it must have been very bad if even he noticed it on the one weekend a month he bothered to visit) and still did nothing except tell his daughter to give him a heads up if she wanted to move.

This sounds to me like a very selfish man, and someone who will only take the easy way out. I can see why you're so disappointed OP and I think you're right to question his character, and whether he'd really be there for you in future if you needed him to be.

Four years in and this comes up. You haven’t pried as you put it, and he hasn’t offered much detail into his life before he met you. Or put it another way, you don’t really know him that well. Don’t marry.

Most of us live our lives doing our best with the knowledge and skills we have at the time. It is easy to sit outside and say we would have done things differently

This exactly.

It's not like he left a baby alone with her and buggered off never to be seen again. The dd was 12 and he offered for her to live with him. He made very regular visits. And then as time passes, he has a teenage daughter telling him she's happy, telling him she wants to stay with mum, who's doing well in school (I assume, given she went to Uni).

I agree with a pp - even though he knew there were alcohol 'issues', he probably didn't really realise quite how bad. He was probably constantly weighing up things like the last two Fridays mum has answered the phone at 8pm slurring, which worries him - against the apparently happy and thriving daughter. Imagining 'doing something' - reporting, dragging the dd kicking and screaming away from where she insisted she wanted to be and the school where she was doing well...imagining the fallout and how damaging that may be for dd. Or losing his own job to move Countries, throwing away all of his life, possibly unnecessarily. The dd says she's good afterall.

It sounds like a very difficult situation tbh and I think the fact he has a good relationship with his adult dd says it all.

He hasn't done anything wrong at all. It's really difficult for dads to get full custody of children, even when the mother is an alcoholic. Probably complicated significantly by residing in different countries as well.

I've been there myself - had to watch from the sidelines while my alcoholic ex neglected our children and took repeated overdoses, despite us having shared care. Social services were heavily involved over a long period, but their perspective was to support a struggling mother. I took legal advice on applying for full custody but was told I'd never win in court and to concentrate on building a better co-parenting relationship with my ex. Our 7 year old DD even got nominated as a young carer to her mother, so she became made to feel responsible for ex's alcohol induced behaviour.

It was only after about 5 years of ss involvement that they finally lost patience with my ex and agreed to support my application for full custody. My eldest now has little to do with her mother, but our youngest still ends up 'supporting' her a bit, despite living full time with me. I can't imagine going through all that across foreign borders as well.

In all honesty, I would not marry again for a million years (although my marriage is virtually problem free for many reasons), let alone someone who would choose to drop his baggage on me (in this way).
If you feel bad about him, just don't tie yourself legally to him.

Curious as to why you think the OP has a right to know this information and every single trauma and event her partner has gone through? She’s not having kids with him, he’s a good person to her, this doesn’t impact on her or put her at risk of anything. So why is it her business? Some people are acting as if he murdered his ex wife or something. Also people who do think they know everything about their partner are usually very very wrong.

I think you don't really want to marry him deep inside for whatever reason, and you have now found this to be an excuse, you're seeking permission to get out. It's telling you have little compassion towards him.

Lets say she says i want to move and he says no, what do you think a lot of people do in that situation? They just move before it gets to court. Courts very rarely make you move back even if they give you a telling off for doing it that way. I have been there when a legal representative advised their client (my friend) who had very good but undocumented and unproven reasons for wanting to go back to Aus.