AIBU to ask how you’d react if you discovered DH was a spy

[TheHorseWhoBecamePope]

Let’s say that you discovered your DH was living a lie. His job wasn’t real and was, in fact, a cover story. In reality, he worked for the secret service and was unable to tell anyone, even his spouse. How would you react?

Would the lies be too much, even if there was a valid reason for them?

Would you find it exciting?

Would you end the whole marriage? Conclude that your relationship was built on sand?

I thought the same, but it could all be part of their cover.

I would hope to god he didn’t get caught as he would confess to anything in exchange for Tony’s chocolate

I’d assume he’d been sacked ages ago as he can’t hold his own water or be discreet! He’d be the worst spy ever 😂

Wonder where all the money was! He's certainly not making enough to be a spy, or if he is, he's stashing it away somewhere.

I don't know how true this story is because I've only ever heard it third hand, via my mum and her friend. I grew up alongside the two children of this friend and it was one of the relatively rare situations of the two mums' friendship being the primary one and us kids being thrown together and never really getting on.

Mostly because of age differences. The doom laden fourteen year old brother was four years older than me and the sister was a seven year old who put on a baby voice and pretended to be much younger than she was. I was around about ten and no doubt was found just as unsuitable a companion by both of them.

The two Dads contrived never to meet at all if possible.
An odd dynamic to say the least.

The boy later joined some kind of obscure army unit and was heard of years later in Northern Ireland.

This now grown up brother was a kind of shifty sort who, "Infiltrated" a paramilitary unit - no idea which side - with a fake girlfriend who didn't know she was a fake, a made up identity and the rest.

Anyway, he was unsurprisingly rumbled and was in other kinds of trouble with the army and got kicked out in the end. Allegedly.

It was all a bit garbled and resembled the plot of The Crying Game in parts. Minus Dil's big reveal in the middle.

(The bit where everybody quietens down and starts concentrating again when they were on the point of screaming at the terrible false Irish accents, Miranda Richardson's wig and the ridiculous casting of Forest Whittaker as the American put in the film to make it sell in the US.)

I do have other friends in the British military these days and they've scoffed at the idea being plausible. We knew things of that nature did or possibly still do go on, We just didn't think he was ever part of them.

The pub argument about the rubbish spy/Crying Game plot usually used to move on to somebody in the group being adamant that in their memory, Cathy Tyson played Dil and being corrected that they were getting mixed up with either, "Mona Lisa" or, "Band Of Gold" for obvious reasons that I sharn't spoil in case some of you would like see a terrible film from 1992 for the first time in 2026.

Then it would move on to me being sure that Paul McGann was the male lead when it was actually Stephen Rea. "Any relation to Chris Rea?"

Then we'd get another round in.

DH was military and worked closely with cheltenham linguists in an interesting location. He never told me anything about them! He also once had a meeting in vauxhall. Some friends used to call him Cdr Bond, but he’s categorically not a spy!

Well seeing as I had to reteach DP some aspects of secondary school maths for part of his job, he's never going to be spy material even though his work does take him all over the country at strange hours and he spends a lot of time hanging about in his van.

In reality he has to go and set things up, wait for an event to happen and then pack it all away again, or so he tells me.....

My DH, many decades ago, go the “tap on the shoulder.”
He came home and told me, his friends and the rest of the family. He never heard anything again.

I'd assume the security services were playing the long game and really wanted me.

Or did he never hear anything again……?

I'd be really upset as it goes everything he stands for. I would probably leave - I appreciate that spies are necessary but I don't want to be married to one. However, we both work in a field where we have certainly met spies and have known people who work in intelligence.

haha reminds me so much of DH's 60th birthday party.

Lots of speeches of friends and colleagues-several saying he was the smartest person they knew etc -alll sorts of accolades (he is very clever in a specific way)

DC were laughing their heads off as the current family joke was that he was chatting in the kitchen and absentmindedly took some cauliflower stubs out of the food recycling on the counter and was eating them as we chatted.

So there is book smart and life smart...

I have a friend that worked in this kind of field. You can tell from my vagueness how little detail he was able to give. We knew he worked for the government, and the vague location of where he went to work, that's it. He left after a few years and does something completely different in data now. I've never considered him to be an underhand person, just someone who is very able to compartmentalise and keep important things secret. Lovely guy.

Contrasted with that, I had a friend who worked in the Police. He had to deal with some of the worst things imaginable. I get the impression it has deeply affected him. He's had lots of therapy now, but it's one of those things which we would never bring up for fear of upsetting him, but which he might talk about little details of if drunk and maudlin. So, much less compartmentalised than the other friend.

I would be pissed off thinking about the last six months I spent helping him apply and look for work and practice for interviews in an entirely different sector, arranging my work around school pick ups when he needed to be interviewing, tightening our belts without the second income coming in.

The extent to which he'd unnecessarily wasted my time would be unforgivable if he was employed the whole time. I don't think I'd mind about the line of work he does although I'd have questions about the potential safety of the work with young kids.

Theres no way on gods green earth id believe it and id probably think he needs sectioning because he would obviously be in the middle of some kind of delusion 😅

If you're talking about a spy cop who has falsely engaged in a relationship with you as part of his undercover "mission", then you're absolutely right to feel violated and abused by him. If it's a real relationship that has nothing to do with his spying, and you're okay with him doing that, then I'd accept it.

I meant to add, out of the two I'd much rather be married to the 'government' one. I actually feel that his ability to be steady and contained would make me feel more trusting of him, oddly.

Touché

I'd think my dh was having a laugh. If I heard this story second hand about someone else's dh, I'd assume he was lying because I really don't think that's how it works these days.

I'd be really shocked with my DH simply because he would be rubbish at it.

I have an acquaintance however who would not be shocked if her husband was.

He "works for the govt" and is very vague about what he does.

Exactly, I don't think you could 'just discover' that your DH is a spy, for the UK government at least, because he and his immediate family would need to be security cleared to a high level so would have had to fill in all the forms for this.

Mine once tried to pay for a round of drinks when drunk with his clubcard so I'm not sure he would be very successful.

I knew a guy who got a job working in Cheltenham and he was very keen to say BUT I CAN'T TELL YOU ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

Tit.

Most DHs on here are absolutely crap, so I can’t imagine they’d be any good as a spy.

I'd wonder whether he has found out that I am a spy and have been for decades