AIBU to wonder if I have left mentioning a third marriage too late?

[CosyPinkOtter]

I turned 40 in June. Life hasn't exactly gone the way I imagined it would in terms of my relationships.

I've been married three times and have two children. One child is with my first husband and the other is with my second husband. It wasn't the future I pictured for myself, and there were some difficult years, but I left those marriages for my own reasons and I'm much happier now. These days we co-parent well and everyone gets on well enough, so there's no drama and my children get to spend time with both parents and aren’t missing out on time with their fathers.

I've been seeing someone for almost a year now. He's 43, married once, divorced himself and has two children, so he completely understands the co-parenting side of life. Things have been going really well and are starting to feel quite serious.

Here's the bit I'm wondering about.
He knows my children have different fathers. He knows I've been married before. What he doesn't know is that I've actually been married three times. All I’ve said is ‘I’ve been married before and my children have different fathers’ then we both started talking about our children.

It's not that I've deliberately lied or tried to hide it. It just...never really came up. Early on it didn't seem relevant, and then as more time passed it somehow became more awkward to mention. Every time I've thought about bringing it up I've worried it'll sound as though I've been keeping a secret.

I know I need to tell him, and I will. I'm just wondering whether I've made this into a much bigger issue by leaving it so long.

So I was right? Sorry, your answers are quite confusing!

If I’m right, your eldest has now lived with three different men in a ‘father-figure’ role. And you are not discounting getting married again.
You do know that this really affects children, don’t you?

My eldest has lived with their father and my youngest’s father but let’s agree to disagree you seem to know more about my children and their fathers

Seriously OP, where do you get off being sarcastic with another poster who is QUITE RIGHTLY pointing out the massive inconsistencies in your own explanations of your family set up? We aren't mind readers. We can only form an opinion based on the information you give us. If you communicate really poorly and say things that contradict one another from one post to the next, and then even when it's been pointed out you don't make any great effort to clarify or correct your previous statements, you can hardly blame us if we start to think you are full of shit.

You are clearly a rather difficult, evasive, frustrating and bewildering person to communicate with, so no we will draw the conclusion that no wonder you've been divorced three times.

But not your third husband?
You (and your eldest) didn’t live with your third husband?

We aren’t disagreeing, we’re clarifying.
I know you’re ashamed of your 3 marriages and divorces, but you also need to take accountability for what you’ve put your children through. Your ‘details’ appear to be trying to minimise it, but they aren’t standing up to any sort of scrutiny, and your flippant replies of ‘oh, you know best…’ etc only make it worse rather than better.

The inconsistencies are because I don’t want to put every little detail on a public forum. I’m allowed to be inconsistent on mn surely. If I have broken the rules you’re allowed to report the post.

And alright but you don’t really know why I am divorced or know any of the details if I told you I think you’d understand. I didn’t go into marriage in hopes of getting divorced.

Would it? With children in the mix. I’m don’t think so.

OP, your posts have been v confusing! So there were three marriages. The first had no children. You had one child from marriage two and one from marriage three. The second child’s father didn’t live with you all very much? Hope I have it right.

Whilst I accept the details don’t matter, when reading a post, if things don’t make sense it distracts from focusing on the OP! Which is a shame for you as you won’t get the responses you want.

Just tell him and be honest without apologising too much and looking like you are ashamed. Just be brief and summarise what happened, without putting yourself down in any way. It is how life panned out so don’t make it look like you need to grovel. Men leave marriages a lot, yet women who look after the kids get criticised. The treatment of Ulrika Jonsson in the press was just awful. Hold your head up high.

Well if he hasn’t actually outright asked, I would assume it’s not important to him, and isn’t a deal breaker. And why do you need to volunteer the information? It’s not the same as admitting you’ve spent five years in jail, or that you like to dress in women’s clothes - important and relevant issues. I’d just not bother unless it comes up in conversation.

People are being very judgy here, ignore them. But also, you could have a life long relationship now that doesn't involve marriage. It might be simpler inheritance wise to all the children involved?

But we know that from what you’ve told us: ”I've been married three times and have two children. One child is with my first husband and the other is with my second husband.” So from this we get the information that child 1 lived with husband 2 and husband 3, unless child 1 went to live elsewhere during this whole sorry tale.

Child 1 is under the age of 18 and has seen you with at least 4 partners in this time.

We’re quoting things you told us and now you’re saying we’re making assumptions!

It sounds like you meant to say to your DP that your children are from your 2nd and 3rd marriage but you’ve said they were children of your 1st and 2nd marriage (like you did in your OP which is why everyone is confused).

I wouldn’t judge a partner if they had been married 3 times at all- things happen- but I would be a bit wary if they accidentally on purpose described things in a misleading way.

Why would I need to take accountability on here ? I’m so confused by all these expectations on a public forum. You don’t know me ? I’ve had counselling these weren’t easy decisions to make at all. They’ve really affected me and will of course affect my children. It doesn’t mean I’m not going my best to make the situation better and to give them all the support they need.

My eldest has lived with his father and I then we divorced and I met my youngest’s father and my eldest lived with both so us. Maybe I’m a terrible mother for that but to this day they get on very well. He classes my eldest as his child too. My youngest has only ever lived with their father. My eldest has lived with both.

One I was married to before my children ever existed we’ve been separated longer than my children have even been alive. I was in my early 20s it didn’t last long for various reasons mainly because we were young and silly.

Got it. Think I finally understand!

You don’t have to take accountability on here, but you do have to take accountability with your new partner. This will play into how he feels about your third marriage and any possible fourth.

Good luck!

Okay as you know more about how many partners and the time lines or even how old my children are.

I’m too scared to marry once.

In your OP you say you didn’t deliberately try to hide it, but that is exactly what you did. By not telling him you’ve hidden it.

This is what I said to a friend of mine who was embarrassed about having been married 3 times! I think it shows that you have a big heart and you are optimistic in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary!

Just tell him that you haven’t found the right time to bring it up but that you want him to know that it wasn’t just the two dads, but another long term partner you were married to.

My DP has been married twice and wants to marry me too. I think it’s lovely that he still has hope that a relationship can last, that he wants to stand up in front of his friends and relatives and state that he loves me and wants to commit to a life together.

He does feel mildly awkward about inviting the same people tbh, but these days plenty of us have been married before. Some more than once. It doesn’t diminish the love we have felt even though it didn’t work out.

I was also with an ex for 10 years without being married. Doesn’t mean that wasn’t a serious relationship, it just didn’t happen at the time. He hadn’t married the mother of his DCs after 10 years either, so he has 2 x 10 year relationships in the bag with no marriages. I’d be less likely to want something long term with a man who hasn’t married at all than one who’s been married several times tbh!

Just be open, apologise for it not coming up before as the conversation when it would have naturally come up went along the kids route, and then he can decide if the marriages or the lack of a transparency are a deal breaker for him. Good luck!

Am I the only one reading the OPs posts in my head using the voice of Ross from Friends?

You have been very inconsistent and confusing in your thread which you freely posted on a public forum. You asked for advice and were given it but you don’t like the answers.
Three failed marriages by 40 is a lot and not telling your current partner the truth isn’t positive. A fourth marriage really would be the triumph of hope over experience and it’s striking that you aren’t ruling another marriage out.

It's not that you are not allowed to be inconsistent. It's just that if the thread is confusing, full of holes and makes no sense then it's a waste of our time trying to draw any conclusions on the situation you are asking for opinions on.

You don't need to put every little detail of your life on MN. But if you are going to give any detail at all then you do at least need to make sure that detail make sense in relation to other things in the thread, or the whole thing is a waste of time.

You literally said your eldest was from your first husband then said there were no kids from your first marriage.

You literally said your eldest has only ever met his half sibling's dads on a handful of days out. And then you get annoyed when people wonder if your second child's father was someone other than one of your three husbands, or that you married someone you didn't live with and didn't bother to integrate your eldest child with first, or that your eldest child didn't actually live with you.

But instead of explaining the mix up and clarifying the detail, you get all shirty and sarcastic with the people, while continuing to be a bit cryptic about what you actually meant.

It's not the accidental slip ups in trying to guard your privacy that are the problem, we can all do that with white lies, pretending we have 2 girls instead of 2 boys and then accidentally referring later to our daughters. Caught out in an innocent fib for privacy's sake. No-one minds that.

It's just that these particular lies of yours are making a mangled nonsense of the thread. They are making it hard to fairly judge the situation you are asking us about.

And frankly, your weird and flippant attitude when being questioned about your own inconsistencies is a bit of a red flag as to your personality type.

You don’t know why I ended my marriages.

Because you could as you had rich parents willing to throw money at you when you needed it.

My eldest has lived with his father and I then we divorced and I met my youngest’s father and my eldest lived with both so us. Maybe I’m a terrible mother for that but to this day they get on very well. He classes my eldest as his child too. My youngest has only ever lived with their father. My eldest has lived with both.
One I was married to before my children ever existed we’ve been separated longer than my children have even been alive. I was in my early 20s it didn’t last long for various reasons mainly because we were young and silly.

Well that all makes perfect sense, it's just a shame you didn't say it in the beginning. What a lot of misunderstandings could have been avoided!

You’ve simply been: ‘Economical with the truth”, thats all. 🙂

So.... my older friend has a daughter who is 48. Her daughter got married to a, man who can only be described as, a goon at 20 as she was pregnant (depsite advice). Her then got banged up for 10 years and she divorced him at 23. She married again at 26 and divorced at 29. She married again at 32 and divorced at 32. She then married again at 39 and 9 years later is still happy and ecstatically in love. She only had the first child with first hubby.

One I was married to before my children ever existed we’ve been separated longer than my children have even been alive.

Right, so people were working on the assumption that you had been truthful when you said you had kids with 'your first husband' and 'your second husband'. Then you bite their heads off and are sarcastic for "assuming" you actually meant what you said.

Now everyone has seen how easily you change the facts - facts you chose to give in your OP - people are less inclined to believe any of it.

I'm only explaining because you have said you are so confused by people's expectations.