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.

He didn't ask how many times you were married. Does he need to know?

He knows it's twice at least. Presuming number 3 was a mistake, you could just forget about it. If you need to mention him you can just call him your ex?

I don't really know though. Would I care if it was three rather than two? Not really. They're all history regardless.

As I read it, the first marriage was at 22 and no kids. I have a friend who married at 22 and divorced at 23 and there are maybe 5 people, including her now husband who know. There were no kids. I don’t think she’d have told him if she hadn’t had to in case one of the few slipped up. Her kids certainly don’t know. She had literally airbrushed husband 1 from her life.

With this in mind, I can see why OP hasn’t mentioned Husband 1. How many of us have had boyfriends we have omitted to ever mention? Plenty. Alright, I suppose getting married is more than that, but at 22 plenty of people do stupid shit.

Op, why did your three marriages fail? Reading your posts it sounds like you ended them all, why? Because having 3 divorces is one thing, having three failed marriages that look like this:

1st marriage - OP got bored
2nd marriage - OP got bored
3rd marriage - OP got bored

Would be a massive red flag to a current partner, whom you are eyeing up as husband number 4

I would wait a decade, and if you are still together then maybe consider another marriage. But remember, you get married for the marriage, not the wedding!

Well you definitely arent in Ireland anyway as it can take upwards of 4 years to get a divorce here and even that can be a stretch. Took me over 7 years to get divorced and we did not have kids together. 3 failed marriages at 40 would make me look at my own self security about why you NEED a ring on your finger. If I was your boyfriend I would wonder if you do it just for the day being honest as 3 marriages over the course of your legal age of marriage so 24 years is a bit of a red flag. I mean you do you and all that but yes for sure tell him and maybe try NOT to get married a 4th time as it just is not that special when you have married so many times previous.

You are getting such a hard time here! Hope it goes well. I still think it’s timely.

Not quite the same thing but I was maid of honour for a close friend, and only when I saw her certificate later I realised she had been married before to the guy I thought was ‘just’ a boyfriend. I was surprised she’d never mentioned it, and I never questioned it because not really relevant to me. I wonder if your bloke will feel the same, a little surprised but not that bothered.

It was a quite daft lie as well because it suggested that poor DC1 has already had three different men living in his home and then moving back out again. It would have done the OP a far bigger favour if she'd just been straight about which husbands she'd had her children with from the beginning.

Maybe it’s a red flag.

I personally think it’s understandable to get bored of physical and sexual abuse in a marriage. That’s the case for one of my marriages and I have every right to choose to end a marriage regardless of my reasons it’s also my choice at the end of the day.

“I think it shows that you have a big heart and you are optimistic in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary!”

Or looked at another way, it’s evidence of very bad decision-making.

Once, maybe even twice, can be chalked up to a learning experience but by the third time a person really should have learned a lesson about pausing and reflecting on previous mistakes.

All marriages were over before she even got to 40 so they were obviously short-lived.

I think the problem some people might have, OP, is that you say you have a very good co-parenting relationship with both fathers. This doesn’t chime well with them being men who are physically and sexually abusive.

I think the problem some people might have, OP, is that you say you have a very good co-parenting relationship with both fathers. This doesn’t chime well with them being men who are physically and sexually abusive.

I think these are now assumptions. I haven’t specified who out of the three was sexually and physically abusive to me. Would I have a good relationship with someone who abused me, I think that would make parenting quite difficult, good thing I don’t have children with the ex who abused me enough for me to be hospitalised but yeah I just got bored.

So, you married one abuser and two very good men. Do you think your first experience of marriage affected your view of relationships generally, because the latter two short-lived marriages to good men imply you do now have a bit of an issue with long-termism.

But not deliberately. They didn't discuss how many marriages they'd had, he asked if she'd been married to the kids Dad's or something like that. If she'd lived with this guy at 22, had exactly the same relationship bar a ceremony on one day l, no one would expect her to declare it to all men as a warning.

OP is aware of why those marriages failed, she's been clear o ntbst and her sorrow over it and her subsequent therapy.
Crap like on here is exactly why she thinks she should be ashamed.

Are you this nasty in real life or just behind your keyboard?

You think op married a guy, had a kid with them and phoned Daddy screeching I WANT A NEW ONE DADDY, THIS ONE ISN'T SHINY ANY MORE!!!

her parents helped her get out of an unhappy marriage
Good on them. I hope I can do the same for mine if thry need it in 20 years time!

You're treating correlation as causation. The fact that I have has had multiple marriages tells you nothing by itself, about why they ended or whether there's an "issue with long-termism." I’ve barely gone into any detail about my children’s fathers other than they’re great fathers that doesn’t mean they were great husbands. The only detail I’ve said why it ended is my first marriage because I simply didn’t want to be physically and sexually abused anymore.

Regardless you’re are filling in gaps with assumptions no information on anything really but let’s go with that. I’m not here to go into detail about these things they’re personal to me not on a public website really. I didn’t know I had to share every single detail.

It's not an AMA. People seriously need to understand boundaries.

OP I'd block this thread, talk to your bloke and I'd he gets like posters on here dump him and find a, better one.

Not meaning to overstep, but if I were someone’s fourth partner after three marriages, the first of which was abusive, I would certainly have concerns about the damage done by marriage number 1 and how much the baggage from that was responsible for them apparently being ready to end marriages seemingly rather quickly in the big scheme of things. Marriage number 1 might help make more sense of the demise of marriages 2 and 3 in my mind.

You are having a hard time op. I would just keep it casual and drop 'my third husband ' into conversation. If he wants to ask anything then he can. If not fine. I can't see what the big deal is. Everyone has a past. I am sure he will be more interested in who you are now.

Ps I don’t think the OP has anything to feel ashamed of, but agree with her that she needs to talk to her partner and twll him about marriage 1. I don’t see why he should think she has been deliberately hiding information and, after a year, they ought to now know each other well enough for this to be a good time to talk about it.

Got bored?! Have you ever ended a relationship? Do you honestly believe that most women leave a marriage because they’re fucking bored?! Ridiculous post.

If I was in a serious and loving relationship with a partner who I discovered had been married and divorced 3 times and they had been dishonest by omission, it would rock me to the core. Not because of their feelings of shame, remorse or anything else, to be honest I would know their life choices were so flawed that I would question my understanding of them and whether I could ever trust their judgement. I am sorry you are having a hard time op, you have dripped info and that is why others made assumptions.

I would run for the hills if I was your partner, but you may be a very nice woman in which case I hope he doesn't get his trainers on.

There is absolutely no point asking strangers to answer a question without providing context. Three short lived marriages without context looks objectively bad, as you already know. However, it’s not always bad - it depends on the reasons. Likewise with telling or not telling someone exactly how many times you have been married, and when, if ever, you tell them - it depends on the context. Only you know the context, you are unwilling to tell anyone other than your partner the context, so don’t ask anyone questions they can’t answer without said context.

Jesus some awful comments. I think I’ve had more life experience than a lot of these posters, and therefore have a bit more empathy for OP. None of us know what’s down the line. It’s easy to look back and know the right answer, or point fingers at someone else’s life.

OP good luck, I hope your chat with your DP goes well. I would be totally unfazed by this revelation and I hope he’s the same.

Ah I think it’s a shame, we all make mistakes. Just take a deep breath and tell him. If he’s bothered well it’s best that you know now. He might not care. By the way, do your children know you’ve been married 3 times?

Well, again you are minimising important information.
You were abused and hospitalised by a husband your new bf doesn’t know about. You said you hadn’t mentioned him because it was a marriage that bore no children so you don’t ever think about it.
Now it turns out you’ve not only omitted to tell your partner of a year about another marriage, but also about a period of your life in which you were abused.
This is going to be a LOT for your new man to take in and process. You have hidden a significant part of your life from your narrative.

You need to be honest with yourself about what game you’ve been playing here.