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.

I'm curious OP, how many marriages would be "too many" for you?

By 40 I don't really see a huge difference between being in 3 long term serious relationships and getting married 3 times especially when you had children with 2 of them, if you were a SAHM everyone here would have been telling you to get married.

The issue for me would have been the fact you've been answering the questions with selective truths for the last year.

Are there religious reasons for getting married previously, OP? (No judgement - I was a virgin when I married, and though I am now divorced, religion played a big part in the process.)

Does he ask you anything about yourself? My exBF didn’t. It was only by the second Christmas when I didn't have family to see that he even commented, and hi still didn't ask outright. Often I think men are not actually interested in our lives before them.

What is it about marriage that you like so much? I have never been married, I have lived with four different long term partners over the years though. So we could have easily got married but didn’t and I have never really wanted to. I think marriage vows should be more like ‘I promise to love you until I don’t or you get bored and have an affair’and ‘I will love you in health but will decide on the sickness part when it comes to it and if that sickness is self induced through your reckless behaviour’
most marriages seem to be temporary arrangements in this day and age.
I think you should probably tell him the facts and then let him decide if it’s a problem or not. He may well never want to marry again too. Lots of people don’t. Why would you want to get married again yourself ?

I have a good friend in her 50s who had been seeing a lovely man for a few years. Both divorced, she thought he'd been married twice before, mentioned 2 wives, which made her a little wary, but she trusted him. Then they got engaged and a week before the wedding he told her he'd actually had 3 previous wives. She dumped him on the spot,despite telling me she really loved him, because she felt she couldn't ever trust him again.It took her several years to get over him but I'd have done the same. Lying by omission is not a good look.

“Yes – I was also married one other time, but I didn’t have any children with that husband.” That would have been a good opportunity to raise the topic.

Just tell him. And I don't think it's in any way shocking. I mean you could just have had another serious relationship without being married - that wouldn't be an issue, so why is the fact you married again a big deal. Hope it all works out xx