Relationships

[Woodydog1]

My husband of a year has just revealed to me his first wife gave birth to a surrogate baby while they were married ( between their own 3rd and 4th child but apparently he can't remember exactly. He failed to mention this before despite long chats about both our pasts. Nor has his close knit family. I am furious to find out so casually but then again I don't know why I feels so betrayed. Let it go or righteous anger?

What are you furious about?

Not knowing something about his past?
The fact that there is a human being out there whose origin is so closely linked to your DH?
Something else?

I'm not sure what you want here, the baby was for a separate couple, the baby is not related to your husband and its not like he has a child out there that will suddenly appear at the door in twenty years time.

Your husband has a past, he can share as much of that past or as little as he chooses. Surrogacy is a very noble and admirable thing to do, his ex must be an incredibly kind woman to give this amazing gift to another couple.

Are you perhaps jealous? Did you have an image of his ex as an awful person that this knowledge destroys? I wonder if your husband wanted you to dislike his ex? Or if he thought you might feel threatened by this. It may be that it was a difficult and emotional time for your husband that he wanted to put behind him. I think you need to let it go.

I don't agree with the other posters actually, I think this was a really big thing not to have told you, his wife, about. You've been married for a year and presumably knew each other for a while before that, it does seem strange not to have talked about it before. I think in your shoes I would probably feel quite hurt that someone I'm that close to has left out quite a big chunk of his past. It's not as if it's his own child out there but nonetheless this must have been a big thing to have gone through (obviously much more for his wife than for him, but as her then husband he was still part of it).

I think feeling betrayed and angry is maybe not fair, but understandable especially as nobody in his family ever said anything either - maybe it feels to you like you were being kept in the dark about something significant. There must be some reason he's never talked about it before, rather than being angry though I would be trying to look at the whole thing from his pov and think about why he never talked about it. Maybe it really didn't seem important enough, maybe he felt it was personal to his ex wife, or maybe he found it a difficult thing to deal with at the time and somehow felt safer keeping this information to himself.
Don't think of it as a betrayal though, I really don't think it's that. Maybe take this as an opportunity to grow closer, and talk about things on a deeper level than you have before. I would definitely have put this information in the 'to be shared with future SOs' pile but for whatever reason, he hasn't. There's always more to know about the person you are with though, so do you think that it might help to reframe it in that way? That this is another layer of really 'knowing' each other now?
Even though you feel a bit blindsided by this, not to take it as a reflection on your relationship with your DH, the past is the past and it wasn't his baby. It's not a skeleton in the closet, just something you wish he'd told you about before - but ultimately it was his right to make that choice, I think, even though it does seem strange to me too.

It's strange he never told you (it's even weirder he can't remember when it was though ). I wouldn't be exactly furious, just a bit bemused as to why it was never mentioned before. Essentially though, it has little bearing on your relationship.

What reason, if any, has he given for never telling you before? And how did you find out now?

Thanks for your replies. Had time to sleep on it and read who you said. All sensible advice. I am not jealous of his ex wife. She's a good woman and a good Mum and has never done me harm. In fact I myself am a vilified ex wife but that's another story for another day when maybe I could do with a vent on that subject.

Ofcourse my husband has a right to only tell me what he wanted about his past. His past was pretty colourful and I thought he had told me it all. I even remember asking if there was "anything else" I needed to be prepared for and he said no. I have had a pretty sheltered life and loving and marrying a "reformed bad boy" took a lot of people by surprise, most of all me! But here we are happy and looking after each other. I was angry last night as the news was delivered in a most flippant fashion. Like no big deal! On further questioning by me ( I am a dog with a bone at times which I admit is not always a good thing) it turns out his then wife had a baby for a couple who could not. The poor lady had cervical cancer and sadly went on to die so now there is a child ( teenager now bless her ) out there without either Mum. I have opinions about that but I will keep them to myself as I understand not everyone will feel the same. I asked if theye were paid for this action of love and quite bluntly they were. I have opinions about that too.

I love my husband very much but I am left wondering what else does everyone know that I don't! Many expressed surprised at our marriage and I am beginning to see why. That's why I felt furious. Today, not so much. Just a bit confused it never came up before. Thanks all. X

What monkeys says ^