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Original poster

Found an old diary when sorting out the house to sell

75 replies

raleigh81 · 05/01/2018 18:52

My Husband and I are in the middle of getting our house ready to sell so we can move somewhere closer to work, Everything is in a mess, we are decorating, getting rid of old furniture etc

I was in the middle of sorting out our bedroom and was emptying drawers to see what was in them to place in the "keep" or "get rid of" pile and found a few old notepads, I had never seen them before.

Opened one and realized right away that it was basically a diary of sorts where my Husband was writing down things in his life at that time, this was before he met me so I stopped reading for his privacy and put it to one side, opened another to see my name, it would have been just after we moved in together going off the things he wrote.

I then saw he had wrote how he didn't see it working with me, he regretted asking me to move in with him, so I kept reading, it got worse, said he would never allow himself to love me, that he was just spending time with me, he even wrote that he would purposely stay late at work just to avoid coming home to me, that he hated how his life had changed since he met me/since moving in together, it went on and on and I can't type anymore as its making me upset thinking about it all again.

We have been together for 19 years, married for 12 and I now feel like our entire marriage has been a lie, that it all meant nothing. For the record we were not having problems when he wrote this, I was oblivious if there was anything wrong, he never brought anything up, he asked me to live with him, he asked me to marry him, we have never had any major problems, he's never hit me, never even raised his voice, never cheated, never even a hint of him being unhappy, we go to work, go on holiday, have an active sex life, he holds my hand, cuddles into me in bed at night, tells me he loves me all the time, it was just all normal to me and I had no reason to think anything was off or he was so unhappy with me. I feel like I don't know him anymore.

He is due home from work at 9pm, and I will be speaking to him obviously, but I have no clue where to start really, I feel nothing, numb.

What can I even say to all that? My mum always used to tell me that you can never truly know a person, I never knew what she meant until now.

OP posts:
Temporaryanonymity · 05/01/2018 18:54

Gosh, how awful. Is there someone in real life you can talk to?

OldUggBoot · 05/01/2018 18:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bluesquares · 05/01/2018 19:39

I keep a diary as a private place to offload. I've written some vicious things about my DH (and other people I care about) over the years, but this doesn't mean that it was reasonable (I was probably hormonal/stressed) or that it means anything now. If his behaviour is fine now I would just forget about it. You can't expect someone to be consistently happy in a relationship over 19 years, obviously the notebooks were during an unhappy time but it sounds like he tried to hide it from you and spare your feelings at the time.

skippykips · 05/01/2018 19:41

Op, maybe that day you had an argument and he was just venting?
You know how some people say horrible things in the heat of an argument and they do not mean them?
Maybe he was venting in his book, but didn't mean them, only writing them down so he didn't say hurtful things towards you.

I hope you are OK. That must be awful to read

skippykips · 05/01/2018 19:42

X post, but yes, basically what @bluesquares said

ScreamingValenta · 05/01/2018 19:45

I think you should focus on your 19 year long relationship, and not on a years-old diary that might have been written in haste or as a sort of exercise in being emotional, as diaries can often become.

QueenofChristmas2018 · 05/01/2018 19:52

Maybe was written through a bad patch, but I’d be devastated. Sorry you found that

QueenofChristmas2018 · 05/01/2018 19:53

Sometimes things like diaries are used to vent

MrsMozart · 05/01/2018 19:57

Maybe it was a vent, just dealing with his insecurities at the time.

yetmorecrap · 05/01/2018 19:59

Sent you a PM OP

Allthetuppences · 05/01/2018 20:04

How awful. A betrayl that would have probably changed the course of your life at the time.
Flowers

EllaHen · 05/01/2018 20:06

Reading someone's diary is such an invasion of privacy.

I do feel for you though. Must be horrible to read.

Tippz · 05/01/2018 20:12

That is horrible you poor lamb. Sad

I think I would have to have it out with him, but I doubt he has felt like this all along, otherwise why stay with you?

Gosh I do hope you will be OK.

Chippyway · 05/01/2018 20:14

Must be horrible to read OP

I think if you’d described your marriage and life together as miserable and unhappy then fair enough. But you’ve described it as the complete opposite. If I were you I’d go off that rather than what he wrote all those years ago.

By all means speak to him about it. But I don’t think a man who was that unhappy would be able to act like you’ve just described for so long, if he wasn’t truly happy

mumonashoestring · 05/01/2018 20:17

I know I've had times during my relationship with DH when I've thought 'why am I here, why won't he stop talking, do I really want to spend another month with him?' etc. I certainly struggled with living together. I've just never written any of it down...

To be honest I think if he was using this diary to let off steam and get things back in perspective rather than taking out minor frustrations or periods of stress on you then it's no different to having a rant to a friend over coffee.

Fossie · 05/01/2018 20:19

I have written such things in a diary before. However I haven’t kept a diary for years now. I think I only wrote when things were going wrong and I was feeling bad. I wouldn’t be blaming my DH now in hindsight. Has he written much in recent years OP?

Bumsnetnetbums · 05/01/2018 20:22

You shouldnt have read it. They were private thoughts we are allowed to think. He never told you this stuff nor did hd need to.

originaldoozy · 05/01/2018 20:23

Actions speak louder than words. Especially if this words were written in a private place that was obviously used as a place for sorting out feelings/venting.

You mention this was just after moving in together, that is a big transition point in a relationship and maybe he just struggled with it a bit, or suddenly had a big freak out about how serious things were becoming.

You sound like you have had a very happy marriage (no one can keep up a false pretence for that many years) so I would try and forget you ever saw this and focus on your lifetime of happiness together.

Some of the things I have written in the past have been overly emotional and dramatic, a way of getting out the dramatic side of some fleeting feelings without hurting those I truly love frim a moment of venting on a feeling that was simply a very short moment in time.

user1497199406 · 05/01/2018 20:23

I feel for you, it must be awful to read.

However, as someone who has kept diaries my whole life, if I ever discovered my partner had read them I would be devastated. I honestly think an affair would feel like less of a betrayal. That might me just me, but I'd be prepared to give your DH an honest answer as to why on Earth you felt reading it was ok?

Originalfoogirl · 05/01/2018 20:24

You think he has been pretending for 19 years?? That makes no sense.

aftertheevent · 05/01/2018 20:25

It was probably the ranting of a newly committed man who was having a wobble. It is long ago but I would think bloody hell the cheek of it.

aftertheevent · 05/01/2018 20:26

Remember what Bridget Jones wrote in her diary about Mark Darcy. She was wrong.

AvtarRamKaur · 05/01/2018 20:28

I've written some pretty idiotic and vitriolic things in my diary over the years. It's a place for me to vent safely, and to deal with difficult thoughts/emotions. I hope it's a similar case with your dh and you can move past it together.

Hygge · 05/01/2018 20:29

It sounds like a very upsetting thing to read, but it doesn't have to mean everything is a lie.

It sounds like he was writing at a time when things were stressful for him, you'd just moved in, it was a time of change in both your lives.

Perhaps he was having a wobble, maybe he wasn't sure if you'd done the right thing moving in together.

But 19 years together, 12 of them married suggests that he realised how happy he was with you and he wanted to make a life with you.

When I met my DH I told him I didn't think we would stay together, and now we've been happily married for over sixteen years.

When we bought our second house, I cried the day we moved in and said we'd made a terrible mistake and I wanted to go home to our old house. I love the house now, and I'd never go back to our old one.

I find big events stressful, writing things down helps me to process them and reassures me that I'm doing the right thing. Maybe your husband is the same.

I hope things will work out for you and he can reassure you that he might have written it but he didn't mean it and that your relationship has been genuine all these years.

Voice0fReason · 05/01/2018 20:29

That must have been difficult to read,
But
You shouldn't have read his diary.
You can't hold him accountable now for thoughts he had a couple of decades ago.

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