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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Husband slept with sister-in-law before we met

218 replies

Cleopatra88 · 04/10/2019 14:38

Hey everyone! Need your help!

So... I met my husband (let's call him Tom) 3 months after he had this "2-night-stand" with an older woman (let's call her Claire). One month into our relationship, he ended up setting up this woman with his older brother (let's call him Peter) without my knowledge. Turns out his brother was looking for love and he thought they would make a good match. His brother knew from the beginning that Tom had slept with Claire.

I met Claire for the first time at a family gathering when she came with Peter, as a couple. At this point, I did not know that she slept with Tom (my now husband). I immediately knew something was off- the way she looked at me, the way she looked at my husband. When I asked, he confessed to having slept with her a few months before he met me.

Anyways, so long story short, Claire and Peter ended up getting engaged 6 months into dating and married a year after meeting. I feel awkward at every family gathering. I just can't help but feel this enormous breach of privacy she's seen my husband naked and did sexual things with him! I know it was all before we met but I just can't seem to get over it :(. I know it's Peter's wife now but having to see my husband's one night stand at every family gathering is getting to my head.

I've been driving my husband nuts about it this seemingly never ending conversation about my discomfort. I know I need to let it go, but it's just so awkward... Maybe I'm too conservative or sensitive I don't know.

Would you feel uncomfortable in my shoes!? Am I crazy?!

OP posts:
Hesafriendfromwork · 05/10/2019 13:22

Poor op's married to this guy

Which she chose to do after this came out?

Do you really thing it's ok, for someone to dislike something someone does in the early days of dating, carry on, marry them and keep punishing them by arguing about it years later? Then say 'oh poor op'.

If a man did this people would be calling it abuse.

Hesafriendfromwork · 05/10/2019 13:25

Actually I think she deserves better than a guy who palms his one night stand off into his brother and thinks it's normal to be sitting at family gatherings with a woman who could provide a comparison study of you and your brothers' cocks.

Chances are after 2 nights years ago. She doesnt remember details of the ops husbands cock. Hmm

OP chose to marry this man. She obviously looked past it and was ok enough to arrange a wedding and be married to the man. At some point she was, clearly, accepting of it.

Instead she has put all the annoyance on to her. Buy by marrying her husband she condoned what he did.

So why would she deserve better?

Hederex · 05/10/2019 13:25

I can see why you felt this way to begin with. Must feel even weirder to be his brother! But you're all adults and it's been a while. I think you need to try to let this go at this point.

batvixen123 · 05/10/2019 13:31

If you view sex as something intimate and personal, you wouldn’t like it. So no one needs to ‘grow up’ people have different views, morals and standards

I don't think it is about morality. If the OP really felt that sex with anyone except her was immoral she would have married a virgin, which she didn't. So she clearly was OK with her DH having a past - she just doesn't want to have to look at it, which is a reasonable boundary but it's about her personal boundaries and preferences, not anyone else's morals.

I do think maybe her DH could have mentioned this before they got married as what can the OP do now? Get over it or leave the marriage really, as it's clearly screamingly unreasonable to demand that either her DH cut contact with his family or his family exclude DB and SiL who have done nothing wrong.

C0untDucku1a · 05/10/2019 13:46

You are wrong to continue to punish your husband for someone he had sex with before you met.bringing it up all the time is unfair.

You need counselling to get over this hang up that you have. This is your issue, nobody else's.

You have no right to be judging two single people for who they had sex with before they knew you.

You sound controlling. Are there other things you don't want your husband doing, and try to make him feel guilty about?

Funnyfemale · 05/10/2019 13:47

If you view sex as something intimate and personal, you wouldn’t like it. So no one needs to ‘grow up’ people have different views, morals and standards

Utter rubbish. But you either have to move on or you'll drive yourself to distraction. If you want someone who has no previous sexual partners then as a PP said, marry a virgin.

pinkyredrose · 05/10/2019 13:47

What on earth makes you think she's infatuated with your husband? Hmm and what's the relevance of her being older?

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:06

Which she chose to do after this came out?

Sorry it was unclear to me that whether op found this out before marrying her dp .. having reread the op, it's seems extremely likely she had .. in which case I still think her dh, bil and sil.ate weird , but she's the one who chose to keep seeing him, get engaged and get married so there's not much point in bleating about it.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:06

*are weird

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:08

You are weirdly objectifying the SiL

I state quite clearly I think.all three of them are weird, not just the sil.

Biscuit right back at you.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:08

*stated

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:12

*OP chose to marry this man. She obviously looked past it and was ok enough to arrange a wedding and be married to the man. At some point she was, clearly, accepting of it.

Instead she has put all the annoyance on to her. Buy by marrying her husband she condoned what he did.*

Absolutely, having reread the op and realised I've was mistaken in thinking she found this out after getting married; she stayed with him and married him so there's absolutely no point in focusing on it and making it an issue. Either see it as a big mistake and separate/divorce or lump it.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:13

Chances are after 2 nights years ago. She doesnt remember details of the ops husbands cock. hmm.

Depends how memorable the cock was Grin.

Vanhi · 05/10/2019 14:17

This isn't that - this is having to deal with them at every family gathering, in your life on a close and regular basis. So many posters so utterly missing the point.

No, I don't think they are. Many of the posters advising the OP to move on know that sometimes you have to, if you have a close-knit social circle. One of my DP's exes is a neighbour. We're all friends. We see each other far more frequently than I see my family. There's a good chance she'll be in my life as long as he is.

I can choose to see her as my DP's ex, who has seen him naked, been intimate with him and who might still want him. Or I can see her as a friend and acknowledge that whatever happened between them is done and dusted. It's a lot easier to choose the latter.

DioneTheDiabolist · 05/10/2019 14:19

But you're only objectifying the SiL JustWonderful.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:23

@Vanhi

Yes bit either of you could, for example, move house for one reason or another at any time and not be in as much contact or drop.outbof contact altogether. Likewise, if you didn't choose to, you could do no more than say hi in the street/driveway, which many neighbours do. You have s choice about whether you have a relationship/friendship with your dp's ex.
Op does not in this situation.
Plus it's kind of incestuous and icky in a way that your dp/ex situation is not.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:23

*but

Drogosnextwife · 05/10/2019 14:26

🤷‍♀️ Mine slept with my best friend a few weeks before I met him. Doesn't really bother me.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:28

*But you're only objectifying the SiL
I've outlined what my thinking would be if a man I'd had a two night stand with (who apparently opted to have nothing further) suggested introducing me to his brother for dating/romance etc. .... I find it very odd that the now sil chose to participate.

And it being not kosher is vindicated by the op becoming aware of her history with her dh because of the sil's attitude alone ... It was so obvious to another woman/his now partner .. that she knew something was off and went and asked him about it. How off does something have to be. So it's not a neutral situation.

I find her decision making weird - and likewise for the two brothers.

DioneTheDiabolist · 05/10/2019 14:32

Do you know what "objectifying" means JustWonderful? Can you show me where you have objectified the men in this situation.

onanothertrain · 05/10/2019 14:33

OP does have a choice. She can choose to leave her husband, she can choose to not attend family gatherings, she can choose to not speak to her SIL or she can choose to accept this happened before she met her DH and get over it.

Hesafriendfromwork · 05/10/2019 14:34

Absolutely, having reread the op and realised I've was mistaken in thinking she found this out after getting married; she stayed with him and married him so there's absolutely no point in focusing on it and making it an issue. Either see it as a big mistake and separate/divorce or lump it.

Yeah that's all I am saying. Well that and if you take the view that the husband, sil and bil are weird for doing this then OP is just as weird for going along with it.

I do suspect that actually OP is quite insecure. She is convinced the sil settled for bil because she couldnt have her husband.

I cant help wonder if OP actually married him because she felt like she was in competition with the sil (she wasnt but maybe felt like that) and became more focused on 'winning' rather than focussing in wether she could cope with this long term.

I am sure I would be uncomfortable in ops position. But I have enough self awareness to know that and woild have walked away, if something made me uncomfortable.

That said. My do is my best friends brother. They have another sister, who dp is no contact with. I had met dp once but in a relationship with him, and was out with my best friend and the other sister and the other sister asked me if I would have threesome with her husband Shock

Dp knows as its become a but of a joke. It still makes dp uncomfortable if I an around the other sister. Which sometimes I am due to my best friend. The fact he doesnt speak to her plus the request for a threesome, means he is uncomfortable. He knows my view. I didnt and dont want a threesome with anyone. Definitely not his sister. But I wont aviod attending things because she is there, if my best friend has asked me to come. He doesnt then take it out on me, like OP is doing. And he recognises that she wouldnt have asked if we were together at that point.

Had I have taken her up on her offer then got with him and he thought he could take it out on me even though he chose to be with me, I would tell him to fuck off.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:34

But no matter what the situation, it appears that op married her dh knowing about this, so really what is the point getting upset/uncomfortable about it now.

yikesanotherbooboo · 05/10/2019 14:38

There is no need to feel awkward . Don't blow this history up into something it isn't. Have a word with yourself OP and forget about this non issue.

JustWonderful · 05/10/2019 14:39

I do suspect that actually OP is quite insecure. She is convinced the sil settled for bil because she couldnt have her husband.

I'm not sure she's entirely wrong; sil displayed so much discomfort/tension/unspoken antagonism (?) on first meeting op that op was driven to go and seek an explanation from her dp, and her instincts were correct.

How is that the behaviour of a woman who's delightedly settled, happy and relaxed in the situation (sil I'm taking about here obviously)?