Everyone has a secret. Sometimes they're not a big deal. Other times, the secrets could life altering if people ever found out. However, the truth always unveils itself eventually. That's why it's probably not a good idea for spouses to keep things from each other since they spend their entire lives together. When these people got married, they were holding onto a secret. Read on to find out what they were hiding.
Her True Colors Eventually Showed
“My ex-wife, after a four year relationship and two years marriage, told me she didn’t really love me and had just stayed with me because I was a good catch. However, now that I had worked hard, there was enough money in a divorce that she could have any young guy she wanted. We were 5 years apart in age.
I got her out of there in five days with a separation letter, cash settlement of 1/3 of all assets, and minimal legal fees. My lawyer said she had set me up perfect just to pay and be free. It took 5 years to pay off the settlement.
The worst part was when she was dancing down the hallway at the lawyers office with the check in her teeth and then stopping to offer to sell my engagement wedding rings back to me.
The person I saw that day, I didn’t even know. Geez, I was dumb.”
Secretly Bilingual
“This wasn’t hidden necessarily, but we both didn’t realize until a fair while into our relationship (we’d been living together and everything) that we both spoke fluent English.
We’re Spanish and lived in Spain and didn’t have any English speaking friends, so socially it never came up.
It wasn’t until she had a work social and I met her new Dutch boss. He was speaking in broken Spanish to us and then turned to her and started asking in English about something technical, which he couldn’t ask in broken Spanish. She started replying in flawless English, which is when I realized she could speak English.
The conversation was then pretty much:
‘Wait, you speak English?’
‘Wait! you speak English! What…how?!’
Then much laughter and a whole conversation in English about how we both spoke English and how it never came up.
The funny part was that when we’d put English speaking tv shows/movies on, we’d put Spanish subtitles on so the other one could understand.”
Where Did All This Money Come From?
“She told me she had saved up a bunch of money from working summer jobs and babysitting while in high school. We get married and get on our way to our honeymoon spot. On the way, she confesses to me that she did not in fact save up $X from part time jobs. She admits she has saved up over 10 times $X from her jobs!
So, we go on an extravagant (for me) week long spending spree of a honeymoon. We do EVERYTHING! Museums, restaurants, boat rentals, every show, buy every souvenir we see. Oh a location-branded doohickey? $500? Sure! We spent over $6500 extra on this trip.
We get home on a Sunday afternoon. We both had to return to work the next morning. There are several messages on the answering machine (this was in 2000, before either of us had cell phones). The third or fourth message plays – it’s her boss from the bank she works at telling her to contact him at once because there is an issue they need to discuss, and leaves a number. Up to this point, I am in the dark, but by Monday morning it has all hit the fan.
I learn that there was no mysterious savings account from high school years. I learn that she had been transferring money from a couple large accounts on a regular basis into HER OWN account. The total was somewhere north of $7700. The bank was mad, the clients were mad, the authorities were already neck deep into this and they were scary, to say the least.
After several meetings, it was decided that if we made full restitution, the bank would not press felony charges. So, we now have one unemployed wife who is likely unemployable, one scared husband desperately trying to get his wife a job anywhere, and one debt, due immediately, for $7700.
We gather ALL the money left over, borrow $500 from her parents, $5500 from mine, and my next paycheck (You wanna know stress? Ask your parents to help you pay back money your new wife stole from a bank). We get the bank paid back by the end of the week.
After several weeks, things have died down some. She is working at (redacted) because was able to I pull strings with manager friends and we have begun paying back the parents. We actually don’t hear anything for a while and the immediacy of the crime has subsided. In fact, it wasn’t until 2002 that we were contacted to appear in court.
We were still young and ignorant, so we get lucky here. The ‘feds’ were easy to work with. The bank didn’t make a huge deal about it since the money was returned. It is a small town bank, and somehow we avoided any real heavy issues. We took the advice of some guy who represented the bank, and really we just wanted this part of our lives to be over, so we would have done anything. She went in to court, sans lawyer, and plead guilty to a class C misdemeanor. The judge gave her two years probation and the restriction of never working at an FDIC establishment.
And this is how my life as a married man began.”
The Man With The Motorbike
“Well, this is actually about my mom. We were living in Belarus. One summer, we took a trip to Finland to some summer camp arranged by some Finnish church for Belorussian kids and their parents. There was this one guy riding a motorbike and giving rides to everyone who wanted. My mom fell in love with him, even thought they could barely communicate with each other. Next summer, they got married and we moved in Finland with my mom. The same summer we moved there, this guy got kicked out from work and little by little things began to unfold.
Fast forward two years: me, my mom and a baby were in women’s shelter. I didn’t know back then, but I later learned that he had schizophrenia, a very bad kind. He had mental breakdowns before and he had been institutionalized several times. During that two year period, he stopped using his meds and was extremely violent and totally out of control. He beat my mom and she called cops several times, but somehow he managed to sweet talk them away. Nobody seemed to care about a Russian woman who couldn’t speak Finnish at all. My mom didn’t know what to do. She tried to talk with this guy’s mother, but obviously she did not want to get her son into any kind of problem. At some point, my mom lost it too and was acting very weird. One of the things was when she ran away almost without any clothing and was picked up by cops at night at some highway. I just started to cry remembering all these things.
After few years of abuse, he attacked his own mother and she finally called cops on him and they institutionalized him again. I lated learned that my mom was suspecting something, but he and his mother lied to her telling it was some kind of work related stress/depression.
As much as I hope this story would have ended here, it didn’t. This is where I get extremely angry at my mother and I still don’t understand what she was thinking. She took him back and after some rough patches, there was no more physical abuse, but our family was completely broken. They had second baby and they are still living together. He was verbally abusive at me and now he continues doing same thing with his own kids. It’s very disgusting to see how a grown up man acts like a little baby and verbally abuse his own kids. I am very afraid that my little sister will have to deal with all this childhood bullcrap later in her life because he abuses her most and she even says that she almost starts to believe what he calls her and says to her. Their self-esteem is very low because of this.”
A Secret Romantic
“I literally only discovered this the moment we were married: he has a very romantic side.
All the time we were together before, I probably would have said I would have liked a little more traditional romance, but I appreciated how straightforward and pragmatic he was about other things and thought I can’t have it both ways. I could add that he is a theoretical physicist who works with engineers, and he has the personality to match. He always said he thought marriage was essentially meaningless. Eventually, for external reasons, we decided to do it (I proposed to him, by the way, with a new watch). We threw together a cheap little ceremony in a few weeks to ‘get it over with’ as we both put it.
He put on his suit, I put on my pretty dress, we had the officiant there (that I found on Yelp two weeks before) and got started. However, when it came time for the vows and the ring exchange, I suddenly found myself facing a very sentimental man, who was clearly deeply in love with me and overjoyed to be marrying me. After that, the same man who took years to feel comfortable holding my hand in public for even five minutes was hugging and kissing me in front of everyone at every moment he could during the ceremony. Then he wanted to celebrate every ‘week-iversary’ then every ‘month-iversary’ with romantic dinners and having the same cake we had at our wedding. He starts celebrating at 12:01 AM on our anniversaries. He gazes lovingly at his wedding ring and always wants me to do the Wonder Twins thing with him by clicking our rings together. Who’d a thunk it?”
Pizza Princess
“Not just after getting married, but after being together almost 18 years. One night we go to dinner at a friend’s house. They’re making pizzas, which we don’t often do. My wife offers to help, grabs some dough, and starts spinning it on her fists like a freaking pro, tossing it high in the air with a confident flourish.
I had no idea. I mean, I knew she did some time at a Little Caesar’s as a teenager, but I guess I assumed they just pressed the dough into pans there or something. I didn’t ask, and she never brought it up. Turns out it’s a darn attractive skill for a lady to have!’
I even confronted her about the ‘they don’t hand-toss at Little Caesar’s’ issue. Apparently, she and her coworkers would get bored enough between rushes to hide in the walk-in and play with the dough, a not-insignificant portion of which ended up behind the shelves. Anyhow, this was a frequent enough occurrence that they eventually developed some skills. Ah, the curious downtime habits of the pre-cellphone era.”
Where Did The Sandwiches Go?
“This is a story that came up at my grandmother’s funeral, so obviously it’s not me, but I thought it was great.
My grandparents met teaching at a school and my grandmother needed a lift to work everyday. She saw an attractive man (my grandfather) and asked him if he’d do so. He kept making up excuses, but she was persistent. Eventually, he agreed (after they found out they lived down the street from each other) on the condition that she make him sandwiches for lunch in payment for the lift to work.
She agreed and my grandfather was treated to the best sandwiches of his life. They met in September, started dating in October, we’re engaged in December, then married in April.
Once they were married they moved to another town. This is when the sandwiches stopped coming. My grandfather was like ‘where are those amazing sandwiches’ and that’s when he found out my grandmother absolutely hated making sandwiches and it had been her mother making them the whole time. They were married almost 54 years and she never made another sandwich.”
He Only Sees Kids As A Burden
“First husband: he had a kid before we met (which I don’t have a problem with, I love kids). There was a paternity test proving it and a court order from the state for him to pay child support, which he hadn’t paid in 8 years! Yep, that marriage ended in divorce (it was one of many things pointing to serious character flaws with him).
During our divorce, all he cared about was getting out of having to pay child support for our daughter. So I didn’t even ask for it (his history showed he wouldn’t pay it anyway), but I did ask for custody which I was awarded. He felt that he got off footloose and fancy free. He boasted to our friends for years about it.
Our daughter is now an adult (10+ years have since passed) and has blocked him on Facebook and on her phone. Sure, after our divorce, he would come into her life once in a while and take her to a theme park or out do dinner. But a kid needs a dad, and he was not that to her. Instead, she got to watch him womanize, drink, and behave like a 12 year old during her visits with him. She stopped wanting to go to his house because of it (and I didn’t force her). He drove around in a new car bragging about his $65k income, with a wallet stuffed with $100 bills. ‘Don’t tell mom!’ he would tell her, while she went without and had to wear second hand clothes.
My parents eventually did help a lot, helping her to get braces, educational support, and other things I couldn’t afford as a single mom. Though I think that only made him feel like he really didn’t need to do anything, since her grandparents would do it.
He lived a fast partying and drinking life for several years and went through some relationships. He now has a heavy drinking problem and he is alone and lonely. Now our daughter wants nothing to do with him. He just can’t seem to figure out why. He has asked me on occasion, but my daughter has asked me not to talk to him about it, so I don’t. She did try to talk to him about it once, but then he got defensive and told her that all she cared about was money (projecting maybe?). He didn’t understand that was not true. The money was only a symptom of a bigger problem (his heart). If you want to know what’s in a person’s heart, check their wallet and their calendar. A person invests (money and time) into the things that are important to them. He did not invest in our daughter.
I didn’t have much money (or even time) as a single mom, but the money and time I did have were invested in our daughter. If she only cared about money, she would be angry at me too, as there were countless times we ate top ramen and eggs for dinner. I feel bad for him sometimes, because he really doesn’t get it. But most of the time I feel like he made his bed and now he gets to lay in it. It’s his roost and these are his chickens.
I see his posts on Facebook. Just the other day there was a post that said, ‘In 4 words write the scariest story you can’ and he answered ‘You are the father.’ He only sees kids as burdens. Sad.
She has become a wonderful young adult. Very responsible, independent and smart. She is engaged to be married, has a great start to her career (and has thousands in savings already), and is planning her future. Any (sensible) man would be lucky and proud to have her as a daughter. I am now remarried and my current husband cares for her very much. He invests in her because he loves me, so he loves her too. He helps her without hesitation, without being asked, and he didn’t even father her. She gave him a card on Father’s Day stating how thankful she is that he is in her life, that any man can be a father but not every father is a dad, and thanking him for being like a dad to her. It brought tears to his eyes. He and I don’t plan to have children because of our age (we need to seriously save for retirement), but he is eagerly looking forward to being a grandpa to my daughter’s children someday. I can’t imagine someone feeling that this is a burden. We’re not lonely. Our home is not empty. It is full of love.”
Listen To Red Flags
“I should put in here that I come from a religion that practices arranged marriage, so I did find this out before we were legally married, but after we were ‘betrothed,’ so I figure that it counts.
He did not legally exist. He didn’t have a social security number.
In his defense, he didn’t know, either. His parents were just messed up and neglectful.
Ten years later, I found out that this was foreshadowing of the fact that he basically didn’t psychologically exist either. He was nothing but a bunch of ‘mask’ personalities and compulsions layered over a roiling ball of anxiety and repressed rage. No actual person there. It was REALLY creepy once he started failing the Turing test.
I tried to get him to therapy, then a psychiatrist. Last I know, he was being looked at for DID (multiple personality disorder). He didn’t stick with it long enough. I gave up trying to maintain him, so never found out for sure. I just shrug now and consider him to have extreme untreated BPD like his mother. Nothing wrong with people who have it – mental illness does not make you a bad person – but my ex definitely was a bad person, and took extreme advantage of my sympathy even when I tried to work with his illness.
Listen to red flags, people.”
What’s In A Name?
“My grandparents Upton (or Uppy, which is what I called him) and Pearl met when he was 21 and she was 19. She was super tall and skinny. He was shorter and muscular. She had some serious attitude and he was the most soft-spoken and gentle man you could find. In other words, they were complete opposites but as they liked to say, it really was love at first sight.
Pearl and her sister Rose were out to eat one day when Rose pointed out the handsome military man sitting at a table across the room from them. This, of course, was the infamous Upton who had just gotten back from fighting in World War II where he had earned a purple heart while holding off a squad of Nazis so the rest of his men could retreat. This is not actually important to the story, I just wanted to point out how cool he was.
Anyway, Pearl agreed that he was handsome and told Rose that she could get his attention just by walking by. So she gets up and sashays right by him, swaying hips and long legs passing right under his nose, as she goes to the telephone next to him.
And he says nothing. He doesn’t even look her way. Ticked off, my extremely self-confident grandmother heads back to her sister but refuses to admit defeat. She sits down and about two minutes later gets up and heads back to the telephone, hips swaying even more. Still, Uppy doesn’t even bat an eye. Even when Pearl struts by him 7 more times with her skirt hiked up practically to her ears.
On the eighth time, she storms right over to him, slams her palm on the table, and practically hollers into Uppy’s stunned face, ‘What the is the matter with you? You can’t even give a woman the common courtesy to admire her when she walks by?!’
Uppy, after taking a minute to recover says, ‘Well my dear’ with a big ol’ grin spreads across his face, ‘I sent the waiter over to your table with my number on it the first time you passed by. After that, I didn’t want to say anything because I was just enjoying the show.’
My completely mortified grandma spun back around to her sister who was laughing her head off, waving his number in the air. She was about to storm off when Uppy grabbed her hand and with a completely serious look on his face tells her, ‘I would have said something to you when you walked by the first time, but I wanted to be rejected when you threw away my number rather than when you said no to my face. I never thought in a million years a woman as beautiful as you would have wanted the attentions of an average man like me. You must forgive me for not knowing you kept coming back for me. I truly thought you just kept forgetting the number you wanted to call. That would have made much more sense.’
That night they went on their very first date and three weeks later they were married. My grandpa always used to say they got married so soon because he was afraid my grandma would come to her senses before he could pop the question. At that point, my grandma didn’t know my grandpa’s real name was Upton. He thought it was really weird so when he met my grandma he told her his name was James. So when they got married three weeks later, the priest asked my grandma if she takes Upton to be her husband. This resulted in my grandma yelling in front of the entire church ‘Who the heck is Upton?!’
Then she realized my grandpa had lied to her because he thought his name was weird, she goes, ‘Oh Lord, yes I do to take this stupid man as my husband.’
They were married 65 years with three boys, the oldest of which was named James. I never saw a couple more in love or meant for each other than my grandparents. God rest their souls.”