“What Did Your Spouse Hide From You Until After You Were Already Married?” (40 Answers)
Deciding to marry someone can mean threading a fine line between discovering what picking a life partner will be like and avoiding hitching yourself to the wrong person. As many folks have discovered later in life, people can be full of surprises.
Someone asked women “What did your spouse hide from you until after you were already married?” and people shared both dark and wholesome stories. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments below. 
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We never married and are no longer together, but she is the mother of my son.
She hid from me just how good of a mum she would be, was of the opinion for a long time she never wanted any kids, but we spoke about it and decided to have one, what a woman she is, she's got pretty bad depression, early menopause, and endometriosis, every day for her is different, but god that woman steps up every day for our son, things didn't work between us nothing bad, just circumstances, but I love that woman so much for what she does.
That he is a really hard worker. He completely changed the day we got married. I don’t mean change in a bad way. He f*****g stepped his game up. He puts in the work every single day to keep our marriage in such a good spot.
His favourite dinosaur is the triceratops. I had to hear it from our two year old.
Privacy is always important to some degree, even in a marriage. In many places there are legal protections in case you do need to spill the beans, but in most situations, like the ones here, the issues are hardly criminal. On the other hand, talking about trauma, for example, is a classic case where privacy might be important, marriage or not.
While holding something from your spouse forever might be questionable, sometimes speaking about something difficult to talk about isn’t as easy as just sitting down and spilling the beans. The various traumatic examples in these stories are evidence of that. Childhood trauma and horrible relationships all influence what a person feels comfortable or uncomfortable speaking about.
That he loves jigsaw puzzles! I guess I didn't tell him I did either. We found out on our honeymoon. It started a lovely tradition where we now buy a challenging puzzle from the places we visit together.
How freaking smart he was. Some things had never come up before. But he could figure out how to do stuff, fix stuff, problem solve…he never failed to surprise me.
Do people date for like 2 weeks before they marry? In the X years you're living together in some places, stuff like this come up.
That my husband can make this sound with his mouth and it sounds EXACTLY like a guinea pig. I still don't get how he does it, now our 10 year old son can also make this sound and I just dont get it. It's some form of sorcery.
Oof that he was predominantly asexual. I support Aces, but that's really something you need to let your partner know about before a commitment like that.
I’ve got a crazy one. I found out my ex husband had an adult baby/diaper fetish after we married. He had even gone as far as putting up ads online looking for women to change him. Found one of his ads where he made up a story about being incontinent from a car accident…which was completely false and made up.
He told me about this fetish after we got married, but it never came up again until the end of our marriage, which is when I found the ads he put online. He wanted to act on it more and wanted me to be involved. I didn’t understand it and, to be honest, it grossed me TF out.
We started seeing a marriage counselor, and she suggested me giving him boundaries…like certain days where he was allowed to wear the briefs and do adult baby stuff. All it took was one time seeing him, a grown man sitting on a blanket on the floor with a pacifier, bottle, and adult diaper on, I just couldn’t take it…I ended the marriage shortly after that.
This would totally weird me out too. Can't blame OP for ending that marriage.
A lot of stuff about his childhood- I knew he was abused, I didn’t know the extent of it and it makes me sick how his mother and father treated him. We cut his mom off years ago but his dad took off on his family when he turned 9 :( My husband has admitted he doesn’t really know what it’s like to have a family and that I am his family.
Exactly how patient he'd be with my ADHD. The dude is superhuman. *I* get more frustrated about my ADHD than he does.
That his family was crazy abusive and neglectful and he thought it was all normal until I told him no, it’s not normal to get beaten every day and it’s not normal for your mom to pass out drunk and you have to feed and take care of your baby brother at only 7 years old.
Poor man. I hope he's making up for it by having a beautiful and happy life with you. <3
He knew every word to the 2001 Cinematic masterpiece Shrek. I didn't know it until after we were married for FIVE YEARS.
Married her thinking we had both been prior divorced once. Turns out she had been married an extra time. I thought Ok, its a Vegas thing or something when you were young, nope, she was married fo 7 years to her child hood sweetheart. Turns out she lied about just about everything to do with her personal life. Divorced three years later.
A second refrigerator in the garage. It was hidden. I saw our daughter eating a popsicle and I asked her where she got it. She said “dad’s fridge” and I asked what that meant. She walked outside and showed me what “dad’s fridge” was and I’ll be damned. I don’t know how I didn’t see it.
He had never paid taxes during his military career. Never. 5 years. Still blows my mind how that’s even possible. Bottom line, 6 months into the marriage, I’m attempting to buy a sandwich and my card declines. That’s weird. Checked the joint bank account, IRS took everything.
The insane way he was brought up. His siblings went to kindergarten but not him. He was locked in a room while the parents worked (he is the eldest). It still doesn’t bother him!
Years and years ago my relative hid a wife and kids across the globe from his new wife until she called his parents and the old wife answered 🫣 old wife thought he died in war.
I asked my mother about this once. She said she didn’t learn until after marriage that my dad very frequently attends funerals! She noticed in their first year there seemed to always be a friend of a family friend, extended relative, an old piano teacher, etc whose funeral mass my dad would attend. He’s from a huge family with tons of siblings/uncles/aunts with lots of extended friends and relatives. Latinos lol. She asked him why he attends every single one even if he hardly knew the person and he said he just feels strongly it’s the right thing to do, because his mom raised him that way. My dad is very wholesome. My parents have been married 42 years and he is still this way. It’s not infrequent I’ll catch up with my dad on the weekend and ask him what he’s up to and he says “well I’m attending the mass for so & so’s mom, remember her?” (I never do).
We never got married but my partner hid that he was about to go bankrupt until I was 6 months pregnant. That was fun times!!
He hates mushrooms. I used to make this mushroom lasagna with 4 kinds of mushrooms and a mushroom bechamel and he would eat seconds! The deep streak of British politeness meaning he would eat whatever I made didn't break until a few years into marriage.
I believe this is one of the reasons the British people are so cautious with unfamiliar food! Once one accepts the portion, one has to eat it up to be polite, no matter how deeply repulsive it is for them. A student friend of mine cried in the toilet after she heroically ate the whole helping of traditional Slav meat jelly... So safer to decline anything unknown, always.
That right up until the night before we got married that his family was trying to talk him out of getting married and even went so far as to say they’d cover for him if he cheated (he did not cheat and had no desire to).
I’m glad he hid it before we married(I was dealing with wedding stress plus sick my own seriously ill parents so hearing this when we were engaged would have sent me over the edge). He did tell me not long after we got married.
Will say that I’ve not fully trusted my Inlaws since then, and it’s been over 20 years.
I wouldn't trust them at all; let alone fully. At least you can trust your mate.
Not my spouse, but my friends' spouse hid kids he didn't take care of. The way she found out? Getting a letter from the IRS that their refund was snatched for back child support.
That he can catch flies in mid air like a f*****g ninja.
His affairs. I married someone who was actively dating many other women and really great at hiding it - until we got married - then suddenly the affairs were everywhere and he didn’t try to hide them. Divorced now, obviously.
Our wedding night, I woke up from a deep sleep because he had terrible gas. His farts were so loud, and often, I actually felt badly for him! In the morning I asked if he was feeling okay, if the food had upset his stomach, if he needed to postpone our honeymoon trip…
He had been holding it in for the five years we were dating.
Bowel issues. They’re genetic and cause him to last an hour in the restroom daily. It really sucks when I have to pee.
Also how destructively envious his mom was of my family. Explained why she’s always so critical of me, she’s looking for ways to tear me down to her level.
$20,000 worth of credit card debt.
That he can juggle lol like how did this not come up until after 8 years?
Only when you get married does the need to juggle things become paramount. Just ask my third and/or fifth wife.
Kids, his age, his felonies/attempt of m*rder charge, he didn’t own the house he was living like he said he did, a prior marriage. God that’s probably more but this was over 10 years ago.
That he was contributing a percentage of his paycheck to a different bank account. I always knew he had another bank account (aka a personal account… we use our joint account for everything) but I always figured the money in it solely came from “odd jobs” and things of that nature. Then, one day, I saw his paystub, and noticed he was contributing $600 each pay check to his own personal account. It ended up causing the biggest fight we’ve ever had. I wasn’t upset/mad about the fact that he wanted a personal account or that he was contributing toward it- it was the fact that he hid it from me. After that, I set up my own personal account and started contributing $600 per paycheck to it as well.
Substance addiction.
Sadly far too common nowadays - so much for he outdated 'war on d***s' mantra being relevant almost 50 years after the idiot Reagan coined it. Find another way, implement it and sort the problem out - yup, it's going to be difficult but in the long run, surely it will benefit everyone !!
That he cheated on me and had a kid.
nope. leave him and don't pay money to support him in any way
We (thankfully) didn’t get married, but…I knew he had 2 kids from two previous women. I didn’t know about the other 3 from two other women until after we moved in. After we broke up he went on to have 2 more with two other women. He doesn’t take care of a single one.
That he loves smelling me with what he now phrases as "deep druggie breaths." And strangely enough also licking me (and I mean in a non-sexual way and not as a precursor to sex). Like, he'll smell my neck in the morning, lightly give me a peck on the shoulder and then also lightly lick it, as though for good measure or something! Very quirky but endearing as well.
That he was an abuser who had no interest in attempting to be a decent person after the honeymoon stage ended. Never saw it coming...
That he had severe erectile dysfunction. (We were Jehovah witnesses at the time so no sex before marriage).
Tons of childhood trauma he has yet to deal with and a p*rn addiction.
porn and sex addiction can be devestating, get help if you think you need it, life can be better
That he had a secret brother! I found out the day of our wedding. Funnily enough I couldn't 100% trust my husband after that and yes - he was very secretive about what his plans were and what his thoughts were even on a daily chat basis! and thats one of the reasons I ended up leaving.
Update:
I wasnt aware of the brother because he had never been mentioned in the 2 years Id known my husband before we married.
I get that men have a lot going on in their minds and I respect that it is the way many sort things out - but keeping the existence of a brother secret was shocking to me.
Even the family never mentioned the brother - he wasn't even in family photos. And he was (still is) the nicest guy.
Im out of my own way now - Im open to life and humans with all their foibles.
"I get that men have a lot going on in their minds" - I think she vastly overestimates us. I'm still pondering my favourite dinosaur from the previous post.
Note: this post originally had 89 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
My first husband failed to tell me that because he hadn't enough money to pay the huge dowry his pregnant sister's baby daddy demanded to marry her that he had promised him that when he married his wife would support their family for life.
That she had suffered severe head injuries from a car accident as a child and had never had long term care. 25 years later despite finally being properly diagnosed her family found it better to convince her that I was the cause of her problems instead of getting her the help she desperately needed.
My first husband failed to tell me that because he hadn't enough money to pay the huge dowry his pregnant sister's baby daddy demanded to marry her that he had promised him that when he married his wife would support their family for life.
That she had suffered severe head injuries from a car accident as a child and had never had long term care. 25 years later despite finally being properly diagnosed her family found it better to convince her that I was the cause of her problems instead of getting her the help she desperately needed.
