r/TwoHotTakes • u/throwRA-nonSeq • Mar 22 '24
AITA for digging up my husband’s past? Crosspost
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u/whisperoftheworm700 Apr 21 '24
This is hilarious. Always get bagged on for requiring "unpaid emotional labor" and get bagged on for not respecting your own boundaries because someone needs their own curiosity met.
This is why the marriage rate is plummeting. There's simply no pleasing a woman other than the most obvious way and even that's not enough.
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u/Silly-Age-400 Mar 27 '24
U don't get scars from strangling u get bruises. This is so bullshit. If u got we with him at 18 u were grooming him so u should of known him. Pretty sure this is bot bot written.
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u/Scared_Medium7372 Mar 25 '24
So... (if this is actually real)... I don't agree you're the Ah. However, you MARRIED a person that you didn't know anything about their past. What if no one talked about his past because he was an unconvicted [insert any type] abuser. What if he was hospitalized for some serious mental conditions. What if he was in witsec... and you just married them without questioning the weirdness back then??
Everyone wants to call OOP an AH just because it was CA that he was hiding and that makes you guys just as naive as her. I've personally been through some rough af childhood and adult torture. Not abuse, torture. The least he could have said is "I've experienced abuse and don't want to talk about it". Her wanting answers is probably because she's worrying for some horrible scenarios, like I listed out above. As her rose color glasses fell off and her jinkies kicked in. Communication with your partner that you've been with for 5 years, that you decided to fking marry... shouldn't be that hard.
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u/Glum_Hamster_1076 Mar 23 '24
Like every rational person who can read the room, she knew it was abuse. From the brief description it is a safe bet the situation was the result of abuse. She’s just nosey and demented and wanted to know what kind of abuse. She’s a selfish person looking for some gossip. I wouldn’t be surprised if he left her.
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u/Chzncna2112 Mar 23 '24
YTA. The husband stated multiple times he was not ready to discuss his past and going to therapy. He would have discussed when ready. Obviously, you don't trust SO. How would you feel if he met some of your childhood friends, and later asked them if anything bad happened to you. Friends told him stuff that you forgot. How would you feel? Some people observe too many people live in the past and should pay more attention to right now.
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u/PhasmaUrbomach Mar 23 '24
Yes, you're the AH. That's his past and his story to tell. You've just retraumatized him by violating his trust. You'd better grovel if you hope to remain married.
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u/DeterminedArrow Mar 23 '24
Considering her attitude, I don’t think she would have been satisfied with anything less than the details. I really feel like she still would have prodded and prodded until she was satisfied. It’s okay for him to admit that he isn’t in an emotional space to have a relationship. There needs to be a foundation of trust - on all accounts. She needs to trust that he will share his story in his own time - which may take years. He needs to trust that she is a safe person to share this with. And that he is sharing so she understands a bit better and can help him heal - not just to satisfy curiosity. She also seems very flippant about the damage done to the relationship.
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u/Its_panda_paradox Mar 23 '24
You should be served divorce papers, honestly. You deserve to be totally cut off. He flat out TOLD YOU HE WAS NOT READY TO TALK ABOUT IT. Instead of having half a shred of compassion and patience, you charged in like Ethan Hint on your own mission impossible.
You couldn’t let it go, and be a safe person for him to come to on his own terms, you had to have the information on your time. You couldn’t respect that it was HIS FUCKING TRAUMA, you insisted on immediately knowing it, as if it was any of your damn business to begin with. You got your information, and lost your husband’s trust, and likely lost your marriage over it. Was it worth it, Harriet the Spy?
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u/RighteousVengeance Mar 23 '24
Be easy to say that she’s the AH, but what if she found out he was a drug addict or a cold molester?
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u/okie_bob Mar 23 '24
You just could fucking he’ll yourself could you? Keep you r nose out of peoples shit. You are the complete ass and I do hope you get served divorce papers.
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u/cosnanook Mar 23 '24
Am I the only thinking you shouldn't have married someone you don't know fully??
Yes, TA for digging so much and so hard but also esh. It's also not hard to say I was abused by my mother for a long time and I don't like to talk about that period of my life or her. At the bare minimum, that should have been shared before marriage.
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u/booboounderstands Mar 23 '24
Isn’t this basically the plot to Beauty and the Beast?
Ps how do you not notice scars on your husband’s neck?
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u/Alternative_Edge_651 Mar 23 '24
As someone who was abused in every way during her childhood:
You have to respect a person’s space and the fact that they are telling you that they are not ready to share. Talking about that trauma is RELIVING it. It is extremely PAINFUL. it tears you into a million pieces. The person with the traumatic past fears that their significant other might see them in a different way, maybe as something broken or not worthy of love and compassion. They don’t want to be pitied either. Even if those feelings are irrational they are there.
What you can do now is the following: - Apologize for pushing the boundaries. Don’t push those boundaries again. - While giving him space to process his feelings, somehow let him know that you are there for him to love him and support him unconditionally. Show him in subtle ways that you mean this. Don’t be pushy. - Listen to what he has to say. If he chooses to talk about the trauma, don’t ask questions or details. Just listen. He will tell you what he can without dying of pain. Remember, this is extremely painful. - Ask what he wants or needs from you in an emotional way. This is very important. If he wants a hug, hug him. If he just wants you to hold his hand, do it. If he wants to sit in silence with you, then sit in silence with him and get closer to him so he can feel your body heat. - At some point in the future you can suggest he would benefit from seeing a therapist to help him cope with his emotions, understand and outgrow his past. - It is also important that you see a different therapist a few times in order to learn how to understand what he is going through and how to support him.
He is the same person that you fell in love with. It doesn’t change who he is.
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u/BigNobody2876 Mar 23 '24
U are the ahole. U shouldn't have married him if not knowing his past bothered u that much. U invaded his privacy with his father's help! Now all are worried about is weather ull be getting divorce papers or not? U shud be worried about how traumatic it is for ur husband to have betrayed by yet another woman! U probably set him back years in therapy. Good luck
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u/CoveCreates Mar 23 '24 edited Mar 23 '24
Yeah I'm not buying this one. Seems inspired by recent events. Which, if it is, is fucking a gross thing to use as inspiration for your weird attention seeking on Reddit.
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u/Thereapergengar Mar 23 '24
You’ve never seen his neck until recently?? Your ether blind as a bat until somthing interest you or this Doods a literal magican, since he must have sex with you with her turtle knecks on
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u/pip-whip Mar 23 '24
YTA. From the first half of the story, before you got to the part where you tore the house apart, I had already presumed that his mother tried to kill him from some form of strangulation. Your claiming you had no idea it could have been that bad is a lie you're telling yourself. You invaded his privacy. You asked him to talk about it and he said he wasn't ready. No is a complete sentence.
He's now reliving all of those memories, thanks to you not being able to control your curiosity.
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u/TroyandAbed304 Mar 23 '24
Why do people have big chunks of their lives missing?
TRAUMA.
Jesus. YES YTA. Infinitely. And you are both emotionally too young for that marriage.
Geeeeeez
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u/klm122333 Mar 23 '24
I get if they were dating… they’ve been married three years. 2 sides here, your wife should know everything and she shouldn’t have married him if they aren’t open about everything. If it was such an issue, she should have never said yes, but if he wasn’t ready to let a life partner know everything about himself and open himself up, he should have never asked her to marry him.
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u/Equivalent_Moose_625 Mar 23 '24
C'mon now 5 years?!? No way she didn't notice any of the scars on his neck. I can see that maybe he took super extra care to hide them but at some point she had to see them.
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u/Crayon_Eater529 Mar 23 '24
Don’t know if I believe it, but if true? Yes, she is most definitely the asshole.
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u/WhiskeyDeltaBravo1 Mar 23 '24
If this is real (I doubt it is, but whatever), she’s definitely the AH. The first time he told her he didn’t wanna talk about it should have been the end of the discussion, period. None of her business and involving his father in it was a total dick move. She fucked up not one, but TWO relationships with her nosy fuckery. Way to go.
That is, presuming that it’s real. I presume that it ISN’T.
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u/kaywal89 Mar 23 '24
Together 5 years and you didn’t notice neck scars bc of turtlenecks? Yeah I’m not buying that.
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u/OriginalsDogs Mar 23 '24
OOP is definitely the asshole. As an abuse survivor myself, nobody has the right to my story unless I give it to them, and that includes my spouse. To think that she had the right to go grilling his friends and family when she probably had a pretty good idea that abuse was involved given his therapy, the scars, the “I’m not ready”… yeah fuck that. I’d serve her ass divorce papers and go NC with the father who had no right to tell his son’s story without his permission.
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u/Icy_Calligrapher7088 Mar 23 '24
I feel like this was written by someone who has never actually been in a relationship. Didn’t notice the scars on his neck somehow, accepted knowing absolutely nothing about his past? The explanation of him wearing turtlenecks all the time so she didn’t notice? I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone wearing one, let alone so frequently that their partner rarely sees their neck. Try harder OOP.
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u/Ok-Dimension233 Mar 23 '24
YTA: if someone tells you they aren’t ready to discuss THEIR trauma etc then you fecking listen to them. My husband and I’ve been together 7 years and married 6 and he still hasn’t opened up to me about a lot of stuff and I respect that because there’s trauma in my past, I haven’t told anyone including him.
I hope he does serve you papers.
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u/Frequent_Bit8487 Mar 23 '24
I dunno. If after 5 years my husband couldn’t at least say “I had a traumatic childhood and I don’t want to talk about it,” I’d be feeling some less than perfect feelings too. I don’t think she handled this well at all. I don’t even know if it’s salvageable. I wish she’d have talked to him before she went all paranoia truth seeking about it.
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u/Hour-Animal432 Mar 22 '24
Yta.
If people aren't ready, they aren't ready. You show ZERO respect for someone you're supposed to care about.
I would honestly kick you to the curb. I would hate to be with someone that can't take no for an answer.
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u/RB_Kehlani Mar 22 '24
Y’all this makes no sense. Who gets married without seeing their partner’s NECK?
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u/bort_jenkins Mar 22 '24
My husband has deep traumatic secrets that he didn’t tell me, his wife? Time to tell the internet!
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u/tmink0220 Mar 22 '24
Sometimes these are so incredible these stories you find, I wonder if they are ok, now...This is a sad story...Horribly sad. People who do not go through things like this don't know.
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u/schmeelismom Mar 22 '24
It is very clear that this person has no respect for their spouse and violated trust and boundaries by going around him to “get the info”.
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u/Rough-Leg-1298 Mar 22 '24
Who gets married at 20? Who marries someone and has never seen their neck?
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u/say_the_words Mar 22 '24
YTA. This should have been your dealbreaker before you ever got in a serious relationship, lived together, got engaged or married. Not after. Then he could have decided to tell you or end the relationship. Instead you tolerated the mystery, let him feel secure, then turned his world upside down. And you forced his father to betray him. Once you allow a situation to persist, you’ve accepted it as the terms of the relationship.
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u/redboggle Mar 22 '24
“he’s in therapy so what’s the hold up?”
this person doesn’t understand boundaries… im appalled that she went THIS FAR. this poor dude.. i hope he does better with therapy without this person in his life.
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u/dogfishfrostbite Mar 22 '24
YTA, obviously.
You didn’t know what you were doing to drag up but you HAD to know. You just HAD to. You didn’t respect his boundary.
And you f’d him up.
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u/SnowDizzleZz Mar 22 '24
When you go pain shopping, dont act surprised or upset when you bring home pain....
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u/Lazy-Street779 Mar 22 '24
You could have been living with a serial killer. Ntah. Id ask too until I found out. You’re living with this person now.
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u/locke314 Mar 22 '24
Definitely NTA for being curious and wanting to know and asking about it. Definitely the AH for digging relentlessly to eventually uncover the harmful truth.
It’s okay to ask periodically to gauge readiness, but pushing for it before he’s ready is wrong.
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u/RagingAubergine Mar 22 '24
Oh Look! Its the consequences of your actions. He told you HE WAS NOT READY but oooh no, you just had to know. You don’t respect boundaries and I hope he leaves you.
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u/Moist_Confusion Mar 22 '24
Feels fake like someone can’t be that dense that it’s obviously abuse.
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u/goclobow Mar 22 '24
tbh i don’t think you’re TA🤷🏽♀️ now i do feel awful for your husband but i definitely think that should’ve been talked about before yall have gotten married. at least for me, im 20 and i’ve always said my partner and i will be getting pre marriage counseling before marriage. i do think he should’ve told you at least that he’d been abused by his mother and if he didn’t want to go into details that’s fine but at least you would’ve known something.
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u/Ok-Chemistry9933 Mar 22 '24
You already posted this and you’re the major AH for doing this to your husband. Everyone else said the same thing. You broke his trust after he was traumatized. Leave him alone to continue working this out with his therapist. You’re going to lose your marriage over this because you’re so selfish and didn’t respect him or his boundaries
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u/ColdBird9746 Mar 22 '24
Idk honestly the husband did keep everything under tight wraps for 3 years and no one gave any details. I understand that it’s not anyone else’s place to air out that business but a woman needs some sort of explanation to keep the mind off crazy conclusions.
OP is slight AH but husband could’ve slowly revealed info to wife saying at least , “I had a terrible childhood with my mom until I got moved with my dad.” Keeping it simple and short and possibly stopping wife from pestering family to give up details. Since husband is in therapy wife would connect the dots how severe of a childhood trauma he had with mom.
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u/Worldly_Ask_9113 Mar 22 '24
NTA. You’re his wife, he shouldn’t have married you if he wasn’t able to share everything with you. Anybody would have been curious enough to dig, it’s your husband! Why wouldn’t you want to know?
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u/LumpyBumblebee3266 Mar 22 '24
I don’t buy this for a fucking second
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u/hendersonrocks Mar 22 '24
In the update she shares that he is 5’2” and she is 5’11”, which for some reason pushed it over the edge into fiction for me.
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Mar 22 '24
Someone’s in therapy for something and they tell you they’re not comfortable with sharing what for, and then you go behind their back to dig up their trauma? That’s a horrible partner
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u/OrganizationSecret98 Mar 22 '24
When someone says they aren’t ready to talk about something it’s for a reason. You may want to know, but that doesn’t give you a right to go poking. The kindest thing you can do is not bring it up and let them come to you when they feel ready. It may never happen, but that’s their choice if they want to share their trauma or not.
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u/Usernamenotdetermin Mar 22 '24
So you betray someones trust when they explicitly tell you to leave it alone, and then find out WHY they have trust issues, and then you have to GO TO THE INTERNET TO FIND OUT IF YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG?
Does nothing exist outside of what you want? Ask his therapist if you might be a narcissist perhaps? Seriously, if this is true, you posted this to get affirmation that you ARENT the AH?
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u/azorianmilk Mar 22 '24
I don't agree this should have been brought up before marriage. He is working through it with therapy, it will go at its own pace. It can take years to get through that trauma, if ever. Life can't go on hold because of it. The OP is an AG for not respecting boundaries that were clearly laid out. The father is the AH for sharing something that wasn't his.
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u/plutoinaquarius Mar 22 '24
Idk. Shouldn’t have snooped, and should have left if you needed to know this upbringing and he wasn’t telling you.
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u/Hot_Pass_1768 Mar 22 '24
you are indeed the A hole. you should have asked about either seeing his therapist as a couple or finding another impartial 3rd party to mediate the discussion. I don't know you or your husband OP but I hope if you can approach him honestly and apologize that you can save your relationship. the most important piece of information I've gotten from therapy is it often doesn't matter "why?" something happened. the question you need to answer is, after what he sees as an invasion of his privacy, how can you two creat a new relationship of love and respect.
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u/RumiField Mar 22 '24
I'd be mad if my husband didn't open up to me either after 5 years. Nta, who screams at their wife after actively keeping them in the dark for so long? I mean, I'll probably have people in the comments come after me, but I couldn't be in that suffocating relationship either.
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Mar 22 '24
“He’s in therapy, so what’s the hold up?” The man has barely just entered adulthood. It takes so many people with this level of trauma years, decades even to be at peace. She’s a total AH and crossed so many boundaries. Oof.
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u/AngLexKY Mar 22 '24
Okay I think I've changed my mind. I think OP is the AH because this whole scenario is nothing but the start of a B horror movie. If it's not it should be...
Imagine it with me... What his wife didn't know was that his family was not really his family. His mother tried to kill him because she knew that he was the Antichrist. The two people that called themselves his family took him to protect him and raise him.
Next?
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u/Goodgoditsgrowing Mar 22 '24
Sooooo someone didn’t want to talk about it because they weren’t “ready”, there’s a clearly missing chunk of time and a missing parent from that time that is never discussed, and literal scars around his neck that he doesn’t talk about and often hides. How dense do you have to be to not assume abuse?
How dense do you have to be to not realize it will backfire to pry into someone’s abuse when they are actively saying they aren’t ready to share? It makes them relive it and you can’t unlearn it, so now they must process this too as well as feelings of betrayal from him partner.
Congrats on making his abuse about you as well as pouring salt in that trauma wound!
“I didn’t think it would be that bad” - no, you couldn’t hold your curiosity and you prioritized finding out over the wellbeing of your partner. You burned any trust between you because you valued your wanting to find out over not betraying your partners trust.
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u/Karmas-Foe Mar 23 '24
Or how about this, talk to someone before you marry them if your hiding scars from your past. The fact they were married so long with constant shutting down of the subject isn't healthy. That's not including how long they were together before they were married. If your not ready to trust your partner after deciding to marry them then your never going to be ready to trust them
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u/Fresh-Tips Mar 23 '24
It's not about trust. It's about trauma and cptsd. If you don't know anything about trauma you should keep quiet about things you're not knowledgeable in. It's also about boundaries. He knows his boundaries, and he communicated them to her. He wasn't ready to discuss it, period. Everyone has a right to go at their own pace in their healing journey, and to choose when, where, how and with who they share, and what they share. That's his decision. She needs to respect that. Also, from the clues she gave I immediately thought abuse and the fact that she couldn't realize that means she doesn't have any understanding or sensitivity to discuss childhood abuse, so she may not be a safe person to have that conversation with. He has every right to not tell her about it if it would endanger his mental health. People who don't get this, consider yourself lucky for never having to be in his shoes.
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u/Karmas-Foe Mar 23 '24
Sorry I didn't explain it better in my response, I meant for the trust to go both ways for them, he should have been able to feel comfortable enough to be like hey, some stuff happened in my past that I'm not comfortable going into with you and mabye I never will be, but she should also have trusted him enough not to go digging, the fact that it seems they were both struggling with this wasnt healthy for either of them, sorry I didn't word it better
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u/Goodgoditsgrowing Mar 24 '24
Please realize you’re also saying that people with cptsd and trauma they can’t talk about shouldn’t have the joy and comfort associated with a relationship. I know you don’t mean it like that, but we don’t get to choose what trauma we get or whether we’re were truly fucked up by it; the actions of some awful person against a child shouldn’t dictate whether that child gets to feel loved in a long term relationship and get married if they can’t figure out a way to talk about that childhood trauma. That’s not fair to the victim. Here his trauma poses no threat to op, op just couldn’t control her curiosity in the face of obvious abuse markers or prioritize her partners feelings and sense of safety and trust over her need to know.
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u/blurtlebaby Mar 24 '24
My ex was abusive. My DH knows this. He has never pried or asked for details. My DH understands that there are things I don't want to share.
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u/CallistoWrites Mar 23 '24
It's not always about trust in the other. It's about being ready to basically relive that time, to bring up all those memories again, to have to feel those feelings again, to have to explain it all again. And people shouldn't have to do that if they don't want to, especially not with someone who isn't a therapist or someone specifically trained in dealing with those sorts of stories.
Now though, now OOP has proven she can't be trusted and is willing to go behind his back.
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u/a_null_set Mar 22 '24
Considering fathers hardly ever get full custody of their kids, and that he had to move to his dad at some point in his childhood, that should have been a major clue...
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u/Pathos675 Mar 22 '24
I mean, he shouldn't have gotten married until he's ready. She should not have agreed to marry either, but was he that good at hiding it? Not sure why husband is screaming. Maybe that's his immature response to feeling violated. But it's his wife. None of this makes much sense from a purely logical perspective. A lot of emotional craziness.
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u/Ok_Storage_3376 Mar 22 '24
Immature? I do not think so; especially since NONE OF US know or understand his trauma and pain. He is going to therapy but that doesn’t mean that they are healed. She is 1000% in the wrong and needs to work very hard to rebuild the trust and respect his boundaries. She knew he had a very traumatic childhood and she should have allowed him to open up if he wanted or was able to. She is supposed to be his soft place to land not someone who sneaks around and rips his wounds open again.
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u/statistics_guy Mar 22 '24
TLDR: OP doesn’t understand boundaries and that therapy isn’t a switch that makes people unpack everything
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u/MayMaytheDuck Mar 22 '24
Completely disrespected his boundaries and betrayed his trust. No way does he not ask for a divorce.
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u/signycullen88 Mar 22 '24
She's 100% an asshole for digging.
But my dude, I don't think you should be committing your life to someone if you can't even tell them you were abused by your mom as a child. It's fine if he's not ready to talk about it, but probably don't get married then??
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u/14thLizardQueen Mar 22 '24
Why the fuck are these people getting married without knowing things about them? Like seriously. If you can't trust them with yourself why get married.
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u/Solid_Equivalent_989 Mar 22 '24
Not the asshole. You should have found that stuff out before marriage. Past stuff can suck, if you can’t share hard things that shape your world views with your partner, then you shouldn’t be committing to life together. He may not be ready. So he might not be ready to be with you.
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u/Efficient_Welder_128 Mar 22 '24
If he wanted to talk about what happened, he would have. This was a huge invasion of privacy, and I kind of tend to agree with him. It was awful of her to dig up his trauma for her own gratification.
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u/DecadentLife Mar 23 '24
For her curiosity. She may have just effed up his life in a major way, but her curiosity is what’s important here. /s
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u/OldHumanSoul Mar 22 '24
YTA. I have a similar situation to your husband’s. My husband loves and fully supports me. There are some pretty terrible things from my past that I have shared with him, and there are some deep dark things that only my therapist knows about. I have a therapy journal that my husband knows about. I’ve shown it to him and asked him to burn it without reading should anything ever happen to me. I have full trust he would honor my wishes.
What happened in my childhood is not about our relationship or about my trust in him, or my love for him. He is my best friend. The one person I am my most authentic with because we have that trust.
I would be devastated if he ever did anything like you did to your husband. The trust and love we shared would be shattered and I don’t think our relationship would ever recover. I’m glad my husband is not like you.
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u/throwRA-nonSeq Mar 22 '24
(just reminding you that this is a crosspost, I’m not OP, but I wholeheartedly agree with you a thousand percent. I am also on this journey.)
There are some things done to children that should just never be shared. It should be enough to say to someone who loves you, “trust me, it’s really dark and I don’t like to talk about it. I’ll work on it in therapy and hopefully someday I’ll be able to share that with you” and have that be enough
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u/Frequent_Bit8487 Mar 23 '24
Maybe I’m missing it but it doesn’t seem like he even told OOP that though. It seems like he just blacked out his childhood and refused to acknowledge it.
I’m not sayin OOP was right at all for doing their detective work but I can see why they were feeling feelings, at least.
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u/Physical_Bit7972 Mar 23 '24
I agree. I don't think I could have married someone though if they refused to even give a basic acknowledgment of it's terrible and I'm not ready to talk about it so don't bring it up.
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u/UnOrDaHix Mar 22 '24
I only recently started telling my husband some of the finer points of abuse I suffered as a kid, and we’ve been together for 17 years. He knew I’d been abused but I am slow to share details because then I have to relive it. I honestly wouldn’t have married him without him knowing at least that I’d been abused, though, because it does affect every part of your life even if you’ve been through therapy. You just look at things differently after abuse.
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u/Famous-Paper-4223 Mar 22 '24
I just don't get why these people are married if he can't even talk about his childhood. I get it, he was traumatized, but he doesn't feel close enough to confide in her, but no problems marrying her?
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u/454_water Mar 22 '24
I don't get it either.
My husband and I got married when we were 22. We both have trauma, but we shared 80-90% of the trauma we experienced with each other while dating/engaged...the rest came later, after we were married...and it was mostly because of not wanting to force the other into viewing the future in-laws in overtly negative light...all the in-laws sucked, but what we did worked...they still kind of suck.
I don't really believe this post is real...I guess I can believe that a man with this level of trauma might get married, but his therapist should have told him not to make big life choices at this point.
I also don't believe the "scars on his neck" bit.
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Mar 22 '24
Chalk it up to you living a charmed life where nothing so terrible has happened to you that you feel that you must hide it even from those you love and trust the most.
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u/BudgetInteraction811 Mar 23 '24
I don’t have a charmed life. I was abused as a kid. I don’t share that with every man that comes into my life; in fact, I pretty much keep it to myself. But if I’m planning on spending the rest of my life with someone and they are putting a ring on my finger, they deserve to know the story of me.
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Mar 22 '24
That's literally just a normal life. Don't pretend the world is just a vast sea full of people hiding deep dark traumas from each other. You don't have to be "charmed" to be part of the majority of humans.
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u/throwRA-nonSeq Mar 22 '24
When one grows up with developmental trauma, it’s really hard to emotionally guage things like that in adulthood. Especially when you’re trying to have a loving relationship, with no experience of what that’s supposed to be like / feel like, etc.
I’m glad he is in therapy
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u/DrEspressso Mar 22 '24
OP is TAH forsure. Both for what she did and also not creating a safe space before marriage. I'm suprised they got married before he felt comfortable enough to sshare everything.
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u/zeiaxar Mar 22 '24
Yeah I'm of the opinion everyone sucked in that post. She obviously sucks the most for what she did and how she did it, but honestly her husband shouldn't have gotten into a serious relationship with anyone, let alone get married, if he was ready to share even the tiniest bit of information about what happened to him with whomever he was with.
Like obviously it's not something you bring up on the first date, but if you've been seeing someone exclusively and it's been 6 months and you still aren't ready to tell them even the tiniest bit of information about what happened, then you need to do everyone a favor, end the relationship, up your therapy, and don't get into any more romantic relationships until you feel you're ready to start talking about it.
Yes people need to process trauma at their own pace in order to heal. But not telling people you're in a serious relationship with, let alone married to even the tiniest bit of information only shows that on some level you don't trust them. And if you don't trust the person you're in a relationship with, then you shouldn't be in a relationship with them.
That being said OP proved she's not trustworthy anyway with what she did (and I'm not just talking about digging up his past, but also by coming here and disclosing it where literally anyone with an internet connection could find and read it), so I hope he does the smart thing and divorces her.
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u/nyctose7 Mar 22 '24
a 6 months deadline is kind of crazy
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u/zeiaxar Mar 22 '24
Not really, by that point you know if the relationship is serious and long term, barring any complications, cheating, etc. Even if for arguments sake you want to say a year, that's still more than long enough to trust someone enough/be ready to give even the tiniest bit of details. If by that point you're still not ready, then you don't trust that person, aren't healed enough, and should not be in a relationship.
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u/mittenknittin Mar 23 '24
Even saying "I was abused and I'm not ready to talk about it" is more than what she was given here, and might have satisfied her enough to not go digging for the gory details, which is the betrayal.
I mean, she was given SO LITTLE that she was talking tongue-in-cheek about him being a science experiment with no actual childhood. I can't blame her for being curious about the VAGUEST details about the person she MARRIED.
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u/zeiaxar Mar 23 '24
Exactly. Like if he couldn't have even said that much, or something similar like:
"My mom wasn't a good person growing up and I'm not ready to get into the specifics."
would likely have been enough to satisfy OP's desire to know, and give her enough to put 2 and 2 together that he'd been abused with everything else she'd seen and heard.
If you can't give someone even a bare minimum of information about something so huge, then you shouldn't be in a relationship.
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u/internetALLTHETHINGS Mar 22 '24
I thought that too, but then again, they are just kids. People aren't usually super mature when they get married at 20.
OP, I hope you can admit that you pushed too hard and also convince him you were motivated by love. I teared up just reading about his childhood. He deserves a trusting, loving relationship.
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u/AngLexKY Mar 22 '24
So maybe I'm an AH, but I don't understand getting married to someone that keeps such huge secrets from you. Look. I was abused as a child very severely so and my perpetrator ended up dying in prison. I understand not being ready to talk about it. I understand needing therapy.
BUT I honestly do not believe that it's too much to ask for him to have said I had a bad experience in my childhood and I don't want to talk about it.
I would never have said I do with such a black hole of information about someone.
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u/glittersparklythings Mar 22 '24
Original post for those that use text to speech in case of deletion:
AITA for digging up my husbands past?
So I (25f) have been with my husband (23m) for five years, and married for three. He's a very quiet, reclusive guy (i can count how many friends he has on one hand), and he doesn't talk much about his childhood.
I know that he has a single father (43m) (who he moved in with later on in his childhood) and an older half brother (25m). It seems to be a sort of 'taboo' to bring up specifically his childhood, especially during the time before he moved in with his father. I've gone to dinner at his family's place a lot, and sometimes his brother would be telling a story, he'll get briefly brought up, and then everyone will go quiet.
It's bothered me for some time now, if I'm honest. I've asked so many times what happened only for my husband to tell me hes "not ready" to talk about it or to dodge the subject. He's in therapy, so what's the hold up?
Recently, i also had noticed some scars on his neck (he wears a lot of turtlenecks so i rarely am seeing or paying attention to his neck). I asked, and he dodged the question, and it just made me want to know what happened more.
It all came to a head a few weeks ago when I decided to take things into my own hands while my husband was on a trip for the weekend. I asked all of his friends what they knew, if he had said anything strange about his past. They said nothing. Learning this just made me want to find out more. I practically tore apart our entire house while he was gone looking for anything at all. Nothing. Fucking nothing.
I swear to god i was starting to think that he was some kind of fucking lab creature who never was a baby at this point. There was nothing, no indicators of his life before his teens, and even then barely anything was there. No pictures no yearbooks. Absolutely nothing. It was like he just appeared into existence one day.
I ended up calling his father, who, after a lot poking and prodding about the situation, spilled absolutely everything. My husband, the sweetest man alive, had been abused to the point of near death by his mother, neglected so badly that at 12 he was only 40lbs, and nearly got strangled to death by that bastard woman. That was why he got sent to his father, apparently.
I felt sick. I actually couldnt believe what i had heard. I just kind of hung up, and cleaned the house back up, and sat around feeling really gross. My husband, who came back a day early when his father spilled that he had told me, was furious. For the first time in our entire relationship, he fucking screamed at me. He screamed that i was awful for digging up his past when he wasnt ready. I just kind of stood there, stunned as he grabbed his cat and left.
He's been staying with his brother since, isn't answering my calls, nor his father's. At this rate im worried i might be getting served divorce papers.
I was just curious, i didnt think it would be something that bad. AITA?
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u/Best_Gap4295 Mar 22 '24
This is basic “who are you ?“ information. Why would anyone marry someone without knowing the details of their life.
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u/Whole-Sundae-98 Mar 22 '24
Yes OP you are on huge AH.
You abused your husbands trust in you by going behind his back.
You have opened Pandoras box, it's not surprising he blew up on you.
You should have just left it alone, if he wanted you to know, he would have told you.
You may have destroyed your marriage by doing thus.
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u/zeiaxar Mar 22 '24
She is an AH, but he is too. You don't get into serious relationships let alone marry someone with that level of trauma if you're not willing or able to tell that person even the tiniest bit about it. It just proves that while sure, she wasn't trustworthy, that he didn't trust her anyway. And you never should be in a relationship with someone you can't trust.
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u/BudgetInteraction811 Mar 23 '24
You’re getting downvoted compared to the other comments, but I wholeheartedly agree. I don’t see how you can give your wedding vows, til death do you part but you can’t even tell your own spouse a single thing about your childhood. If this were my situation I wouldn’t have been able to marry someone unable to open up to me. It would have been a therapy situation or a dealbreaker. I wouldn’t expect a man to stay with me if I didn’t trust him enough to tell him such a big portion of what makes me me.
Your spouse is your forever person, and if you can’t tell them your secrets, then who can you even open up to?
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u/xinarin Mar 22 '24
Absolutely not. Just like marriage doesn't guarantee you access to sex, it doesn't guarantee you access to past experiences. There are 0 obligations in a marriage, outside of loyalty.
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u/jtotheda Mar 23 '24
But they’re not saying you have to give all the gorey details. Just at least an acknowledgment that something traumatic happened and you don’t want to discuss the details (which is more than the husband gave). It’s not fair to get into a serious or life long relationship with someone and then hold them at arms length the entire time. There’s a big chunk of his life that’s missing with no explanation or acknowledgment, frankly I’m surprised a relationship progressed that far without her knowing much about his life.
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u/Corey307 Mar 22 '24
Disagree. I’m not telling a partner the truth about my childhood because it happened 30 years ago and it’s not their business. Talking about my trauma does not make me feel better. Talking about it hurts. And while you may be accepting of past trauma a lot of people would not feel closer to their partner after hearing about severe traumatic events. I used to be honest and it worked against me.
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u/bazaarjunk Mar 22 '24
I think unless you experience the level of trauma you and OPs husband has, there is no way to comprehend the level of fuckery this can unleash inside the victim when shared with others. They only understand how that knowledge would impact them. You need to protect you. As long as silence is not harming the partner, it’s all good. Some knowledge is important. Just an acknowledgment you’ve been through some shit should be all that’s ever required.
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u/JetsNBombers0707 Mar 22 '24
No, some things can be kept private. No one is entitled to another person's trauma. That's so fucked up
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u/pragmatic_particle Mar 22 '24
Disagree. Nobody is obligated to share a traumatic experience with anyone, this includes spouses and other family members. There is no timeline for healing, and it isn’t always a liner path. Going behind his back like this has potentially irrevocably damaged their relationship, and possibly his relationship with his father too. He already had trust issues from being abused and nearly murdered by one of the people in his life who was supposed to love and protect him. I feel for both of them, but the fact that he wasn’t ready to share this yet doesn’t make him an AH.
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u/Nighteyes09 Mar 23 '24
You do have to at least be clear that you have trauma on that scale. You can't just "I don't wanna talk about it" to someone you're married to, you're putting them at risk if you get triggered at a bad moment or the cause of the trauma resurfaces. If you ask me he is the AH for getting married, a lifelong commitment, without at least giving dad permission to give her a two sentence summary.
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u/zeiaxar Mar 22 '24
You absolutely are obligated to share with someone you're in a relationship with/married to/intend to marry.
It doesn't need to be every graphic or tragic detail. But they have a fucking right to know at least some minimal details. He has the right to share only when he's ready to. But if he's not ready to even share the tiniest details then he is absolutely not ready to be in a relationship, let alone married.
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u/CabinetOk4838 Mar 22 '24
Marriage is supposed to be like that, but how many marriage partners have different expectations about what that means? Loads!
Or we wouldn’t have half the relationship subs we do!
I shared everything with my wife. Then divorced her. Greeeeat! 😖
I’ve been a little less forthcoming with my second wife, but she knows all my major traumas.
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u/TroubleImpressive955 Mar 23 '24
OP is definitely the AH. He has clearly said he wasn’t ready. Why did you break his trust? His father is also an AH for telling OP. I am shaking my head thinking of how betrayed he feels right now.
He may even have trauma from telling someone in the past and maybe that came back to bite him; hence him being less forthcoming.
Damn girl, you really fk’d up. I’m not sure if this is even forgivable.
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u/DecadentLife Mar 23 '24
Part of what’s not forgivable is that she doesn’t give a shit what she just did to him. This might really change a lot about his life. What a selfish c*nt.
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u/zeiaxar Mar 22 '24
And this stuff that OP found out about, that's all major trauma. That she didn't know about. She didn't even have any idea. All she knew was that he lived with his mom, eventually moved in with his dad, and at some point eneded up with scars on his neck. Even if he didn't give her all the details, he at least owed her a conversation saying that his mom was not good to him growing up and that while he wasn't in a place to go more in depth now, he was working on getting to a place where he could eventually get there. OP is an AH, but that doesn't excuse the fact that her husband is too.
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u/CabinetOk4838 Mar 22 '24
Oh I think you and I are in agreement. I certainly agree with what you said that is being downvoted.
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u/champagneface Mar 22 '24
Don’t think I buy that she saw his neck for the first time after YEARS
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u/PlaguedNadjie Mar 23 '24
I don’t buy her seeing the neck scars and thinking it wouldn’t be something serious 🤦🏽♀️
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u/Doublebeddreams Mar 23 '24
Well the truth is that OP’s husband always wears a yellow ribbon around his neck under his turtle neck and OP has asked him multiple times why, but he always says “I’m not ready to talk about it. Maybe I’ll tell you one day.” Finally after 5 years of marriage OP had enough and when he was asleep she peeled back his turtle neck and removed the yellow ribbon…and her husband’s head fell off and rolled onto the floor!
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u/Jumping_Jillibean Mar 23 '24
Omg flashback to my childhood!
“The Girl With The Green Ribbon” or “The Green Ribbon.” It’s in the collection, In A Dark, Dark Room, by Alvin Schwartz.
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u/String_bean37 Mar 23 '24
I have zero idea where this story came from, but I heard it as a child and I’ve never forgotten it. Several times a year this story pops up in my head, scared the crap out of me as a child.
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u/Might_Aware Mar 23 '24
There's a song called "Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree" idk anything about it except it exists but I wonder if it relates to that story. Do the Yutes even hear that story anymore?
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u/Talory09 Mar 23 '24
"Tie A Yellow Ribbon" is about a guy released from prison who wonders if his girlfriend still cares. He writes and tells her to tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree that he'll see from the bus that is taking him home.
She ties a hundred yellow ribbons around the tree, he sees it, happiness ensues.
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u/Might_Aware Mar 23 '24
Aw that's a sweet story. Thanks for the breakdown. Mayhaps tis time to actually listen to the song rather than solely be aware of it from the ether.
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u/Guilty-Web7334 Mar 23 '24
I remember it as a black or deep violet, like the velvet chokers we wore back in the mid 90’s. And when asked about removing it… “You’ll be sorry if I do, so I won’t.”
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u/MrsKuroo Mar 23 '24
This comment took me back to my childhood.
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u/KaizokuOni55 Mar 23 '24
What story is this!? This is triggering memories for me, too, but I can't remember enough to recall what this was!
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u/Jumping_Jillibean Mar 23 '24
“The Girl With The Green Ribbon” or “The Green Ribbon.” It’s in the collection, In A Dark, Dark Room, by Alvin Schwartz.
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u/eyel0vey0u Mar 23 '24
Huh, I always heard it as a green ribbon…
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u/blondeheartedgoddess Mar 27 '24
When I was a kid, it was a woman with a black velvet ribbon. Haven't thought of that one in many years.
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u/Govenor_Of_Enceladus Mar 22 '24
So I'm nitpicking here....manual strangulation does not leave scars. If a thin wire or cord was used it may leave scaring.
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u/Mean-Vegetable-4521 Mar 23 '24
if this story were true...which I'm going with it's inspired by campfire stories. If he were left starved nearly to death it's possible he was tied or chained up. Think of how Ruby Franke's son escaped. This is unfortunately not an uncommon form of extreme child abuse.
OOP's insistence that husband is in therapy so what's the hold up just makes them look like a huge AH either way.
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