People Are Sharing The Bombshells Their Spouses Dropped On Them After Marriage, And It's Actually Terrifying

Reddit user u/BigButtSweetPink recently asked, "What did your wife/husband hide from you until after you were already married?" The thread quickly filled with hundreds of revelations and betrayals. Here are some of the wildest stories people shared:

1."He told me he was in the military. I had recently enlisted in the Army when I met him out one night. He told me he was a Marine veteran, and that’s how we started talking. He told me stories about his time overseas and how he still keeps in touch with his military buddies. We eventually got married two years later, and when I applied for a VA loan under his name, I got a letter from the DOD that they had no record of him ever being in the military. He fabricated the whole thing. He would constantly ask for military discounts and tell elaborate war stories to people while wearing old military clothes. He started yelling at me when I confronted him about all the lies. We are now divorced."

u/Sweetorange23

2."He omitted that he was unemployed, in the middle of a bankruptcy case, and that he'd also lost his house to foreclosure. The worst part is that I never found out about any of this until years later when we were getting divorced. He hid so much from me, and I still have no clue how."

u/Spirited-Cat-8942

Foreclosure notice posted on a window
Jeremy Poland / Getty Images

3."My best friend was engaged for a year (and was with the guy for five years). She found out less than a month before her wedding that he had planned to kill his ex-wife (mother of his child) after she had married someone else. He had gone up to the mountains where they were having their honeymoon and camped out with a scoped rifle just up the hill from their cabin. He spent an entire week watching them, planning on killing them and then himself if he got the chance. He couldn't bring himself to do it, so he left after they did."

"His brother spouted off about it to my friend when he got drunk one night, so she asked her fiancé about it, and he did not deny it. He told her it was all true, and he still thinks about killing his ex-wife. She ended that relationship quickly and got a restraining order. Thankfully, he moved out of state shortly after, so she's probably safe."

u/BikesCoffeeAndMusic

4."My first husband hid several ex-wives (who thought they were current wives but divorced on paper for financial reasons), a 'current' wife, and multiple girlfriends, all while married to me. He also had a wife in his home country, several other kids in three countries, many bank accounts, and a mountain of debt. He lied about his jail time for fraud and theft, including doing a stint of several months for stealing from his employer (who fired him). He did this while married to me, and he told me he was back in his home country visiting his sick mother. He also had several social security numbers and identities he was using; the date of birth he gave me wasn't correct (his uncle accidentally spilled those beans), and the FBI was after him. He screwed over financial partners in Miami, and they were out for blood. His brother's kids were actually his because he'd had sex with his sister-in-law."

"He'd killed someone back in his home country and gotten away with it because his family had bribed the authorities. Oh, and that he liked to meet random men for sex but was apparently only a 'receiver.' He was a pathological liar. No residual trust issues here, lol."

u/WitchOfLycanMoon

Close-up of an individual holding onto jail bars, suggesting themes of restriction in relationships
Steven Puetzer / Getty Images

5."My first wife waited until invitations had gone out and all the vendors were paid for to break down and tell me her mom had been undermining our relationship and begging her not to marry me since before we got engaged. It was unfounded as I had no vices, was college-educated from a top university, was gainfully employed, and had a solid family who supported our relationship. It was about control. I found out her brother had moved to the other side of the state specifically to get away from her when he got married. We ended up getting married anyway, and it lasted one year before we divorced because her mother never stopped, and it eventually worked. I started defending our marriage to her face after a while, but we were working opposite schedules sometimes because she was a nurse, which didn't help."

"When we separated, I lit her mother up like a bonfire and told her everything I had been holding in. I had to warn her dad it was better for him just to sit there and listen. The good news is my current wife of 20+ years has been a far better spouse, and her family is great."

u/Fun_Diver_3885

6."She had a threesome with her friend and one of our mutual friends. I found out accidentally and have never brought it up to her because she feels shame about it (according to the texts I stumbled on), and I don't want to bring up the past. But, I'm now uncomfortable around this friend, knowing that they have been with my wife like that and hid it."

u/kingn8link

Two pairs of feet at the end of a bed, suggesting intimacy between unseen individuals
Eric O'connell / Getty Images

7."That 90% of everything he told me about his past and life was a lie. He made up being in the Air Force, living in Texas, and having a multitude of illnesses, including being a diabetic. I was pregnant with my second child when a conversation with my mother-in-law revealed they never lived in Texas. I started asking her more questions and figured out I had been completely catfished by this man. He was 21 and I was 16 when we started dating. We met through a volunteer EMS service, and he was a volunteer firefighter, so I thought he was an upstanding guy. It took 25 years to get rid of his dumb, lying, stealing ass, but it’s been a wondrous nine years of post-divorce freedom."

u/crazygranny

8."She hid that she had a child with someone else already, and they were still together, raising him as friends with benefits. I was so mind-boggled that I hadn't found out about this the whole year we were together before we got married."

u/White-Inn

Two people embracing, one with a visible hand on the other's shoulder, signifying closeness and affection
Halfpoint Images / Getty Images

9."They admitted to me that I was easy to manipulate the day we signed the papers."

u/Defiant_Action_4629

10."That he’s super traditional and expects that I do everything in the household, and will actively utilize feigned incompetence to make it so. In a bizarre twist, he also feigns incompetence in 'traditionally masculine' activities, too. I’m not just the maid but also the mechanic, electrician, plumber, gardener, veterinarian, accountant, and construction worker. He will, however, make his own food because he has a very limited diet (pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, sandwiches, mac and cheese) and I eat a wider variety of foods that he doesn’t like. He has a lot of other redeeming qualities, but it’s uh, problematic."

u/Ok_Entrance4289

Person holding a basket with cleaning supplies, depicting household chores possibly related to cohabitation dynamics
Peter Dazeley / Getty Images

11."A month after our wedding, he told me he had never been in love with me and only wanted to start a family. He told me that you don't need love to make a marriage work, and we're not getting divorced because 'marriage is forever.' So, yeah, my divorce hearing is on Monday."

u/LavenderSaint

12."My wife didn’t tell me how loaded her family was. Her folks lived in a nice but not opulent home, so I knew they were doing well, but I didn’t know how well until a bit later. The good: We take some awesome vacations with them, her parents occasionally help us with big-ticket purchases, and my kids have college funds big enough to see them through medical school if they want to. The obnoxious: We are definitely seen as the 'poor ones' of the family. It doesn’t matter that I’m self-made and worked my way from a blue-collar background to a $150,000/year job. They all still act like we’re a charity case, my wife included."

u/Changeurblinkerfluid

Scattered US hundred-dollar bills forming a background
Ironheart / Getty Images

13."My first husband and I weren't quite married yet, but we were close. We were engaged and had been together a couple of years when he confessed to me that I was his first sexual partner. When we met, he was nearly 30, and I had just turned 23. His unusual nervousness and awkwardness those first few months finally made sense. I felt oddly betrayed, especially since he'd told me he'd been with several women before me, and I had liked that he was supposedly older and more experienced than the guys I'd been dating."

u/MenstrualDeranged

14."I knew he had a DUI, but I didn't know he had five, triggering a felony DUI (and that he couldn't have a license for 10 years)."

u/Bingo_is_my_name_o

A police officer standing next to a patrol car speaks with an individual during dusk
Kali9 / Getty Images

15."My ex was faking his entire personality. To this day, I don't know why. Maybe because he was from an evangelical family, and I was a leftist atheist, and he wanted to piss off his family."

u/St-Nobody

16."He told me right after our honeymoon that he was only pretending to like the things I liked. We had no real common interests."

u/aleighp11

Two people sitting at a bar appear disinterested in each other, both looking away with bored expressions
Jgi / Getty Images/Tetra images RF

17."My ex-wife hid the fact she stole my social security number and info and got school loans (in my name) for nursing school. As soon as she graduated, she blindsided me with divorce and left with my dog. I really miss my dog, but my ex can burn. The entire time we were married, I stupidly thought she was paying for school with her mom's money and grants."

u/Scriptur3

18."My husband did not mention that he had a son who was 'due any day' during the week we got married. We got married on a Tuesday, and his son was born that Friday. I found out on the Sunday after the baby was born."

u/lala7979

Hospital sign pointing to Wards 5-6 and Maternity Ward
Allanswart / Getty Images

19."His first name. I didn't know I'd been calling him by his middle name until we were signing the marriage license."

u/DwightTheIgnorantSlt

20."Sleepwalking. I had no idea until she woke me up in a panic about tags for shoes. She had just started a second job in a shoe sports store. I spent a minute looking in the bed for tags before figuring out something was weird. Now, after 27 years, I know to direct her back to bed gently. She will always argue that she's not sleepwalking when she's clearly asleep and panicking over a problem that makes no sense."

u/grungysquash

Multiple exposures of a person in pajamas, suggesting intimacy or the stages of a relationship
Jordansimeonov / Getty Images/iStockphoto

21."My wife hid her actual age. I discovered she was five years older than she'd told me when I saw her driver's license."

u/Huge-Water8988

22.And: "My late husband didn't tell me until the day after we were engaged that his parents were practicing nudists and that the cabin they always talked about going to was at a nudist reserve."

u/utlmnop

Oh my god?! Did your partner lie about anything significant that you learned about after marrying them? Tell us in the comments or submit anonymously to this form.

Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.