A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:My husband and I have been married for 2 years dated 4 years prior to that. Tonight, I just found out my husband has been married 3 times prior to our relationship. I knew of one marriage, but he has never openly disclosed these other 2 marriages to me at any time. I just so happen to found out while looking through our 2015 documents and he answered this questionnaire on his disability application. It asked how many times have you been married and he answered 4. I asked him about this right away and he says he never mentioned the other 2 marriages because they were annulled. I'm so upset and hurt by this right now because this isn't the first time he's "kept" something from me. I just don't feel like I can trust him. I don't know what other important past information he has hidden from me that I'll have to inadvertently discover on my own. He downplays everything as though it shouldn't matter and I'm at a lost right about now. Thoughts??? ~sincerely, Lost in emotions Reply to this Question
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2016): 'Apples to oranges' is not a fact. Its an opinion and not everyone shares it. That is the whole point that Serpico and some others are trying to make.
The law does not get involved into casual sex histories because it is not easily proven and it has no financial implications. Money determines most of what the law really cares about.
But money does not determine morality.
A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (20 January 2016):
 Serpico - I wasn't talking about you. I was referring to the male anon who stated "your past is none of your future partner's business" only applies when women want it to."
He's confusing sexual history with marital history, which is absolutely apples to oranges.
Trust me - I'm not passive-aggressive. I'll be straight forward "in your face" if there's something I don't like.
I AGREE WITH YOU about not lying about a sexual past! While I don't believe there should be an eternal interrogation about every single sexual encounter, lying about it is a horrible and unforgivable thing to do! For a woman (or a man!) to misrepresent themselves saying they only had 2 sexual partners when in reality they had 95 is wrong, and a partner is entitled to know their partner's sexual values.
The anon male also downplayed the legal ramifications of annulments/divorces, and lumped it in with some female "entitlement" thing. That's the chip I was referring to.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I wasn't talking about anything you have said or you in general. You got what I said about marital/legal past vs sexual past.
Compatibility should be determined prior to marriage. What I disagree with is after marriage, a guy being upset because she had, say, anal sex with a past partner but not doing it with him. Those are the issues that breach privacy. Also, I am absolutely against lying in all forms. Exes and relationships with exes should not play into current relationships from an emotional standpoint. However, fraud, or saying "I only had 3 partners" when say, you had 3 partners but you neglected to reveal a 10-year history as an escort isn't the same. A spouse should know, and that type of vetting is absolutely as essential from a compatibility standpoint!
Does that clear things up??
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A
male
reader, Serpico +, writes (20 January 2016):
Youwish - for starters, you can stop with the passive aggressive attacks, eg "chip on shoulder." I could just as easily do the same from my side of the aisle with equal validity. In the end, it does neither side any good.That said, believe it or not, I am with you completely when you insinuate complete information prior to getting married. Getting married, more particularly, who you marry, is the single most important decision you can ever make regarding your own happiness. With that, I do not think ANYTHING should be off the table regarding background. With that, should past marital history be a part of that? Absolutely.The issue I have is when in the same breath many here think relationship/sexual history is somehow uniquely pardoned from this background search, or even worse, being morally eligible to be lied about. No doubt, that sentiment is likely a byproduct of their own pasts, but that fact doesnt make them right. From a mans perspective, I think that is perhaps the single most important thing to find out. Ive lost track on how many times Ive read here something to the effect - "Just found out my wife of 20 years lied to me about how many men..." To that I say, if you didnt ask, your fault. If she lied, on the other hand, then thats on her. If a couple are planning to get married, then any and all questions are on the table, and they all deserve to be answered with brutal honesty. If a women asks the man if he was married prior, he needs to answer, and answer with color. If a man asks the women how many men she has slept with, she needs to answer, and answer with color. Once complete information for both parties are satisfied, then they both can make their respective decisions. Anything else is pure hypocrisy.IMO, if more people went through this vetting process prior to marriage, our divorce rates would be much lower ...
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (20 January 2016):
This is not an issue of whether the "past should stay the past", and frankly, I'm surprised that people with that type of chip on their shoulder would project their own jealousy issues into something that couldn't be farther from *that* subject as you can get.
The fact that two marriages were ANNULLED raises the red flag of marriage validity. One of the biggest reasons for annulment versus divorce is that the marriage was never valid based on bigamy. This means that if a guy never formally divorces his first wife, or starts the divorce but it's never finalized in the courts, then he marries another woman, that second marriage is annulled by the court because the first marriage never ended.
THIS has nothing to do with "The past is in the past". THIS is more in line with the rules of starting and running a business entity than sexual politics and jealousy.
If he's had 2 secret annulments, I'd be wondering if MY marriage is valid or if he didn't properly end a marriage. This isn't about the past. It's about the PRESENT. I would NOT want to find out, 10 years and 2 kids and a mortgage later that his first wife and he never divorced, making a woman I never met a claimant to things I paid for, like his house, his pension, my pension, my assets that a court and a sleazy lawyer could contend that my conditions with my invalid "husband" made him a "part-owner" in my holdings. Not to mention all of a sudden, any debt accrued could be affected by the laws of his first marriage, letting him off the hook for joint purchases (cars, loans, credit cards), leaving me holding the bag.
This is not the past. This is PRESENT lying, PRESENT marriage dealings, and anyone who says an annulled marriage has no legal or financial relevance lives a very precarious life.
In preparing a business plan or planning on either obtaining property, a purchasing a business, or buying a bonding license, one of the first things to do is DUE DILIGENCE. No, that doesn't sound romantic, but it's every bit as important in planning a potential marriage.
One reason that Due diligence happens is to find ENCUMBERANCES that would hinder or render the business relationship impossible or severely hardshipped. For example, what if there was a tax or mechanic's lien on a house that was not disclosed? What if the business owner was cooking their books to inflate their earnings? What if there was a silent partner that wasn't mentioned that is entitled to 50% of the profits? All of which have happened by dishonest people trying to hide blemishes and make a deal happen. In the marriage world, that would mean not disclosing children which need child support and would eat a chunk of his AND YOURS paychecks. It would mean annulled marriages that were improperly dealt with (or still valid as much as he would like to forget about them), or a first marriage upon which other courts annulled two subsequent marriages about. Are these former spouses hostile and a future threat with his assets? All of these are questions he should have FULLY disclosed before he got married this time, AND constitute fraud for not having been disclosed.
We're not talking sex partners. We're not talking some porn addiction that have moral ramifications, though from a moral standpoint, there's a difference between not talking about it and LYING about it.
This has to do with the formation of a legally protected entity. Family Household, LLC. It's not romantic, people, but it staggers me how many people will rush into having children, buying houses, opening bank accounts, but have no knowledge on how to really protect their own assets. The OP is here because she didn't properly do DUE DILIGENCE on who she was about to join her financial future on for hopefully the rest of her life.
This is the biggest reason why marriage cannot and must not be a purely emotional decision, and why those confusing sexual past dalliances as being a matter of privacy are missing the mark so egregiously when it comes to legal marital matters. Too many people will Carfax their car for past accidents and service records, but will not give their impending marriage at least THAT level of research.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2016): To the OP, sorry about the distractions. The topic of sexual histories comes up all the time on Dearcupid and its a controversial one. Your question had the effect of putting one side of that rift into the other one's position for a change. In fact your last comment (that everyone is ignoring your issue with the dishonesty and making it all about the specifics) is like that too. Lots of sexual history questions get answers that are missing (or willfully ignoring) the dishonesty complaint and only focusing on the numbers. This sucks for the person in your shoes because it turns the blame on you. Now you are the one who needs to accept something and your partner is getting a pass for lying about it. This is wrong. A liar does NOT deserve a pass. People don't lie because their partner "couldn't deal with the truth." People lie because they don't like accepting the consequences of their own choices. You have been wronged. Your husband should NOT have lied about his past marriages. If he didn't want to talk about it then he should have said "I don't want to go into my past" and let you make your own choice. You have no responsibility to accept the truth after being lied to first. You cannot make an informed choice about being with someone when you were not being informed.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2016): My issue is with the fact that he lied to me about how many times he was married when we were dating not with the number of times he was married. I think there's a misunderstanding of my concern here. If someone asks you a question; don't you expect for them to be completely honest with you? I appreciate the feedback but I think somewhere my question/concern got lost in translation. ~ 1??
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A
male
reader, Serpico +, writes (18 January 2016):
Looking further - Im still confused. Consensual sexual history and divorces/annulments are both equally LEGAL, so Im not sure why ordaining one as "legal" history over the other.Second, again, Ive lost track on how many times Ive read here that sexual history is no business of the current partner, so why wouldnt the same apply to marriage history?
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (18 January 2016): If the mans annulments were because he is a criminal then he would have also been put in prison when the marriages were annulled. If he already served his time then "the past is the past" and he has legally squared his debt to society. If the LAW is letting him walk around free, annul his old marriages, and get married again? The OP has a right to that opinion but its not a legal mandate. The man is not legally obligated to present a file of his marriage history to all future wives. If he wants to keep his "sordid relationship history" to himself then he has just as much right do that as anyone else.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (18 January 2016): I guess "your past is none of your future partner's business" only applies when women want it to.
An annulled marriage has no legal or financial relevance. The only reason why a future wife would feel entitled to know is because she values honesty and she needs to make an informed choice to marry him. Those are exactly the same reasons why men pry into women's sexual histories - and men get slammed for it.
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A
male
reader, Serpico +, writes (17 January 2016):
Is legal past what you really are worried about? I see - so before you get into a relationship, whats important to you is to find out all of the traffic violations that he received? You really want to know if had a drink before the age of 21? You're dying to find out about all J-walking transgressions? How about if he took those tags off of pillows? Sure thats what you want to know. Sure you do.Or is it just perhaps you REALLY just want to know about past commitments and are simply painting that with the legal brush because it looks better? If you want to stay on the "legal" excuse, premarital sex is illegal in some countries - does that now make it ok for investigation? Or is it just arbitrary as it suits you? The truth is, this is a double standard, and you know it.Men are the gatekeepers of commitment, women are the gatekeepers of sex. Hence, the opposite sex will typically be concerned with liberal keepers of those gates. Just the way it is, and you can't have it both ways.
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A
male
reader, Garbo +, writes (17 January 2016):
 I know of a situation similar to yours about a woman who is close to my family. Her husband claimed he has never been married, but come to find out, after they had children, he was divorced. So he lied. That was a nail in the coffin on their already collapsing relationship. She decided to stay with him the sake of children but their marriage is cynical, sexless and so cold. It is a vary sad outcome for someone who was so vibrant and full of life. She has developed a mild depression, and other ailments. I think she would have left them had there been no kids. You can draw your own conclusions out of this.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie + ♥, writes (17 January 2016):
 Uncle Serpico
I think there is BIG difference from a sexual past to a LEGAL past. And having been married 3 times but only mentioning 1 marriage to your spouse... is suspicious. If the annulments were no big deal, why not tell your wife or fiance about them?
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A
female
reader, ova-valentine  +, writes (17 January 2016):
 This is serious. You need to call a lawyer& p.i. and settle out the details of his past marriages. If he did not initially tell you about these marriages, there must be something more that's being hidden from you. Good luck.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie + ♥, writes (17 January 2016):
For about $20 you can look up your husbands prior records, that includes his marriages. I'd say those $20 are well spend if HE doesn't want to tell you to whom he was married and why they marriages were annulled.
Depending on the state he lives in annulments aren't always easy, but in some the state will RATHER do an annulment over a divorce (faster, cheaper and easier)
It USED to be that you could get an annulment ONLY if there was either no consummation, they were discovered to be too closely related, or one or the other had a prior marriage that has NOT ended (as in someone who is separated can NOT marry till the divorce is final, yet some people still do it just in another state).
So yes, go check him out
http://www.top10bestbackgroundcheck.com/?kw=background%20check%20companies&c=69163812988&t=search&p=&m=e&adpos=1t1&dev=c&devmod=&mobval=0&network=g&campaignid=234670348&adgroupid=16832783188&targetid=kwd-49492603&interest=&physical=9052498&feedid=&a=3000&ts=&topic=&gclid=CNHUvtWjscoCFYOEaQodZbwM7Q
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A
male
reader, Serpico +, writes (17 January 2016):
Whatever happened to "the past is the past" and is no one's business?I mean, I've lost count on how many times I've read that here regarding sexual history...
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A
male
reader, Capri2  +, writes (17 January 2016):
I agree with YouWish one hundred percent. I'd say two annulments is too much.That being said I'd like to ask this question: very often we read here "the past should stay in the past" as an advice for relationships. "What your partner did in her/his past is none of your business" is a sentence I use to object. And this case shows why. I'd say that the past shouldn't matter as long as it is a normal past. But then, how do you know if it is normal if you don't know about it?
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (17 January 2016):
Two annulments?? Uhh, that's not good at ALL. The fact that he's downplaying them should be a major red flag. Let's say he's telling the truth here (which I'm not so sure of, but his lie would be just as big of a red flag as having two annulments)
To get a marriage annulled means that a court has to assert that the marriage never existed!! A divorce means that a VALID marriage is ending. An annulment means the marriage was ruled as NEVER VALID.
Some reasons:
1. BIGAMY - he was married to more than one person at the same time
2. FORCED CONSENT - like a shotgun marriage, where one is forced to marry the other under pressure or duress.
3. INCEST/PROHIBITED - Like first cousins or sister/brother or whatever
4. MENTALLY ILL - meaning there was a marriage but one party was deemed too ill to make a decision on marriage. Once maybe, but TWICE?? No way.
5. MENTALLY INCAPACITATED - like a blackout drunk Vegas wedding.
6. UNABLE TO CONSUMMATE - You said he was disabled? Does that mean he's impotent and can't have sex? That's this reason for annulment - the marriage can't be sexually consummated. Same sex marriage doesn't apply for this one.
7. UNDERAGE - self-explanatory. Without parental consent or one spouse lied about age and married under the age of 16.
I would be alarmed too AND if I were you, I'd retain a lawyer and a P.I. to find out what else about your husband you don't know, because I'd be alarmed at 2 annulments.
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