10+ Unsettling Secrets People Only Found Out About Their Partner After Getting Married

Marriage sometimes comes with shocking finds after the vows. Hidden pasts and unexpected habits that can even put the relationship at risk. In the digital age, people share stories online about discovering uncomfortable truths after getting married and how the unexpected twist impacted them.

• My wife was actually 7 years older than she claimed to be. I was mildly surprised when I found out. And it wasn’t as easy to tell as one might think. She’s Asian and tiny (about 4’10″) and looks young for her age.
  The topic never really came up. It wasn’t until we were doing some paperwork for the children that the discrepancy came to light. © Unknown user / Reddit

• He has aphantasia. It’s a neurological condition where you can’t recall memories as pictures or create images in your mind. He cannot and has never been able to picture what he is reading in a book or, say, conjure an image of a forest or person in his mind. He can’t imagine my face when I’m not there, though it’s not like he forgets it.
  I’m the total opposite and always picture everything in my mind — I’m an artist and my job would be hard if I couldn’t — so to me, it’s like in a way he’s blind. It’s just a different way of experiencing life, I guess, but I was really sad for him when I found out. © Nyx_Shadowspawn / Reddit

• I would wake up early for work and tickle one of his feet, he would snatch it back under the cover quickly and then very slowly push it back to its spot peeking out from under the blanket. I thought this was a cute game we played whenever I was leaving for work, and I did it every morning for almost 2 years.
  Then one day I did it to him while he was awake, and he gave me a confused look and asked, “What are you doing?” I told him I was just trying to play our morning tickle game, and he had absolutely no clue what I was talking about. Turns out, he’s only ticklish when he’s sleeping, and I was unknowingly playing a game alone for almost 2 years. © Ann_Slanders / Reddit

• While we were dating, my husband always told me this story about how he used to race dirt bikes and wrecked one time so badly that he had to have surgery to reconstruct his nose. I had wondered why he looked so different in his younger pictures. Anyway, it wasn’t until we had been married for several years that his mother heard me mentioning that story and how scary that must have been for her, worrying about her son; and she didn’t know what I was talking about. The truth was that he never wrecked a dirt bike and his nose looked different because he had been ashamed of his larger-than-average Italian nose, so she saved up her money to buy him a nose job. © DIGGYRULES / Reddit

• She had two other kids that she had abandoned. I had two sons with her and after my youngest was about a year old, she bolted. We didn’t see her for almost 10 years. © chaiulud / Reddit

• My wife passed away. At the funeral I met her ex-husband, her 22-year-old son who she hadn’t seen for 19 years, and her other 20-year-old son who she gave up for adoption (from a different father). I never knew any of them existed until the night before the funeral, when her best friend asked if I minded if they came.
  Yes, it was awkward. She had never spoken of them. The closest she came to admitting it was when we were dating, and she said, “Don’t believe a word my sister says, she tells everyone that I’m divorced and had two kids.” 17 years later, I found out that was the truth. © OrdinaryJose / Reddit

• I found out the day that we returned from our honeymoon that my husband has a 50/50 chance of having Huntington’s disease (a terrible degenerative neurological disease). He found out that his father has the condition 4 days before our wedding. © halfofmyheart / Reddit

• We’ve been married for over 10 years. I found out last week that he was married before and that the divorce from his first marriage was never filed, so my marriage to him is not valid. © SA_Girl_ / Reddit

• I married a man I’d been dating for 3 months because on our second date he broke down and confided that he was dying of terminal leukemia. He said he wanted to make the most of his remaining months and marry me. Being 23 and dumb, I believed him without asking for any proof, and said yes. My family all rallied behind me, believing him to be a dying man, and threw us an incredible wedding even though they barely knew the guy.
  He refused treatment, playing the “wish to die with dignity” card, and finally after 4 months of marriage and no decline in his health, I confronted him. It was a lie, an elaborate lie. © puppies_in_bowties / Reddit

• My cousin changed her last name to her husband’s 10 days after they met. She didn’t tell him this until they were married for 3 years and had a kid already. She said that, looking back on it, it looks psychotic. Yet, getting your name changed after filling out the paperwork for being a teacher is apparently really hard to do. She figured she met “the one”, so she took his last name immediately. © HirosProtagonist / Reddit

• My mom found out my dad was a compulsive liar when his twin sister didn’t show up to their wedding. When questioned about it, he said she must have imagined the dozens of stories he had told about his twin sister. He is an only child. © AdmThrace / Reddit

Maintaining a committed relationship poses its share of challenges, and not all secrets are kept with bad intentions. In fact, some people choose to hide the truth in order to shield their partners from potential pain. Nevertheless, the burden of these secrets often becomes too heavy, and they take to social media to make their confessions.