People Share Serious Secrets Their SO Was Keeping From Them That They Actually Already Knew About

A Tender Wife Cares While Facing The Emotional Toll

“When we were in the hospital for some weird pain that I had, uninsured, and the doctors thought it might be cancer, I lost it a bit. She was so brave for me.
But her mother called, she went into the bathroom to talk but she didn’t know that the sound echoed pretty loudly into the room. I heard her break down, sobbing, telling her mom she didn’t know how we were going to pay for treatment and that it looked really bad. I’ll never tell her I heard her, but god it was heartbreaking.
When she came out you wouldn’t even know she was even upset, she hid it so well. She sat right down and told me everything was going to be fine with such determination and such certainty. Literally took out her computer then and there and started making a spreadsheet of our finances to fit in cancer. I knew how much she loved me in that moment and how important it was for her that she was brave for me. I don’t know why but I got so calm after that, I haven’t broken down like that since, even with worse news. I guess she makes me strong… god, I love her.”

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A Dying Wife And A Secret Pet Adoption

“Even though we had been married for 25 years, my wife and I always invented stupid private jokes between each other. I was lamenting the fact that we had fostered a Siamese cat from an adoption group, that eventually got adopted, and I really missed her. At one point, we were looking through the website of the local pound, and a Siamese came up named “Montague.”
The photo that they took of Montague was epic. A classic Applehead Siamese, he was neutered, about five years old, and had horribly crossed eyes. Whoever took the photograph of him made him look both proud, distinguished, and adorably insane. Like some crazy dude that comes into the bar as a regular, claims he’s the emperor of the United States of America, and everybody buys him a round because even though he is clearly crazy, he is also very charming. We started making up all the stories about Montague in a spoof of “The world’s most interesting man.” Week after week, we checked to see if he had been adopted, but nobody wanted a crazy looking cross eyed Siamese cat. Everyone at the pound said he was affectionate, and had been there for quite some time.
Sadly, this would be our last private joke together. My wife, who had a terminal illness, suddenly gotten much worse and passed away rather rapidly. We thought we had more time together, but she had sarcoidosis, and her lungs had already been weakened by repeated pneumonia, when she got the flu. Because she was on immunosuppressants for her condition, this is what did her in, she went into a coma, and died a week later.
My sister helped me with the funeral and taking care of a lot of things, including contacting everyone in her phone contacts on her cell phone. She asked me about why the Alexandria pound would be trying to contact my late wife via voicemail. Apparently, my wife had applied to adopt Montague as a surprise gift. She paid the adoption fee and had scheduled a visit to adopt him. But she died before the appointment date.
Sadly, my wife put it in her name only, and the people at the pound were pretty rude about it. Like to adopt Montague I’d have to pay ANOTHER adoption fee, and they were made that she didn’t show up, and at the time it was chaos I couldn’t deal with. My sister gave them an earful and they told her take off.
That ended that.
I hope Montague eventually found a loving family.”

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She Secretly Picks Out A Ring

“Ok, so I found out my fiancé was wanting to ask me to marry him but wanted to get a super expensive ring for me so it was taking time to save up. I don’t give a crap about that type of thing. I’d marry him without a ring. That’s not what’s important to me. So I went to his mom and told her what I knew and she told me we should go look at rings together so maybe I could pick something less expensive so she could tell him we had been shopping and I had fallen in love with a ring that he could afford. I know, I’m sneaky. Anyway, I found an incredible ring that was normally $500 but on sale for $100. I bought the ring and she called him and told him what she did. He was so happy!!! He asked me to marry him on Christmas Eve and it was by far one of the best days of my life. He has no clue that I was involved in the purchase. So, he’s keeping the secret that he doesn’t know that I know.”

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Standing By His Brave Woman No Matter The Cost

“Her Lupus is getting much worse, much more quickly than she had expected and she has maybe ten, fifteen years left before her kidneys or lungs or heart fail. Apparently there’s a ton of scar tissue forming already even though she was diagnosed two weeks ago. She’s gained about twenty pounds from water retention (for a slim, petite little thing it’s almost a fifth of her weight) and her legs have swollen so much that she can’t bend her knees or walk without intense pain.
The worst part is that she always smiles when I come visit her and asks if I want to go hiking or play tennis (my favorite things). All I tell her is that I’m tired and I’d like to read comic books with her or put on Netflix (her favorites) and lay in bed.”

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She’s Bad At Affairs

“My (soon to be) ex-wife met another guy about a year and a half ago. She was so bad at hiding it that I thought she WANTED to get caught. Posting romantic stuff on her Instagram when we hadn’t been romantic in a long time. Confronted her, lied even with solid evidence. A few months later stuff starts disappearing from the house, pretty obvious that she’s moving out. Then we started to have no money every month (and I have a pretty okay job), realized she was stealing money basically by paying her bills twice a month with 3-4x the minimum payment and not paying mine. Let it go on for a bit and finally confronted her, she doesn’t admit to it. I finally just pull my check from our joint account and she says she’s leaving but is going to be homeless. The next day she had changed her Facebook back to her maiden name and had a picture of her and the other guy at their new place.”

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Hiding A Secret About His SO and His Boss

“She had sex with my boss before we knew each other, before I had been hired into the company. I’m not mad about it or anything, everyone has a past but she carefully dances around ever coming into my work now and I’m careful not to bring him up.”

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Woman Lies About Past With Husband

“She deliberately told me she had never slept with a mutual friend of mine (the fact that she deliberately brought this up at literally a complete RANDOM time was suspicious enough) and I then saw a Facebook message from him one day because she was logged in on my phone. It said: ‘remember when we did things, more than just things friends do, was I good?’ She has no idea, I wouldn’t care except for the fact that she out of nowhere told me she had never done anything sexual with him. Why lie when 1) I wouldn’t even be upset 2) I NEVER EVEN ASKED OR BROUGHT IT UP?”

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Stand Up Guy Embarrassed To Share True Feelings

“My SO is a veteran and very stereotypically ‘manly’. He doesn’t talk about his personal life with friends, and he’s pretty quiet in general. This is a Southern traditional dude who opens every door for every person. He calls every person older than him Ma’am and Sir. Anyway, he has a lot of friends who are also this way and they often tease any man who says nice things about their women.

His friend spilled the beans though that one night right after I met him they all got crazy drunk and he told all of them I was the love of his life and we were going to get married one day. They all teased him and were playing around when this one dude he doesn’t know very well told him I had a nice chest. He clocked him. He made such a commotion he’s not allowed back in the bar.

After his friend told me this story, I realized I had asked to go to that bar a couple of weeks ago, and he had made some excuse about the drinks being overpriced. I will never tell him I know, but if he asks me, I’ll marry him.”

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SO Keeps Her Checkered Past A Secret

“Was a prostitute & was in some adult films, & worked as an exotic dancer when young & hungry (Retired. Bought a food truck. I loved the coffee & grilled cheese sandwiches. Fell in love). Doesn’t think I know. Doesn’t know I don’t care. I’ll never tell.”

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Secret Smoker

“She smokes when I’m not home, I know this because I always move the router to the window where the signals best, when I come home the router is in a different position away from the window, I put it back without her knowing and call her out for smoking, she has no idea how I keep finding out!”

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The Alcoholic That Can’t Hide It

“My ex – his drinking. I could smell the alcohol on him. Excuses included:
it’s the coffee I had
it’s the gum I chewed
it’s my aftershave
the guys were drinking, not me
I had to use a solvent today, I must have gotten some on me
etc
I gave up. I knew. Then he started coming home fall-down drunk. Gave him an ultimatum. Went through with it.”

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Keeping Her Man Down

“I had a girlfriend who purposefully gave me bad notes for class so her average would be higher than mine.”

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Dealing With His Secret Autism Is Difficult

“He has been hiding he’s autistic from me for ten years. (Should clarify it’s a long running on again off again thing between us but even when it’s off we were still good friends) He suffered abusive therapy and because of it thinks hiding his autism is the most important thing. Except that’s like trying to hide an elephant in a bathroom, and he’s not always super high functioning. So it’s always a weird charade of me pretending he’s not autistic while busting my butt to gently handle that.
I have no idea how to talk to him about it. I know he has a formal diagnosis. He was so traumatized from institutional medical abuse in the name of therapy that even mentioning it or acknowledging it can cause him to have a meltdown. He thinks if I knew, I wouldn’t love him anymore, but I’ve known for YEARS and I still love him. I like him just how he is, I just want things to be easier and less scary for him, and I don’t know how to help most of the time because he won’t admit the problem.”

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When Keeping A Secret, Don’t Use Your Address

“Back when I was first starting to make my artwork public, I had a Kickstarter campaign to fund a tour. I had just started dating my SO, but he gave a relatively significant amount of money anonymously. He tripped up in selecting his ‘backer’s reward’- an original piece mailed to his house. When I saw the address, I definitely didn’t suspect his roommates were just super supportive of my art.”

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He Buried Her Not-So-Secret Affair and It Took A Toll

“When I was 23 the girl I was dating left with a friend to ‘get some food’ and instead they had sex. He told me the next morning, but she didn’t say anything and actually slept in my bed that night. I didn’t end it right away and that hung over our relationship FOR NINE YEARS.
If you are young and prone to co-dependency please take this to heart…if some dumb stuff happens in your relationship, GET OUT. Don’t wait for someone else’s dumb stuff to soak into your soul. don’t lose yourself in a relationship with a jerk.”

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Husband’s ‘Special’ Tickets To Bruins Games

“He spent a ton of money on Bruins tickets this year. Whenever he got tickets to a match he claimed he got them for free through work but I know he paid for them. I don’t really mind since he can spend his money how he wants, but it’s funny to me that he thinks I wouldn’t realize he’s spending a few hundred bucks every time he goes to a game”

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Stupid Ex Leaves Clue Of Affair In Photo

“My ex and the cheating. She thinks I found out when I looked at her phone, but I new about two months earlier when she sent me a pic of herself watching Netflix in bed. I don’t think she realized that the dude’s face was 100% visible reflected in the laptop. After that, it was a matter of me being in denial and trying to fix things.”

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Step-Grandfather Was Secretly Homosexual…And Had Multiple Affairs Using Company Money

“My grandmother got remarried when my dad was in middle school, after divorcing my bio grandfather, this was in the late 70’s. Anyway, StepGrandpa (SG) was a ‘cool dad’ for a while, at least up until my dad and his older brother got into college. After that, he started going off the emotional deep end (read: angry and borderline abusive). For a long time, both SG and grandma were in the (redacted for privacy) business. My dad and uncle both became attorneys and went to work at what was now the family company. Anyway, many years later my dad and uncle are no longer working with SG and grandma, and my mother manages most of the company. One day, a business associate quietly pulls my mother aside and says that they saw SG in public with a much younger man. She tells my father and uncle, who do some digging around and find out he had used company funds to buy cars, apartments, etc for multiple 20 something men (he was in his early seventies). They are understandably shocked, and they all go over to my grandma’s house when SG is not there to break it to her.
Her response? “Oh yeah, I’ve known that for years.”
She had suspected he was gay before they were married, but nobody talked about that sort of thing at the time or in her family. She knew about the affairs, and she had a public health worker come to her front door to inform her he had HIV, and give her a test as well. She declined to tell anyone this for close to fifteen years.
Anyway, they managed to convince her to divorce him, which took ages and ages. So, that’s probably the worst secret that’s ever been kept in my family.”

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Sleepy Man Can’t Keep Secrets or Remember Spilling Them

“When he’s about to fall asleep he’s completely honest. it was about 7 months in when he grabbed me and whispered into my ear ‘You’re gonna be the mother of my children.’ I told him and he was thoroughly embarrassed and he apologized. However, I neglected to tell him that pretty much every night he would tell me that he loved me starting a month in. I don’t mind and I’m not trying to rush things and neither of us have any plans to jump into that sort of stuff right away but it’s nice to know.”

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Man Lies About Relationship History

“I’m his first girlfriend. He’s 42. This isn’t ‘the most serious’ because it’s something to be ashamed of, it’s just something he doesn’t know I know. I wish he’d been up front about it in the beginning, but it doesn’t change how much I adore him in the least.”

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Lying Husband Can’t Stop Lying

“His affair. I knew for 3 weeks before he left (to look after his allegedly sick dad) and for 2 weeks after before I told him I knew. He said last week he’s ended it and sees what he has missed but I know he’s still sleeping and living with her whilst messaging me. Basically what he just did to me – I’m his wife, we were together 12 years. He just can’t stop lying. He may be genuinely remorseful right now but I can’t get past his deceit.”

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Girlfriends Hides Abusive Past

“Ex-girl. She had a fairly large scar on her back and was incredibly self-conscious about it. She wouldn’t even take her shirt off the first time we had sex. When I asked her about it, she said she had fallen from her horse when she was young.

Fast forward a little and I’m out finding her a birthday present and have enlisted the help of her friend. I pick out a sexy singlet and her friend just looks out me like I’m stupid. Apparently the scar on her back, which the singlet clearly revealed, wasn’t from a fall, but an abusive ex-boyfriend who had pushed her onto his motorbikes exhaust pipe and burnt her.

We ended on good terms, and I never told her I knew. I hope she is doing well.”

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Wife Is Embarrassed By Her Scars

“My wife wouldn’t let me touch her head. Well, while we were dating she wouldn’t let me touch her head or play with her hair. For the longest time, she avoided it. Her mom asked, ‘didn’t I know about her condition?’. I said no, and she told me I may find out one day. Anyway, she (my gf/wife) invited me to stay the night one night, and of course I was all about it. As we laid there I pulled her to me and ran my fingers through her hair. She didn’t fight and didn’t say anything, but I could feel her scars, and how her skull had healed. I felt her tears rolling down my fore arm. I told her no matter any scar, or anything else I was never going to let her go, because I swore in that moment I would take care of her for the rest of my life. We dated about 6 months, and have been married for 10 years. Brain surgery, and seizures never stop me from being the best man and friend I can be for her.”

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Ex-Girlfriends Warns A Liars Current Girlfriend

“He lied about his last name, age, degree, being in the military and being a sex offender. I only figured out the lie about the degree and broke it off. Then started stalking me and I figured out everything else. I don’t know if he figured out that I know everything else. We live in a relatively small town and a girl was about to meet up with him I warned her. He is still lying about his age. You’re not 29, Charlie, you’re 42.”

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Woman Lies About Gross Phone, Ends Up Owning Said Phone

“My wife dropped my iPhone in a Port-A-Potty toilet. Luckily it has been so used there was a large pile of poop which gently held the phone above the liquid. She cleaned it off and gave it back to me. A year later I upgraded and gave her my old phone.

She insisted on purchasing a new cover even though I had a high-end OtterBox. I never understood why until one of the kids told on her.”

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Hiding Credit Cards To Help Her Deadbeat Brother

“I found out she had a credit card she had charged $2200 to. I confronted her for hiding it, and she admitted it and we paid it off…that’s the stupid part, we had the money in the bank. Her brother is in prison and he manipulates her into sending him money. She agreed not to do that anymore. The other day, I drove her car and there was an invoice stuck down between the console and parking brake lever. She has another credit card. I opened it and discovered she owes $1800 on that one. She doesn’t know I know…yet.

We are married. We have children. We share a bank account. When we were first married, we lived in an apartment in a converted garage attached to her parents house. Her drug addict brother came in one night while we were asleep and stole money from my wife’s purse. Myself, his father, his mother, and my wife confronted him in his bedroom. He was in bed under he covers fully clothed but claimed he didn’t do it. We SAW him run out of our apartment. We had a fistfight and he ended up running out of the back door. I chased him, in my underwear, in January, in the freezing rain, barefoot, for almost a mile before my body gave out. You can’t catch a crackhead. I returned to the house and told my wife to pack our stuff because we were moving out.

The next day, we moved into a single wide trailer we rented from my grandparents. It was a dump that I wouldn’t have lived in if I had other options. It was cheap, and crackhead free. A few months later, he got arrested for stealing checks from his boss. He stole $19,000 and when he was busted they found pills and drugs in his car. He ended up with 109 felony charges and has been in prison ever since. My wife’s mother was his enabler. She always defended him whenever he did stuff.

Fast forward 5 years. My father in law contracted a serious infection from an airborne fungus. It infected his lungs, then his bloodstream, then his spinal column. His brain swelled and he almost died before they figured out what was wrong with him. He had no health insurance because they couldn’t afford any. He lost his job. They lost their house and every dime they had. Her mom always sent her brother money in jail. So did we. So did his aunt and grandmother. He milked everyone he knew for money. I assume he’s still on drugs in prison, or he’s paying a protection fee.

I was at her parents house when his mother broke the news that she couldn’t send him money anymore because they didn’t have any. I could hear him yelling at her through the phone. This pissed me off beyond all measure. He didn’t care that his father was almost dead. He only cared about his money. I drove 2 hours to the prison on his next visitation day. I cursed him out and the guards made me leave. I’m not allowed back in, ever. That little payment we were sending him, I put a stop to. I told my wife he gets three meals and a cot to sleep on. He doesn’t need money. She agreed we wouldn’t send him any money.

Fast forward 1.5 years and i get the mail out of our box. There’s a credit card bill in there that says open immediately. My wife was late on the payment. I breeze though and see the amount owed is around $2200. The bill shows she made two payments to the prisoners payment service. When she gets home, I confront her. She spills her guts and says she’s been sending her brother money because he called her bagging and crying and all this BS. She used her credit card because she knew I’d be mad if I found out. We both have good jobs. She’s a nurse, I work for the local government. We aren’t hurting for money. TBH I don’t care if she sends him money, it’s the hiding it from me that really pissed me off. We had money in the bank she could have sent me, and she’s running a credit card bill up and paying interest on it like an idiot. She called in and made the $2200 payoff and cancelled the card. I thought that was the end of it.

Fast forward almost 2 years, and I find the invoice in her car. It’s a JC Penny card. She’s been doing the same stuff, and judging by the $1800 probably never stopped. I knew she had the card, but for some reason I wasn’t thinking you could use it as a credit card, only in store purchases. I haven’t confronted her about it yet. I’ve been putting it off. TBH I’m not even looking forward to it. I’m going to make her agree to work extra hours to pay off the $1800 so it doesn’t affect our money in our bank account. I’m also going to demand she cancel every credit account she has and offer her a chance to come clean if there are more cards I don’t know about.

It’s not the money. We are doing spectacularly well for people our age. We started with nothing. We both come from families that weren’t exactly poor, but weren’t anywhere close to rich. Nobody helped us get where we are. We both worked two jobs to put her through nursing school. We ate ramen noodles. We lived in a terrible trailer. We now own our own home, we have bought land to either build a nicer home on or sell as an investment. We have plenty of money in the bank and we live well within our means. Divorce isn’t an option for me. I love her and I made a commitment for life, and intend to keep it. But this can’t keep happening. I understand why she does it. It’s her brother and she loves him. I don’t blame her. If it were my brother I’d probably do the same. They were close growing up. They were born only a year apart. He had delayed speech problems and speech issues his entire life. Even though she was younger, she always took up for him. When people made fun of him in school, she made it her fight. They have a strong bond. I can’t change that. I also can’t change the fact that he is a toxic person that takes advantage of everyone who loves him. Ideally, I’d like her to come to realize he just uses her and if he cared he wouldn’t ask her for money. Me preaching at her won’t do much. She has to come to that realization herself.

He gets out in a year. Right now, my plan is to attempt to restrain myself from beating him to death. I predict he learned nothing in prison except how to be an even worse person. I’m going to sit back and see what happens. Maybe he will come out and be a productive member of society. Time will tell. If he goes right back to doing drugs, I’ll be there to point out to my wife that he will never change and she needs to distance herself. If that doesn’t work, there’s always the option to kidnap him, put him in a crate with some MREs and a few bottles of water, and ship him to Mexico.”

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Wife Is Secretly Ready To Move On

“Before my ex-wife and I had first split up, I had found out she was hiding a storage unit with an entire apartment set aside in it, just in case the breakup went bad.

She worked graveyard, and I was using her laptop while watching The Walking Dead to use the story sync. And because she uses all Apple products, her iMessage was tied to her MacBook. I don’t normally read her messages, but considering the amount of notifications that were chiming in, I could tell she was having a rather lengthy conversation. I opened it and started reading and it turns out she had sent a picture message of a fully packed storage unit to her best friend out in South Carolina.

It had Furniture, appliances, essentially everything she needed to start out with an apartment on her own

I sat on that for several months, before finally bringing it up out of nowhere. We were literally sitting on the couch one night and I just turned to her and said, “so I know about your storage unit”. She froze, it was the last thing she ever expected to hear because she thought she was being sneaky.

Conversation actually went quite well though, and we ended up deciding that we were going to file for divorce. That divorce just finalized March 3rd of this year.”

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