Warning: Some submissions include topics of statutory rape.
A while ago, we wrote a post based on this Reddit thread about the most surprising things people learned about their partner after several years, and they ranged from wholesome to actually wild.
So, in the comments, people shared some of the worst things people learned about their S.O. over time. Here are some of the most shocking responses:
1. "I’d been living with him for a year before I found out he’d been married and had two kids. He’d signed away all parental rights because he 'didn’t want to deal with his ex-wife.'"
2. "I learned my ex had a thing for younger women. I was 17 and he was 21 when we got together. When I was 32, and he was 36, I found out he was having an affair...with a 17-year-old."
3. "I was going through a pretty crazy divorce and ended up meeting this guy who was going through the same thing. Our situations were practically identical, and we hit it off immediately, really connecting over our tumultuous marriages and their subsequent demise. We’d been dating about a year when he proposed, and then, a month later, I found out we were pregnant. Well, that’s when sh*t hit the fan..."
4. "[I found out] how mean she could be to people. She burned more bridges with friends in the three years we were together than I've done in my whole life."
"She's generally pretty sweet, but when she gets pissed off, she will say some of the meanest things I've ever heard. It took me a long time to recognize the common denominator because we rarely had any problems."
5. "My husband would make me feel bad about the number of partners I had before we got together. He said I had a high number in such a short amount of time. He had only two partners more than me and is three years older. Well, after seven years of marriage and eight years together, he told me he had a higher amount of partners. Much higher."
"His higher number was irrelevant to the fact that he made me feel guilty for my number of partners. I carried that guilt for years."
6. "1) Abusive. 2) Hid her true colors until after the wedding. 3) When she gets angry, she tells all her friends that whoever she is angry at did something horrible."
7. "My ex broke down one day and told me that he had a son that he hadn't told me about. It was this sob story about an older woman who really wanted a child but didn't want the strings of a father around, so he 'did her a favor' and knocked her up."
"I think he just felt that I needed to know, and he even had a photo of said child in his wallet. I was super young at the time (I think I was 20), so I was like OK, whatevs. Flash-forward a year later, and he confessed to me that he had made up the story. The kid in the photo was really his little brother...like, his mom's child... What a freak! Only psychopaths lie like this, and your mom's kid??!! WTF!"
8. "He kept a sex calendar/book; I came across it two years into the relationship."
"He had symbols for what he did with the woman and notes like if it happened on the first date or not. For example, X = kissing and so on. The first few months of dating before becoming 'exclusive,' he told me I was the only woman he was with. Well, according to the calendar I was far from, sometimes multiple women in a day."
9. "My wife waited until I asked her to marry me to tell me she was still married — after she said yes. They had been separated for seven years but never finalized it."
10. "My ex-husband is terrible with money. Has been his entire adult life, even now. When we started dating, we were broke college kids; we both had part-time jobs, but he never seemed to have money. Over the years, he graduated, got a good job, we married, and had a baby. My excellent credit history slipped huge, and I amassed a ton of debt because of his spending habits."
11. "My girlfriend cheated on her last boyfriend. Not for love but because she was mad at him. She was still young then and really regrets it, but it would probably have been a deal breaker if I knew before I fell head over heels for her."
"We have a great, stable relationship, but it's still nagging in the back of my head from time to time and makes me insecure..."
12. "I didn't realize any of these things until she moved in with me, and it became clear that she was barely a functioning adult."
"She couldn't use a washing machine, iron, or dishwasher. She had no ambition. She dealt with her problems by going to bed early and hoping they'd solved themselves by morning. (Spoiler: They hadn't.) She spent all her money on her horse and had to borrow money for fuel to get to work by the third week of most months. The only thing she could cook was fries and chicken nuggets... She didn't consider tidying up after herself to be normal, and she would proudly text me when she did some laundry or the washing up...
But mainly, she liked to sleep with other dudes."
13. "I was seeing a guy who initially told me he had three kids: one adult daughter who lived in a nearby city and two more daughters, ages 6 and 8, who lived in Portugal. We split up and got back together, and then things weren't adding up..."
"He mentioned his 11-year old-daughter and her living in New York. He then proceeded to tell me his daughters were 9 and 11. When I was confused about the ages, he finally broke down and confessed he really had five daughters with three different women. It was the lie that really did it for me. He thought it would scare me away that he fathered five kids. It was the lie and elaborate stories that pushed me to leave him for good."
14. "He picks his nose and eats it. And never brushes his teeth. Waited until we had moved in together to let me see that. We broke up after three years for different reasons, but yuck. Yuck."
15. "How wild his mom is. Parents really can ruin relationships."
—[deleted user]
16. "His roommate is his ex-girlfriend. Took a bit of time and tears for me to get over that major punch in the guts. I found out from old Facebook pictures. He thought I already knew."
17. "An ex, but how gross his downstairs area smelled. Like...pukeworthy smell."
18. "She's rude to customer service staff if things don't go her way. It's happened a few times in the years I've known her and only when she's already a bit grumpy, but if it had happened in the first couple of months, we probably wouldn't still be together."
19. "How much his parents babied him; he's 20, and his parents still do almost everything for him. He almost blindly believes anything they say."
20. "He wanted his ex back and only wanted me to make her jealous."
21. And finally: "My ex told me after we broke up that whenever I was mad at him, he would turn it all back around on me so that I wouldn't be mad at him anymore. Said he knew how easy it was to make me think everything was my fault and used that to his advantage. Definitely would have been a deal breaker if I had realized."
What's the worst thing you learned about your partner that made you reevaluate your relationship? Let us know in the comments below.
Note: Some submissions were pulled from this Reddit thread by u/lapetitetigresse, and some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.