Pop quiz: do you tell your soon-to-be spouse your dirty little secrets before or after you tie the knot?
I would think before because I grew up Catholic and therefore feel guilty about every single thing in my life, but apparently, these AskReddit users didn’t feel the same way…
1. Not married anymore
“I used to be married. That’s no longer the case, so it goes.
Anyways, I was getting dinosaur stuff for our boy, and his mother said something along the lines of “I don’t like dinosaurs and am happy they are not real.”
I chuckled, thinking she meant she is relieved her life is not like Jurassic Park, being chased by these giant predators. Nope. Turned out she believes dinosaurs never walked this earth. I had known her for 6 solid years, and this completely blew me away, side swiping me with horror….
She thinks people are guessing when the put partial bones together, and just fabricate these creatures…
I’m still affected by this- even years later. When I go on dates, there is a litmus test now. I ask what her stance stance is on dinosaurs every first date. Not making that mistake again.”
2. Gettin’ up there
“When my grandparents got married, my grandmother was 24 and she thought my grandfather was 25. It was during their honeymoon that he confessed that he was only 19. Gran was annoyed, obviously, but I think she was too relieved to be married to stay mad at him; 24 was getting close to being left on the shelf for an Irish-Catholic woman in the 60s.”
3. Grandpa
“Well my grandpa’s real name was Upton and he thought it was really weird so when he met my grandma he told her his name was James. Three weeks later (yes they got married after three weeks of knowing each other, the story is actually adorable) the priest asked my grandma if she takes Upton to be her husband.
This resulted in my grandma yelling in front of the entire church, “Who the hell is Upton?!” And then, realizing my grandpa had lied to her because he thought his name was weird, she goes, “Oh Lord yes I do to take this stupid man as my husband.” They were married 65 years with three boys, the oldest of which was named James. I never saw a couple more in love or meant for each other than my grandparents, God rest their souls.”
4. Probably should’ve mentioned that
“My ex wife neglected to mention she was a lesbian until after we were married.
Kind of a deal breaker.”
5. Nose job
“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 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.”
6. Sounds awesome
“That despite the life plans we’d talked about, once we married he expected me to be the breadwinner, the homemaker, cook and accountant in the family. He needed to “stay home and work on his music.” Oh, and that two bedroom place? No, he didn’t want kids, he wanted his own bedroom. Oh, and intimacy? “I could just “do my business” in your room, but sleep in my own bed after”. Nope, nope, nope.”
7. I’m not dying
“He knew women had periods. He had no idea periods involved blood. He thought it was just abdominal cramping or something. We even lived together for a year before we got married and he never figured this out until after we were married when we got a new dresser.
I threw all the underwear, both his and mine in the same drawer since it was a smaller dresser. He saw my bloodstained period panties and started crying because he thought I was dying and had been hiding it from him. I then had to explain to my 28-year-old husband what exactly a period is.”
8. A common problem
“I didn’t realize until after we lived together that she can’t keep the bathroom floor dry.
When she showers, I feel as though half of the time she points the shower head at the ground outside the shower.
When she gets out, I imagine her shaking her body off in canine fashion.
If she washes her face at the sink, I visualize her saying, “One handful of water for me, one handful for you” (to the floor).”
9. Tongue burned
“My husband has some kind of crazy allergic mutation that makes lemons like sulfuric acid on his tongue. For serious, his tongue gets burned. To be fair, he didn’t know that was unusual until after we got married. My fav dessert is lemon bars and he thought I just liked burning my own face off. Cute twist: he would still make and eat lemon bars with me every year for my birthday until we found out. Then he got lemon-banned.”
10. Hidden talent
“After being married for almost 4 years I learned my wife can play guitar, like incredibly well. She saw an acoustic at the flea market 2 weeks ago and she just picked it up and started playing. My jaw dropped. I bought it for her and now she is teaching me how to play.”
11. Forgot to mention that…
“That she was a bank robber.
She told me she had saved up $700 from working summer jobs and babysitting while in high school. We get married, and get on our way to Branson (Honeymoon Capital of America, amirite?). On the way, she confesses to me that she did not in fact save up $700 from part time jobs. She admits she has saved up over $7000 from her jobs!!! So, we go on an extravagant (for me) week-long spending spree of a honeymoon. We do EVERYTHING! Helicopters, boat rentals, every show, see a souvenir- we buy it. Oh a quilt? $500? Sure! We spent over $6500 extra on this trip.
We get home on a Sunday afternoon. We both have to return to work the next morning. There are several messages on the answering machine. The third or fourth message plays. It is her boss from the BANK she works at telling her to contact him at once, that there is an issue they need to discuss, and leaves a number.
I learn that there was no mysterious savings account from high school. I learn that she had been transferring money from a couple large accounts on a regular basis into HER OWN account. The total was somewhere north of $7700. The bank was pissed, the clients were pissed, the authorities were already neck deep this and they were scary, to say the least.
After several meetings, it was decided that if WE made full restitution, the bank would not press felony charges. So, we now have one unemployed wife who is likely UN-employable, one scared husband desperately trying to get his bank-thieving wife a job anywhere, and one debt, due immediately, for $7700.
We gather ALL the money left over, borrow $500 from her parents, $5500 from mine, and my next paycheck. (You wanna know stress? Ask your parents to help you pay back money your new wife stole from a bank.) We get the bank paid back by the end of the week.
After several weeks, things have died down some. She is working at McDonald’s (I pulled strings with manager friends) and we have begun paying back the parents. We actually don’t hear anything for a while and the immediacy of the crime has subsided. In fact, it wasn’t until 2002 that we were contacted to appear in court.
We were still young and ignorant, so we get lucky here. The “feds” were easy to work with. The bank didn’t make a huge deal about it since the money was returned. It is a small town bank, (two branches total) so somehow we avoided any real heavy issues. We took the advice of some guy who represented the bank, and really we just wanted this part of our lives to be over, so we would have done anything. She went in to court, sans lawyer, and plead guilty to a class C misdemeanor. The judge gave her 2 years probation and the restriction of never working at an FDIC establishment.
And this is how my life as a married man began.”
12. Double threat
“That he knew how to ballroom dance and took a cake decorating course for an art credit.
I learned it the same night. I couldn’t decorate cupcakes and he took over. Later at the event, he grabbed me and waltzed perfectly.
Can’t wait for the next few years.”
13. Hmmmmmm
“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 never had 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.”
Seventeen years later I found out that was the truth.”
14. German speaker
“We have been together 15 years and married for 7, we are watching TV the other day and someone starts speaking German and there are no subtitles – he translates it, like it’s no big thing. I’m like who ARE you? Apparently he’s watched so many war movies he speaks conversational German.”
15. Bribed
“My wife is from Siberia (backstory: she was my exchange student girlfriend in high school. We got back in touch 17 years later and we were married a year-and-a-half ago). She is straight-up amazing, but I have always been at least a tiny bit nervous being the passenger when my wife drives. It’s not that she drives poorly, she just has a very different respect for the rules that I take for granted, like signaling before changing lanes, speed limits, merging and keeping distance between other cars. You know, small stuff.
Her foreign license won’t work here for long, and she studied the driver’s manual HARD to pass the written portion for her Oregon driver’s license. On her third attempt she passed, missing only one question.
Last night we were celebrating her victory and she confessed something that really surprised me: she acquired her Russian license with the aid of two bottles of Cognac, given to her instructor prior to the ride-along to ensure a passing grade.”
