Is my wife hiding a dark secret about her old flame?
DEAR BEL,
MY PROBLEM may seem trivial, but it’s really bothering me. I’ve been married for 30 years, with four grown-up children.
I met my wife when she was 21 (me 23), but I was very naive, immature and inexperienced. In contrast, my self-assured wife had had a number of boyfriends and was much more mature and experienced than me.
I never really asked about her previous relationships — not feeling it mattered much — and the years just rolled on.
One day we were in a restaurant and a chap came over to say hello to my wife and ask after her. It was the usual children chat etc. After he went, she says that was Alan, who she dated before we met. I asked how long for and she switched mood and got really annoyed saying: ‘I don’t like looking back as it was a horrible time.’
This was the first I had ever heard about it — and now it has made me extremely curious.
A week or so later I tried to ask more questions and she became extremely annoyed.
Now we have her 55th birthday celebration coming up and it’s put a cloud over it. The trouble is I now want to know more. This curiosity would have been satisfied had she just passed on some basic facts. The matter would have died there and then.
But now I feel I don’t know my wife and there is an elephant in the room. This is frustrating because we are extremely close and have always shared everything — good and bad.
I am struggling with the unknowns of the four or five years before I knew her. What would you do, Bel? It’s a long time ago, but I am having a real problem not knowing anything.
Is this something I should stop asking about? Am I being unfair asking — when her sister and brother almost certainly know? I feel I should know as well.
I have struggled to sleep recently — worrying that she was raped by someone or had an abortion, who knows?
It could be nothing or something. I have assured her nothing she could tell me would change anything. But she got angry again.
Should I just leave it and move on? This has rocked my world. Do I deserve some honesty or is it none of my business? TIM
You’re absolutely right. Your problem will indeed seem ‘trivial’ to all those suffering agonising family estrangements, to grandparents deprived of beloved grandchildren, to women whose husbands have run off with a younger model and men yearning for tenderness.
Not to mention children of all ages put on the rack permanently by the unhappiness of their parents’ marriages. Those suffering cruelty within the unsafe walls of their homes. oh, and those who are ill or bereaved.
Honestly, I don’t make that list to criticise you. I believe you know it all, but this strange, unsettling ‘issue’ has driven out rational thought. Therefore suggesting some perspective is the right thing to do. Yes, everyone’s little problems always loom large in their own minds. But getting a grip means more than rationalising your luggage.
At 23, you married someone more experienced. For 30 years, you have never thought about that experience — until a chance encounter stirred your fears.
I wonder if your wife introduced you to the guy. or did you just sit there like a rabbit in the headlights while they chatted?
Something must have bothered you to set off this current fixation. Was he good looking and well- dressed? Did he make you feel middle-aged and dowdy? Men can be just as prone to such feelings as women.
It’s quite understandable that your wife’s brusque dismissal of perfectly normal questions should have inflamed your curiosity.
I actually think she was wrong to brush you off then get angry, because surely couples do
have a right to find out what makes the other tick. it’s odd if they don’t.
however, many of us harbour past secrets and things that still make us feel ashamed (i certainly do), but a woman as worldly-wise as you describe your wife should know how to deal with that. if her relationship with the man she met triggered unhappy memories, then why not tell you?
Of course, in the end, you have to respect her privacy.
Yet the bigger issue is whether it’s possible to ‘know’ another human being. We may think we do, but parts will remain hidden. And when you marry somebody, they bring with them their whole past, for better for worse.
What’s to be done? Nothing. You have to stop going on about this — and don’t say ‘ impossible’ because it’s time for self-control.
You ‘deserve’ no more nor less than what you have: a 30-year marriage to the one you love. With her birthday coming up, please remember life is short and banish that stupid ‘cloud’ — for heaven’s sake.
What you think is the ‘elephant in the room’ is really a poor little mouse. so leave it alone and devote your energy to working out the celebration menu.