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Slightly OT, but I have a Jewish friend who married by a rabbi to a Jewish woman. They divorced. He fell in love with and wanted to marry a Catholic woman who had never been married. They went to the priest, who would not marry them until he got his first marriage annulled!</p>
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<p>Oh my. This is mind-blowing and just wrong. What if two of the children of these siblings meet and fall in love? What if one of them need some sort of organ transplant? Why not tell this person that she has three siblings? This is a secret I just could not keep.</p>
<p>fireandrain, I was also thinking this. If the aunt has passed away, I think it would be a gift to this cousin to pass on this information.</p>
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Oh yes, if you are some other religion and marry according to that religion, then it counts. If he had been a Catholic married by the rabbi to the Jewish woman that would not count and the annulment would be granted by default as he wasn’t considered married in the first place.</p>
<p>This topic has touched a lot of nerves, based on how many posts it has garnered in a relatively short period of time. I don’t usually weigh in when so many others have already shared their perspectives but, like the others, this is calling to me, too. </p>
<p>Putting my self in my children’s shoes (or your children’s, in this case), I would have a difficult time learning my parent had kept such a part of his/herself a secret. It would rock the foundation of our relationship as I would wonder what else I was not trusted to know, I would question why I was not worthy of having been told, I would question what was so bad that it was kept a secret. At a time when a child is transitioning to adulthood and trying to redefine the parent/child relationship, it could have potential to be damaging to the relationship, possibly irreparably.</p>
<p>I come from a nosy, noisy Italian family and everyone’s business is everyone’s business. I married a reserved WASP. We have managed to parent to the middle, but err more towards being open than holding things back. </p>
<p>You need to decide what is comfortable for you, but if you want another opinion, mine would be to share sooner rather than later and to definitely get some marriage counseling lined up. Good luck to you. Some things take on a life of their own with the passage of much time.</p>
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<p>Funny. The impression I have of the WASP families I’ve met in the Ohio and New England area is that they’re very open and sometimes blab far more about family/personal matters to each other and outsiders than my extended Chinese-American family or most others I’ve been around. </p>
<p>In fact, the few WASPs who have married into our family have felt our family is far more reserved than theirs…and I agree. One joke in my family is that one can tell which part of the family is more “Americanized” by how open they are and are chattering away endlessly.</p>
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<p>You’re kidding, right? The very stereotype of a WASP is that they’re silent about those matters…</p>
<p>Darn, 9 months and 15 minutes- I thought I had you beat with my birth 9 months and 3 days after.<br>
Best wishes xania.</p>
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<p>True. However, I’m speaking in relative terms. By my extended family’s standards, the WASP relatives and WASP families they’ve known are more open and gregarious.</p>
<p>I had a brief first marriage (14 months) and I don’t really remember how I told my kids. It just came up during a conversation… maybe about weddings in general, or they saw pictures in a photo album and asked who “that guy” was. It just wasn’t a big deal. I was able to honestly tell them that I rarely think about that marriage. When they were older, I told them about how abusive he was and how I lacked self esteem when I married him. I wanted it to be a “lessons learned” story about warning signs of abuse, factors that lead to abusive relationships, etc. </p>
<p>I did tell my daughter that she was born 4 months after her dad and I got married. I explained that we had gotten engaged, bought a house, planned our wedding and then I got pregnant before the wedding happened. Her dad and I were already divorced when I told her, but I thought she might figure out some day that her birthday was only 4 months after our wedding date. Since we don’t celebrate anniversaries, that might not have happened. I told her about it when we were having a discussion about how birth control is not always effective and she was a one in a million baby because two methods failed simultaneously.</p>
<p>They have asked me why me and their dad got divorced and I said something very diplomatic because I try very hard not to point out his faults to them. They are perceptive and have made observations about some of his behaviors and I simply say “So you know that’s not a trait you want in your life partner?” or something like that.</p>
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<p>You might react this way, but I don’t think the OP’s kids would.</p>
<p>The OP says that her kids are already accustomed to the idea that some things need to be kept from their father because of his over-the-top reactions. If they find out about their mother’s first marriage, all she has to do is to tell them the truth about how their father feels about it. It’s not likely to threaten their long-term relationship with their mother because they understand the problem.</p>
<p>Funny , my WASPy family is very chatty and not at all reserved ;)</p>
<p>In today’s era of ease of information, I’d really re-think keeping something of this nature which is actually a matter of public record a secret from my children.</p>
<p>The OP says that her kids are already accustomed to the idea that some things need to be kept from their father because of his over-the-top reactions. If they find out about their mother’s first marriage, all she has to do is to tell them the truth about how their father feels about it. It’s not likely to threaten their long-term relationship with their mother because they understand the problem.</p>
<p>Exactly. If she did tell them, they probably would just nod their head and say, “yes, we understand that dad wouldn’t let you tell us and that he’d freak out if you did.” They’ve likely seen enough of his irrational responses to know that people withhold info just to “keep the peace.”</p>
<p>My FIL was very unreasonable and people did “walk on eggshells” around him. Literally, at his gravesite, my MIL actually said, “Now I can say whatever I want.” Since then, various stories have been told. No one is angry that MIL kept these things to herself all of these years. We all know that FIL was unreasonable.</p>
<p>My life is an open book while my wife is very private. As long as I do not tread on her secrets she really has little say in what I tell people about my life.</p>
<p>I would not tell anyone about her past relationships but she really has no right to tell me mine must remain a secret. As secretative as she is my D does know her mom was engaged prior to meeting me. OP post has every right to tell her kids and her husband needs to be given the straight talk on what he can expect going forward.</p>
<p>When I was in my early twenties I had a job where an older woman knew my mother from when they went to school together. She asked me about mother and dad and gave me puzzled looks when I told her about my dad. </p>
<p>A few years later my mother and dad had their marriage certificate out for planning my dad’s retirement or something and he showed it to me. He had forgotten the marriage certificate lists number of marriages for each person. I was in shock for 2 weeks. My mother wouldn’t talk about it. </p>
<p>I told my son I was married before. I didn’t want him to find out like I did.</p>
<p>The Acting Governor of Massachusetts, Jane Swift, was in the news years ago for lying on her marriage license application (back when she was State Senator). The application said her husband had never been married before; he’d been married three times. She’s Catholic, and said she wanted to protect his privacy (I think family and others knew he’d been married before, just not 3 times). But he had a grown son on the opposite coast, who is gay, and she opposed gay marriage, and he gave an interview–so everything became far from private. It’s hard to keep secrets these days.</p>
<p>When you tell a story yourself, you have more control over the telling. You can explain the context, how you felt, why you made certain decisions, how you feel now and how your values–and those of others in the family–fit into all of it. If the secret comes out another way, you can lose all of that.</p>
<p>Xania’s situation is a little different, though, since telling her kids sounds like it will set up another secret with her husband. Knowing his views, it seems disrespectful not to give him a heads up. If seeing a therapist with him is not an option, could a priest be helpful? It seems like a neutral third party is needed, as well as privacy.</p>
<p>If Xania’s H is mentally-healthy and will just be annoyed for a bit, then fine. Mentally-healthy people can “get over” something like this. However, if her H does have a personality disorder (especially NPD or BPD), then the fall out could be horrible if he finds out that she’s told the kids. </p>
<p>The in-law in our family that has a personality disorder hates people that he perceives “have money”. It doesn’t matter if the people are the nicest person in the world, if he perceives that they “have money” then he “splits black” and hates them. God forbid that the person casually mentions that they’ve bought a car or home or whatever. He’ll have a rude remark for them. Of course it’s ok for HIM to buy a home or car…lol…but when others do it, he thinks that they’re putting him down or showing off. His perceived slights are ridiculous. </p>
<p>If Xania’s H has a strong dislike for all divorced people (which is illogical/irrational), then he likely is in denial that Xania was divorced. Perhaps early on in their relationship his attraction to her was so great that he was able to pretend that her prior marriage never happened. I wonder if privately he ever casually mentions the prior marriage? Probably not. If it does occasionally come up, it may come up as a “club” to hit her with. </p>
<p>If he’s mentally healthy, then he’d “get over it” if the story comes to light. But, if he’s not, and the fact that his wife was previously married becomes a well-known fact, in his irrational mind, he may “split black” and put her in the “bad” category…and often there’s no going back from that.</p>
<p>I would definitely tell your children. It is better that they hear from you. This summer, my mother married a man I had only met twice without telling me. I live with my mother. Her husband’s son told me a week after it happened. </p>
<p>I am a senior in high school, and finding out that, not only did my mother keep this from me, but a stranger had to tell me, really, really hurt. Months later, it still does.</p>
<p>Split black is a term I’d not heard before, but googling, I found that the concept makes a lot of sense in dealing with the personality disordered. </p>
<p>Having lived though this, I’d not tell the H, and let the kids know, as it does not help anyone, you in particular for him to know that you told. Meanwhile, you need to try to have as real, and honest a relationship as possible with your offspring as a counterweight to the silencing that happens elsewhere in their lives. They probably well understand what is needed to keep peace in your household. </p>
<p>Yes, this is a different ethical place than I’d go with the emotionally healthy, who might be annoyed, but get over it. If you’ve never lived with the personality disordered, know that it is a rare and special place, where the rules sometimes are a little different and crazy making.</p>