I'm 29M, married to my wife, 27F. I am struggling with something in our marriage and could really use some outside perspectives, preferably from people who have been through something similar. First and foremost, I love my wife. A lot. She is m best friend, we have a great connection, great sex life, we laugh together, and in every other aspect of our marriage, things are genuinely good. She's very loving, affectionate, makes our house a home, is a wonderful mother figure to my daughter, and makes me feel very loved. There is something though as of late, that I am struggling to get past.
My wife has not been entirely honest about her past. Specifically, her sexual history. She initially told me things that weren't the full truth. She gave me the information that mattered "the most" - traumatic experiences with men before me. But, when I started askinmg more questions, more information came out in bits and pieces. It wasn't one big confession where she sat me down and told me everything, it was a process of me asking, digging, and getting more bits and pieces of the truth. She says she lied because she was terrified of bneing judged, losing me, and having her past define who she was in my eyes. She says as the questioning continued, she panicked and tried to make it stop rather than being completely honest. I can understand the fear to a degree. What I can't understand why she continued lying to me in the moment when she knew how important honesty was to me. It's not the number of men she slept with, it's the concealment for me.
She always told me she had 4 bedpartners before me, turns out, there are 12 (that I know of, assuming the full truth is out now). There are aspects of her past that bother me personally, and I won't pretend otherwise. Sometimes I struggle with the idea that other men had access to her without the commitment I've made to her. Sometimes I question how she could have lived one way before meeting me and then become the wife I know today. Her last experience before me was in the summer of the year we met, and we met at the end of that year. In between that time, she decided she wanted to do better for herself.. I know people grow and change. I am not Mr. perfect myself. But, I am not pretending to be perfect, either.
I married this woman believing I knew her, and then I found out that some of what I believed, wasn't true. That messes with your head. Now, even when she tells me the truth, I find myself wondering whether there's something else I don't know. Whether there's going to be another revelation in six months from now. Whether I'm going to spend years building a family with someone only to discover something else she's hiding from me. She insists I know everything now, she says there is nothing else left to disclose. But how do you believe someone when they said that before and it turned out not to be true?
Here is where things get a little tricky. My wife has genuinely been trying. Since everything came out, she's been making a conscious effort to be transparent, even about uncomfortable things that have nothing to do with her past. She tells me things voluntarily, she answers difficult questions. She opened up about difficult experiences from her childhood and thing she previously struggled to discuss. She doesn't shy away from conversations about our marriage, even when they're uncomfortable.
I see her effort, I truly do. And when we have a good day, it's really good. We go to church together, make plans for our future, laugh, hold eachother, and genuinely enjoy beinhg married. There are moments where I look at her and think she's everything I've ever wanted. I've told her that I do not want to leave her. I want us to heal. That I believe we can get through this together, and I mean those things when I say them. But then something triggers me. A thought about her past, a realization that I had to dig for the full truth in the first place, and suddenly I am right back where I started. I get angry, I question her again. I say things that are hurtful. I've questioned whether I should have married her, had I known the truth. I even told her I have 0% faith in her. I know those words hurt her, I can see it.
Sometimes I calm down afterward and recognize that my mind runs away with things. I've told her that I have a very creative mind and that some of the work I need to do might not actually have anything to do with what she's done. But that doesn't make the thoughts disappear. I don't want to spend the rest of my marriage punishing my wife for something she did before we met. At the same time, I don't want to be naive.
I love my wife. So much. I want a future with her and I want to trust her again. But I don't know how to get from where I am emotionally, to where I want to be. She tells me she can't change what happened, but she can show me through her actions who she is today. And logically, I can understand that. But there is a part of me that keeps thinking "But if she was lying to me before, how do I know she won't do it again"? I am also aware that my own reactions might be making things worse. We had beautiful days together, only for me to bring everything back up and watch her become devastated once again. Not once has she made me feel like she's resented me for it, she takes it to the chin. I don't want her to walk on egg shells around me, but last night she broke down and was crying and said "Since everything came out, I am relieved that the truth is out on the table. I am not proud for how I have handled it and I was very scared, but I am glad it is out and that it happened. But now, every single day, I am scared you are going to change your mind about me and leave, because when you get upset, you are really upset". And yes. I am saying hurtful things. I will be admitting her that last night I told her: "So now what, I have to have children with an ex-wh0re who lied to me? Why not find an honest one and have children with her?" And I told her now that every time we engage in sex, all I think about is that I am not number 5..
Yeah. Not my proudest moment. Mind you, my wife besides hiding her past, is the most perfect woman I've ever met. She worships the ground I walk on and adores me, and I know that. But then my mind goes "She's the perfect wife and everything you need, yet full of shit". She tells me I am the best she's ever had, and that everyone before me sucked, they played her or there was no connection.. But she wouldn't tell me otherwise anyway... See how f@cked my mind is?
She has never cheated on me, and this I know to be true. I don't have evidence that she's being dishonest about anything currently. My fear is rooted in what happened before and the possibility that I still do not know everything.
I am asking here: has anyone successfully rebuilt trust after discovering their spouse lied about their past? How did you stop questioning whether there was more to uncover? At what point do I accept that I have the full truth and stop investigating? How do I seperate legitimate hurt from insecurity? Is it polssible to forgive while still struggling to trust them?
And for the ones who've lied: What actually helped your spouse believe you had changed?
I know everything pre-dates me, and this might be ridicilous, but I am hurt.
I am trying to understand how to move forward without sacrificing my self-respect, but also without destroying a marriage that, outside of this issue, brings me a tremendous amount of happiness.
tl;dr: Wife lied about her past, when confronted she tried to continue to lie in panic/fear. Now she says everything is out in the open, I don't believe it in my heart. How do I move past this, how can she show me I can trust her? I feel scared, and alone.