How I lost my past.

I haven't just found out, but this seems to be the best place to start.

Despite a rocky start, I thought our relationship was great, but that all changed one night.

At a small party to welcome a new couple to the neighbourhood, my wife, with her inhibitions lowered by alcohol, bragged to everyone about how easy it had been for her to sleep around while travelling overseas.

All faces turned to me as the blood drained from my face and my mouth dropped open.

Early in our relationship she had spent months travelling around Europe without me, often just her and a guy she met (several guys, but one at a time).

I remember desperately trying to come up with an alternative, but the only other time she had travelled overseas without me was as a child, and apart from that "rocky start", we had been together since she was 19.

I didn't say anything that night, and she had no memory of it the next day.

She'd been holding on to this secret for about 25 years! Before this, I had imagined the worst thing she could do was come to me and say something like "I feel really bad about this, but I've made a terrible mistake" ... but this is far worse. She's not contrite (proud, and wanted everyone to know), it wasn't just one guy, or one mistake (not even a mistake), and it explains some weird things I'd noticed in our relationship. Worse than taking away the future I saw for us, she's also taken away our history.

I thought about it a lot over the coming days, and decided, for the sake of our children, to do my best to carry on as if nothing had happened, for as long as I could.

But then, last year, I was diagnosed with cancer. On three occasions I thought I only had a few weeks left. I desperately got my affairs in order and set things up to best cater for my family after I'd gone. I didn't explicitly try to disadvantage her, but I will admit there are aspects of my planning that are an attempt to protect my children (e.g she might meet someone else and I foresee the possibility of everything going to this new partner, completely cutting my children out).

She didn't like some elements of my plan, and I remember being in my hospital bed when she complained about one aspect ... "but what if I want to travel around Europe?"

That was quite a trigger for me. I couldn't stop thinking about this for the rest of that stay in hospital. There were lots of dots that I started joining together. Normally, while on holiday, she wanted to go to new places - if we were travelling to a region we'd been to before, she'd insist we didn't go anywhere we'd been before "I want to see new stuff, not things I've seen before!", but on our trips to Europe, she was always drawn to places where she'd had a good time (often with no specific touristy aspects). We even, at her request, got married in Europe.

After being discharged from hospital, I found it really hard to cope, so I called a counselling service. She saw this in the call history in my phone, and jumped to the conclusion that I'd had an affair, which had resulted in pregnancy.

When she confronted me, I could barely stop myself from bursting out in laughter!

There was no time to discuss it then, but when I returned home that afternoon, I was met by a very angry woman, demanding answers.

Cutting a long story short, she denies everything. But, the more I think about it, the more everything fits together.

A lot has happened since, but everything just strengthens my belief that her bragging was truthful. I know I might be interpreting things to fit my current understanding, but it all just fits together so well.

One example is that, early on, she thought counselling was a great idea ... until she realised I was talking about both of us getting counselling ... she made it clear that wasn't going to happen!

10 comments posted: Monday, August 18th, 2025